The Avengers
Director: Joss Whedon
Writer: Joss Whedon
Based on: the comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, Alexis Denisof, Harry Dean Stanton, Enver Gjokaj
Part of: Marvel movies

Plot:
Under the watchful eye of Director Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) of S.H.I.E.L.D., scientist Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) is working on the Tesseract, a source of practically unlimited power. But Loki (Tom Hiddleston), crazed and bitter, has organized an alien army to take over the earth in exchange for the Tesseract. He breaks into S.H.I.E.L.D. and steals the Tesseract, brainwashing Selvig and Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in the process. Fury finds himself scrambling for something to hold against Loki and so he assembles a team made up of Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Bruce Banner aka the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth).

The Avengers is absolutely freaking and completely awesome. Joss Whedon knows how to handle his characters and especially the team dynamics and he does so here, too. Plus, it’s really, really funny. In short, be prepared for gushing.

I had very high expectations going into the film. I mean, I loved most of the Marvel movies leading up to this one, especially Thor (which this one is closest connected to) and Joss Whedon can practically do no wrong in my book anyway, so this had better be awesome. And I’m entirely gratified to say that it absolutely fulfilled every expectation I had and then some.

The thing that just stood out most to me, though, was the impeccable feeling for group dynamics and characters that Joss Whedon always brings to the table. He manages to make a team an actual team, where everybody has qualities and something necessary to offer and everybody has their own specialty. Plus, the way every character reacts to every other character is just always completely spot-on. (Take Captain America/Iron Man. Take Black Widow/Hawkeye. Take Hulk/Iron Man. So much hinted at in so few moments.) I loved it.

And he brings the same intelligence to his villain as well. Loki was a formidable opponent and he was absolutely evil, but he was not infallible and in the end he wasn’t built up so much that you practically needed a Deus ex machina to resolve the situation, as is so often the case in these films. Plus, Tom Hiddleston… I just… swoon. Loki has some wonderfully outrageous lines, but Tom Hiddleston sells them with so much conviction that you never even stop to think about that – you just take him completely seriously. Not that the rest of the cast wasn’t good as well (and so many hot guys…), but he just really stood out.

Add to all of that that the movie was really extremely funny and you have got basically the perfect movie. And how often do you get to say that?

Summarising: Must see.