As The Avengers has already been released here in the UK, today I saw it for a second time. I saw it for the first time after school on Thursday (opening day) but I was so mesmerised by the complete awesomeness that I didn’t feel I could write a successful review. After re-watching it again today, I know have a very clear idea and opinion about the movie. Beware, there will be some spoilers so it’s best if you want to keep a fresh mind stop here. Shall we start with the good stuff then?

THE GOOD STUFF

-Everything. Review over! I’m joking. I absolutely adored this movie, and the only flaws were minor (except for one or two). I completely loved the first act. It might have even been my favourite part of the movie. I’m not sure why, but I just feel that the act (ending with a three-way fight between Iron Man, Captain America and Thor) was perfect, especially the opening of the film which dealt with Loki’s arrival and a little space scene.

-The characters. This is Joss Whedon, so it’s a given that the writing and characterisation would be fantastic. My favourite characters in this were Loki (more on that later), Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Cap and Iron Man. Even though everybody was fantastically written, they were the standouts.

-The action. The action for this movie has been criticized for being “too much like Transformers”, well let me tell you that this is wrong. Even though basically the entire third act is a war (lasting roughly 45 minutes), the action is used effectively and unlike Bayformers, it actually serves a person and stuff doesn’t just blow up for the sake of it. Also, the finales of the previous MCU have been heavily criticized (and rightfully so) for being too short and boring, considering Thor defeated the Destroyer in about 2 minutes.

-Hulk. Mark Ruffalo gave an absolutely fantastic performance, and Hulk looks as real as ever (thanks to the geniuses at ILM). Saying that, Hulk undeniably gets the best moments in the final battle and ‘the other guy’ is pretty funny too. The three best moments in the final battle all came from Hulk, and they were (SPOILERS!): when Bruce first arrives at the battle, he hulks out at will and destroys the Leviathan by punching it in the mouth. When Hulk and Thor take down another Leviathan (I counted four of them) and Hulk is pissed Thor got the final shot, so he punches him sending flying across the room! And finally, when Loki confronts Hulk and insults him, Hulk just grabs him by the leg and smashes him against the ground a couple of times, leaving Loki defeated. The last two scenes generated tons of laughter from the audience, which is great.

-The story. The whole story was just fantastic, and it’s amazing a good story can be brought to the screen focusing on a team of superheroes. While some parts were generic and predictable, most of it was unexpected and shocking (mainly a certain, umm, let’s say ‘fall’ in a metaphorical sense). As I’ve said in my first point, I loved the first act and I think it was the strongest part of the story.

-Loki. I said earlier that he was one of the most well-written characters (if not number one on that list) because he was such a convincing villain, as was Tom Hiddleston’s fantastic portrayal. A couple of things I’d like to take note regarding his acting: there’s a scene in Germany where Loki mashes up this guy’s mouth, and he does a heavy breath and grin suggesting he’s enjoying every second of it. I thought this was highly effective, as in Thor we see that he is sometimes reluctant to killing and doesn’t necessarily know what he is doing, and some of that rubs off on his performance here. Whilst Loki has more of a clear idea of what he’s doing, I still got the impression that he was scared of the newfound power he possesses and is being controlled by (Thanos) and is worried that they will destroy him and could possibly be horrified that there are beings more powerful than himself in the universe. With that said, those are just some of the reasons why he gave an absolutely mesmerising performance. Second best performance in a CBM ever, next to Heath Ledger.

-The humour. My God, was this movie funny. On top of being an action-packed superhero spectacle, this movie had dozens of hilarious moments which made the audience roar with laughter. The humour is one of the aspects of the movie that definately needs to be seen for yourself, so I’m not going to be harsh and spoil it.

THE BAD STUFF

-Maria Hill. I was honestly very surprised by this, because female characters are Joss’s speciality (the reason why Black Widow was one of the most well-written characters) but she had absolutely nothing to do. The only action she had was at the beginning when she, shock horror, shoots a gun! She doesn’t really even do anything other than that. Except taking orders from Nick Fury of course. She isn’t even that much like her comic counterpart, not particurally bitchy at all. She left me dissapointed.

-The Chitauri. Honestly, they completely sucked. Big time! They don’t pose any real threat, none of the Avengers seemed to be in any danger (not even Black Widow and Hawkeye. And in a scene where Hawkeye runs out of arrows, there’s still no threat!). They’re reminiscent of the droids from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace , and for all the wrong reasons (not that there was anything good about them in the first place). Time to get into spoiler territory: The way they’re defeated is a complete cop-out and utterly terrible. Iron Man diverts a nuke into space and blows up the mothership…………. Causing all the Leviathan’s and Chitauri to drop to the ground. THEY’RE NOT EVEN ROBOTS!

-The score. The score for all of Marvel’s movies is forgettable and dull. I don’t believe that Alan Silvestri should be hired again to score Marvel movies…………. That said, the theme for the Avengers themselves was great! You may be wondering why the hell I went from such a low point to a very high point, but I hate every single track on The Avengers soundtrack except for the main theme.

So, there you have it. Overall, my final score for the movie is a 4.5/5. An excellent CBM, definitely Marvel’s greatest, up there with the likes of The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 2, plus with the fact the movie currently has a 97% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the movie is on track to make $300m+ before it even opens in the US, I think it’s safe to say this is brilliant news for geeks everywhere!