Doesn't live up to the hype.

Rating: 7/10 (10 May 2012)

I walked into The Avengers tonight expecting something fascinating, instead I was given a screwed up 1st and 2nd act, and a balls to the wall 3rd act.
The Avengers was setting a really great tone of delving into a dark story of earth's take over by Loki and his army, and every time the film would go down this darker path, whether it be editing or poor script writing, as soon as it had you emotionally, and at the edge of your seat, a completely UN-needed joke or comedic moment was thrown in that totally destroyed the moment.
This film easily could have had 20 minutes shaved off the run time, and no offense to JW fans, but he wasn't competent enough to direct this film. Had JF did this flick, I am sure the tone would have been much more in line with the Iron Man films, and of course the tone of the spin-offs (Thor, Capt. America) I will admit I was disappointed that Ed Norton didn't come back as Bruce Banner, but Mark Ruffalo made me forget about Ed within 3 minutes, but let us all be honest here, this was Robert Downey Jr's movie from the get go. The man is a great actor and he stole the entire film without even breaking a sweat. Others tried to keep up, but I think they were unprepared, and this can also be the fault of the director, it is his job to bring the performances out of the cast that are needed.
What was really disappointing was the depth of character development, or I should say the poor execution of it. I know some folks will say, you have to see the other flicks and there you get your character development, but keep in mind, most audiences probably have not seen the other films and walked into this one with the hopes of learning what was needed to be known about everyone. Keep in mind not all of us are comic fans or superhero fans, and a film that is more or less a separate entry into the Marvel Universe, came off more like a sequel instead of an initial entry.
As I noted the 3rd act was great. The war and battles were fantastic from start to finish. The cinematography and choreography for this sequence was top notch stuff, it is just a shame the amount of work that went into the third act wasn't put into the 1st and 2nd.
Anyway, this is just my opinion on the flick. Did I hate it? No, not really. I gave it a 7 out of 10. I just felt it could have been better.