It's good for what it is..and what it is is OK by me...

Rating: 7/10 (8 September 2012)

It's good-enough entertainment for what it is, and what it is is OK by me.
Ultimately a CGI superhero bun fight with lots of noise and eye-melting visual FX. Indeed, there is some significant measure of wit and gravitas in the principal performances and it's altogether, in summation, a very jolly, non-threatening and unchallenging exercise in popcorn artistry on a grand scale. And you know pretty much how it's going to end before it begins. So no need to worry about any of the characters or invest too much concern or emotional currency.
Worthy of all the hype, resultant adulation and strikingly impressive box office cash-cow achievement? Probably not. But then that's an impossible reputation to live up to. It's never going to be as good as it's made out to be in terms of most people's honest expectations - even if they feel they can't admit it - but then again, whatever is? The first hour is moderately tedious and draggy and takes it's own sweet time about re-introducing characters, thumbnail sketching them, and setting up the story.
A bunch of aliens are waging war on the world, coordinated by Thor's evil brother Loki. The world in this case is Manhattan. Why? Who knows. Just is. Only a brave but mismatched band of spandex-wearing, armour-clad, god-like or accidentally mutated super-dudes stand in their way. Not exactly original as narratives go, but it's only a hook to hang the CGI action on after all. It's not there to be inventive or innovative. Complexity need not apply in this particular universe.
The whole point is the action - a dynamic eye-candy smörgåsbord of fights, explosions, gunfire, detonating machinery, devastation and mayhem in all it's high-spec CGI glory. A beautiful computerised cartoon of dazzlingly destructive technical wizardry. And on this score it delivers impeccably.
Kudos to the cast for instilling some crucial human elements into the characters they play, deftly aided and abetted by some astute dialogue from Whedon. The sly and self-aware way in which he overloads the exchanges between Stark and Banner with meaningless technological gibberish that he just knows is utter rubbish is very smartly satirical. Arch cardboard ciphers made self-knowing and appealing.
In terms of the characters, though, what strikes most is out of all of them the one who ends up being the most emotionally engaging, charismatic and sympathetic is the one who is a complete CGI render - The Hulk. Maybe this says something pertinent about modern cinema and modern movie acting. Food for thought, perhaps?
As superhero movies go, it's amusing, entertaining, watchable and spectacularly burns into the retinas with the best of them. Better than BATDUDE or SPIDERGUY? Subjective, but I enjoyed it more than a lot of the other stuff around. There are long stretches of boredom in most superhero movies, but apart from the (probably necessary) preamble, AVENGERS avoids the customary slog. The fact of the matter is that when superheros in superhero flicks are not doing their stuff as superheros in superhero flicks there ain't much of great interest going on. And it can bore.
AVENGERS is a Michael Bay movie with wit, charm, some heart and care and more of a brain in the driving seat. Whedon taps into the consciousness of the crowd in order to understand what makes a crowd pleaser. He's a smart guy who has studied the psychology and identified where people like Bay and Emmerich get it wrong, thus avoiding those pitfalls and getting it mostly right.
I enjoyed it. I'll probably watch it again and enjoy it again. After that, though, doubt it will need a further revisit any time soon.