The Avengers

Before I get too into the review let me say a few things up top since this is going to end up sounding way more negative than I mean it to.  I generally enjoyed The Avengers.  Its entertaining, moves along pretty well, and makes the Hulk (one of the more problematic characters in the Marvel canon) a lot of fun.  Still its merely decent, when I was really hoping for something better.  Given the involvement of Joss Whedon, I though it would be closer in quality to The Dark Knight, as opposed to Iron Man (which don't get me wrong I enjoyed quite a bit).  Even though Whedon does about as good a job as could be expected juggling all the characters, the movie still feels cluttered.  I could have done without Black Widow and Hawkeye completely (and their involvement is a little weird given they really don't have any powers) and even Thor and Captain America aren't that engaging (though at least their presence makes sense).  Really I would have been perfectly fine if this had just been Iron Man and the Hulk take New York.  Those characters are by far the most well-defined, and have the best moments (and funniest) in the film. Hopefully future installments will focus more on their dynamic.

The film also takes a while to get going, the first third in particular is overly-expository, and could have stood to be twenty minutes lighter (dropping the Widow and Birdman would have helped considerably). But whatever, like I said at the beginning, I did generally enjoy it, and if its over-whelming success lets Whedon make another firefly film (or six) so much the better.

Oh, and seeing Robin from How I Met Your Mother in a prominent role was really distracting.