Spectacular Marvel Universe Superhrero Celluloid Crossover!

Rating: 9/10 (4 May 2012)

OUR ONE GREAT concern about doing this review now, is that sending it to IMDb at this time may help in causing a crash of the Website. We had just seen it at a Suburban Chicago shopping center multiplex,and much to our delight, we found it to be very much more of a film than had been anticipated.
BEING JUST A LITTLE long in the tooth, we cam well remember when Marvel Comics' title, THE AVENGERS, first hit the news stands. It was in July of 1963 and Superheroes were definitely "in"; with their popularity swiftly rising during that period.
ALTHOUGH THE GENRE was probably the most popular one in the comics field from those 2-3 years before the United States' involvement in World War II; beginning a gradual decline in the Post War years. Peacetime brought readers' interest in Westerns, Romance, Movie Tie-ins and "Funny Animals", among others.
THE GREAT COMREBACK of the cape & mask "long underwear" characters was due to DC Comics' updating old favourites (The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman) and to Stan Lee's introducing some new characters (Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Spioderman) and bringing back Sub-mariner, a new Human Torch* and, most importantly, Captain America!
WELL NOW, INASMUCH as we are now close to being a half century beyond this 4 Colour Heroes Rennaissance, it stands to reason that a screen adaptation of the feature would look just a trifle different than a 1960's version. We are, after all, in another Century, a new Millennium.
FOLLOWING A SERIES OF Summer Blockbusters, Marvel Productions & Paramount Pictures have perhaps, come up with a Blockbuster to end all Blockbusters.
AS MUCH AS old timers, such as yours truly, may lament about certain departures from the original, wee must admit that if we had our way all the time, there would be no progress, in any field. Invention and advancement in medicine would be at a standstill. Tadio, television, space travel and mass communications would all be stuck in the doldrums. Instead of the Internet, we'd probably be using smoke signals.
BUT STILL, WHY can't we still see Captain America with actual wings on his mask, Hawkeye wearing his unique mask and Thor sporting that Viking winged helmet? Is that asking too much? I mean, it was okay for Loki to model his helmet while sparring with old "Goldilocks"; why can't Thor also wear his own headgear? We suppose that all is due to all of that revisionism that has gradually changed the story over a nearly 50 year period. It is almost like DC Comics' Earth One/Earth Two UIniverse.
ON THE MUCH more positive side of things, the production team gave us a truly epic story; the sort that is on the grand scale of which this certainly deserves. It is the cinematic comic book equivalent of those great stories that Mr. Stan Lee presented to us; all continued for many issues.Indeed, this may well be the best superhero outing ever since the release of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE in 1978.
IN ADDITION TO the outstandingly portioned servings of great fx, the film manages to insert a great deal of the humor which Stan lee used on the printed page. Even a sort of self spoofing is in evidence, when Tony Stark ridicules Loki's rather stinted speech patterns with the remark; "So what's this, Shakespeare in the Park?"
ALL OF THIS begs the question: "Since we now have Marvel's THE AVENGERS as a screen franchise, can DC Comics' JUSTICE LEAGUE OF America be far behind?
NOTE:* It was Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four who took over the title of 'The Human Torch."