First of all, it's not really necessary to have seen any of the preceding Marvel Cinematic Universe films before you see The Avengers. You might feel left out at some of the in-jokes, but this isn't The Lord of the Rings we're talking about here and the plots from the films haven't exactly been taxing. Still, for those of you who may be going into this blind, allow me to offer a brief summary of the five films you may have missed: meet Tony Stark (Iron Man), Bruce Banner (Hulk), Steve Rogers (Captain America), Thor and Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow). Together, they are The Avengers. Not that they know it yet. Oh, and Thor's evil step-brother Loki. He's after the Tesseract, the MacGuffin of the series. That's pretty much it.
The plot for The Avengers is slightly more taxing: said superheroes must join together, put their differences aside and stop Loki from getting his hands on the Tesseract. Well, I said slightly more taxing. To be fair though, the main draw of the films thus far has not been their superb storylines but their action scenes and The Avengers is no exception. The story revolves around Loki's quest to steal the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. and use it to dominate the Earth. After Loki (Tom Hiddleston) arrives on Earth through a portal opened by the Tessseract, he pinches it and takes Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) as hostages despite the best efforts of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). In response, Fury activates The Avengers Initiative. Fury recruits Rogers (Chris Evans), Coulson recruits Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) recruits Banner (Mark Ruffalo). They're reluctant but eventually agree. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) then shows up and, after sparring with Stark and Rogers, joins them too.
The action revolves around two main set-pieces: a battle in mid-air on the Avengers' flying aircraft carrier (yes, a flying aircraft carrier) and a final showdown in New York City. As usual, they're spectacular and Joss Whedon's flair shows through. He also deftly balances the film between leads; both ensuring that they all get roughly equal screen time and also making sure that Robert Downey Jr. both gets all the best lines and doesn't overwhelm the other characters. This is after all his film and his franchise. Without him delivering the success of Iron Man, we wouldn't be here some four films later.
Ultimately, this film is a balancing act: between leads, between action and exposition and between fucking awesome action and over-the-top silliness (The Expendables, I'm looking at you). Credit to Joss Whedon for pulling it off, like I knew he would. It's big, it's loud, it's funny, it's everything you'd expect it to be.
8 out of 10.
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