The Avengers

After many years of build up we finally arrive at The Avengers and the wait has been well and truly worth it.
Those who saw Thor would be aware of the ambitions of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) to be worshipped and seen as a ruler to be feared, well he gives it a red hot go and serves as the catalyst for Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) to bring together The Avengers.
The opening reunites us with a few characters from Thor, notably Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Professor Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) who are effectively brainwashed by Loki into joining him.
The call goes out to assemble the motley crew that is the Avengers - Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Black Widow (Scarlett Johannsen), Captain America (Chris Evans) and The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Thor (Chris Hemsworth) arrives from Asgard in pursuit of Loki and joins the team.
There's a bit of get-to-know you clashes between the supposed allies before we get down to the business of working out how to stop Loki from opening a portal and allowing all manner of alien attacks happen.
(A quick aside - it's a real shame that Mark Ruffalo didn't get an opportunity to be Bruce Banner in a Hulk film, he has a lap on both Bana and Norton's versions).
That's the plot, now some general comments.
It's not an easy thing to bring together so many exceptional characters, and big characters, and give them depth as well and even though most had their own movies so we can get to know them the filmmakers don't assume the audience automatically knows everything.
How much better could, say, Spider Man 3 been if they'd taken the time to make the villains a bit more three dimensional?
We don't have that problem in the Avengers and I'd say it is largely because of the involvement of Joss Whedon (Buffy among others). He's made an intelligent, witty and humourous film that features some amazing action sequences and he's brought out the best in, admittedly, some very talented actors.
Jeremy Renner is fast becoming a favourite of mine and Chris Evans was born to be Captain America. Scarlett, well, she's just spectacular!
What he has done is, in my view, established a new benchmark for the super hero/comic book genre - and yes that includes Chris Nolan's Batman films.
Take a bow Joss Whedon. No, check that. Take two bows. This is just brilliant and lives right up to everything it promised.
Naturally this is a franchise so there is an extra scene pointing us in a direction for the future. What we do know is Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 are on the way as well, likely before we get to an Avengers 2.I say bring them all on.
A very solid 9 out of 10.