The Avengers (2012)

I have to say that the furore surrounding this film had pretty much doomed it to failure in my book. The Marvel marketing machine had gone into over-drive plugging it, so no way could it be any good. Well, it is good. Not great, but it is good. The compendium element of the storyline pits all of the superheroes against the mischievous "Loki" (a cute, curly haired, Tom Hiddleston) whom, together with his army of extraterrestrial henchmen, is bent on taking over the world... well, of course he is... The writing is nothing special at all, but who cares?…

The last hour is a lot of fun, but I found the opening chunk disappointing. I was expecting wall-to-wall action, pretty much from the start - especially given the forces that join together. However, I felt the first half of 'The Avengers' as slow. What also didn't help is that the villain, carried over from a preceding MCU film, isn't super interesting - we also don't see the antagonist's earlier film counterpart for a fair few scenes, which felt too delayed. The last half is much better, which allowed me to enjoy myself properly. Robert Downey Jr.,…

Probably only my third time watching and still a really entertaining action film with good banter amongst the Avengers and the team-up in the third act really work well. The whole banding together with the death of Agent Coulson still doesn't feel right, good character but didn't think he was so beloved to be a catalyst for them. Minor point just something that stood out then, and now. Also a bit hollow given, IIRC, was alive and well for the Agents of SHIELD TV series... 4.25/5