A smart, slick, special-effects-stacked, super smash!

Rating: 9/10 (7 May 2012)

I'm not sure if "The Avengers" is the best superhero movie ever, but I can't think of one that tops it! Big kudos to director Joss Whedon (screenplay), Zak Penn (script), and the other scribes for writing such an intelligent movie.
This film is MUCH more than bad guy wants to beat the good guys and rule the world. The movie expertly weaves together plot elements of recent Marvel movies "Thor", "Captain America", and "Iron Man 2". I enjoyed how each of the Avengers had scenes that enhanced their characterizations. I appreciated how the tesseract/Cosmic Cube figured into different people's motivations for securing it, so as to do evil or do good. (And not everyone agrees about which is which).
The dialogue in "The Avengers" is excellent. Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) are especially good at delivering their lines.
And what's a superhero movie without punches and explosions? The fight sequences are great and the special effects are fantastic! Congrats to the several hundred artists who made cities, landscapes, alien hordes, and the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier look so realistic.
I will be seeing "The Avengers" again at a theater soon, and I'm already looking forward to Marvel Studios making "Avengers 2". You don't have to be a genius like Tony Stark to know THAT'S going to happen!