Unlike the majority of my fellow Comic Book fans, I actually haven't been that enamored of Marvel Studios' choice over the course of the last four years to bring the idea of interconnected continuity found in their Comic Books to the Big Screen.  The idea is not inherently bad, mind you, but at least for me, the results have by and large been that the individual Movies the studio has made have stopped trying to work as individual stories unto themselves, acting more as advertisements for an upcoming Other Movie than effective narratives in their own right.  Which isn't to say they've been bad (well, OK, I really didn't like 2008's "The Incredible Hulk" much at all, but that movie sucked for reasons above and beyond the subject at hand), but simply that outside of the original "Iron Man" I found them lacking for the most part.  All of which I tell you so that you understand, when I say "The Avengers" is a pretty awesome Movie, I'm not just toeing the Party Line here.  It really is that good.  I don't know that it's quite as revolutionary as some of its more enthusiastic advocates would have it, but that doesn't really matter; "The Avengers" is a ton of fun, and one of the best starts to the Summer Movie season I've seen in years.

With most of the expositionary leg-work having been taken care of in the five films preceding it ("Iron Man", "The Incredible Hulk", "Iron Man 2", "Thor", and "Captain America: The First Avenger"), "The Avengers" dives into its remarkably straightforward Plot with precious little in the way of set-up, though it is worth noting the Movie makes sure to include all relevant information at one point or another so that those who haven't seen all, or even any, of those previous films should be able to follow along well enough.  To wit: Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the main antagonist from "Thor", has formed an alliance with a powerful Alien Army known as the Chitauri, and has absconded with a powerful relic known as the Tesseract (introduced in "Captain America") in order to harness its cosmic energies to create a portal and bring the Chitauri to Earth so that they can conquer it.  To foil Loki's plan, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), head of the secret Government Agency S.H.I.E.L.D., decides the time has come to assemble what he calls a "Response Team" of gifted individuals to help track the rogue Demi-God down and recover the Tesseract before its powers can be used for Evil.  Of course, since said team includes ruthless Spy-Assassin Natasha "Black Widow" Romanov (Scarlett Johanson), time-displaced Super Soldier Steve "Captain America" Rogers (Chris Evans), egotistical but well-dressed Tony "Iron Man" Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), and highly-intelligent but prone-to-fits-of-city-breaking-rage Bruce "Incredible Hulk" Banner (Mark Ruffalo), not to mention Loki's half-brother, the God of Thunder himself, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the external threat posed by Loki and the looming Chitauri isn't the only problem standing between Earth and its only hope for salvation.  With so many highly-volatile personalities being asked to play nice and work together, after all, the results aren't always going to be pretty....

Again, to be clear, "The Avengers" really doesn't strike me as terribly revolutionay outside of the scale of Super-Heroics on which it operates and the thoroughness of the branding management that has gone into making it.  And there are nitpicks to be found here and there if one wishes to look for them; a bit too much time spent hanging around tables or railings talking about stuff that feels kind of obvious, a musical score that manages to deliver a decent Main Theme but not a whole lot else, some somewhat-chintzy-looking CGI effects for the Chitauri, and the ultimately-unavoidable problem that, with six overall characters all playing what amount to "the Lead Role", the story's focus is spread dangerously thin.

The thing of it is, not a one of those problems ever rises to the level of distraction or even particular annoyance, and none of them can hope to stand up to the overwhelming tide of feel-good energy and excitement the rest of the movie brings, and brings in spades.  

For all that the movie does have to work pretty hard to make it happen, it is nonetheless shockingly successful at giving each of its stars their due.  From Downey Jr.'s Stark having to finally learn how to be a Team Player to Evans' Captain America struggling to find his footing in a time not his own, or the conflict of affection and envy that plays out between Hemsworth's Thor and Hiddleston's Loki, or Johanssen's Black Widow fighting tooth and nail to stay on top of people and things well beyond the world she has thus far known, each Avenger really does get their own little story-arc, and through Director and Co-Writer Joss Whedon's deft handle on how they behave individually and how they all fit together into the greater group dynamic, as well as through everyone's A-Game acting, they all manage to fit together remarkably well.  Mark Ruffalo, the third person to have played the role of Bruce Banner on film (and the very first actor to play the part of Banner AND the Hulk, thanks to motion-capture technology), is especially effective in this regard.  As a long-time fan of the Hulk who was sorely disappointed by the 2008 reboot and Ed Norton's somnolent performance therein, it was the sincerest of pleasures to see an actor and script which both managed to do far more right by the character, who receives many of the best moments throughout and winds up having what is, for my money, the most effective and compelling character arc of the overall story.  Suffice it to say, the Avengers make for an impressive and irresistable team, and their Assembling together even against the odds is the core from which the rest of the movie flows.  It is thus an absolute Good that it proves to be strong enough to hold as well as it does.

But, of course, Character is only one part of why we're here.  The other is getting to see just how having all these super-powered individuals clash with a force of sufficient strength to warrant their joining forces will play out, and here too the Movie succeeds pretty damned well.  Again, it is not anything terribly unfamiliar-the final act in particular draws some surprising parallels, both visually and emotionally, with the finale of last Summer's "Transformers: Dark of the Moon", though it is much better-paced overall.  But also again, it really does not matter.  There are plenty of rip-snorting, highly exciting set-pieces spread out just right throughout, from the opening which serves to establish the bad-ass credentials of both Nick Fury and Loki, to the inevitable Butting of Heads that goes down between the three biggest Egos of the Team (Iron Man the world's suavest Narcissist, Thor who does not much care for the opinions of mere mortals, and Captain America who knows what's what and will not let anyone tell him otherwise), to plenty of other well-executed bits of high-octane excitement that I won't spoil here.  The Chitauri, admittedly, do not make for the most impressive or memorable of Enemies, but that slack is sufficiently picked up by Loki, who is commendably placed as being, on-balance, a significant threat to our Heroes but never so much so that we cannot believe in their victory; the push and pull between the God of Mischief's machinations and the unique abilities of the Avengers in fact winds up being the key element of Momentum and Tension far more so than the threat posed by the numbers and weaponry of the Chitauri.  Again, that conflict winds up playing out equally well both in a broader scale and on a more intimate level; Loki gets his chance to pick at each open nerve the team shows him, and does so with vicious aplomb.  

For all that, however, if I had to pick what may be the single most important element of the film, I would have to say it is Whedon's unmistakable sense of snappy, sharp-witted humor.  It never feels cheap or gratuitious, it never lessens the impact when things need to Get Serious, and in fact it is the element that best pulls the movie's character-driven plot together with its action-driven story.  There are some jokes you will see coming, others you will not, but each and every one hits its target square on the center and will get, at a minimum, a good, toothy smile out of you.  Throughout, however, it plugs you right into where you most need to be for this story to work at all: the beating, human heart of each and every character who inhabits this world.  It is, in a way, Whedon's signature moreso than almost any other element of his style, but here in particular it is invaluable.  Indeed, almost all of "The Avengers"' most memorable moments have at least an element of humor to them, and while that might make the movie sound like a farce, the end result is that it is instead something else entirely: it is fun.  Lots and lots of fun.  Rather than the overpowering, sturm-und-drung Epic some may have imagined when the idea of an "Avengers" film was first sent out into the public consciousness back in 2008, we are instead given a far more enjoyable, far more relatable kind of Adventure, and I cannot imagine a version of "The Avengers" that is quite so effective otherwise.

If there is any one thing that should solidify for you just how much I enjoyed "The Avengers", it is this: there are hints aplenty that this Movie, rather than being the culmination we were once promised, is in fact simply another New Beginning, the start of another chapter in Marvel's ongoing quest to build a cinematic continuity as big and involved as the one they have fostered in their comics for the last half-century.  As the opening of this review indicates, that should bother me.  But it doesn't, at all.  Because this movie stands strongly enough on its own that, whatever happens next, it doesn't matter.  Whatever good films Marvel makes from now on, I can safely tuck into my personal "win" column.  And if there are any more stinkers?  Any more medicore, coasting-on-the-continuity films?  I don't care.  I have "The Avengers", and that is more than enough.

'Nuff said.