Marvel's the Avengers

The comedic timing, coupled with his ability to maintain the authenticity of the characters, is worthy of praise. The Avengers delivers a popcorn feast that's the perfect summer kickoff.

Downey's Stark/Iron Man steals the show because the actor is capable of making the tritest dialogue sound wonderfully witty, but the CGI effects are amazing and, despite its length, the film is very enjoyable.

This will be loved by genre fans, when all is said and done/ But at two hours forty, you may find it numbs your bum/ Seriously, more attention to character could have made it a lot more fun/ And now I have said all that, I believe my poem is done.

If we must have these box-office behemoths, then at least the writer-director, Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is a lively controlling influence.

Of course it's about one hundred times brighter than Transformers and Michael Bay's imbecilic spinoffs, and should keep multiplexes everywhere in its competent grip. But I didn't love it.

After two-and-a-half hours of world-threatening chaos and world-saving derring-do, you leave the theater satisfied, but without so much as a single memorable image (or idea) lingering in your mind.

Seems like a miracle that something like this could be pulled off, fully amplifying and improving upon everything each solo MCU movie accomplished before it, while also standing on its own with the team dynamics.

You wouldn’t accuse 'The Avengers' of being good drama, but the sprawling, splashy spectacle and its much-much-much-larger-than-life heroes makes for a genuine comic book epic for the big screen.

After four years’ worth of building piece by piece against mounting expectations, Marvel and Whedon have managed to satisfy the majority of fan expectations, and in some ways, even exceeded them.

Everyone is invested in their character and not one single performer phones it in.