Don't worry, no spoilers, but I will say that the actual 'plot' itself left me pretty underwhelmed. The main threat seems to be essentially one man for a large part of the movie, and the threat never truly feels global. We get a few scenes in the desert, some scenes in Germany, a majority of the film in the SHIELD heli-carrier, and a suitably bombastic climax in Manhattan. But most of the menace is primarily provided by Tom Hiddleston as Loki, who makes a deal with some conveniently generic space army for hire to invade earth and totally wreck our shit. The master of sniveling didn't seem to provide much of a threat against a team that includes some of the best punchers and kickers in the world.
I might have thought the story itself was a little small potatoes for a team billed as 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' but structure-wise the movie's story is impeccable. Several different characters and their motivations are balanced, and the tone is able to vary form scene to scene enough to include lots of jokes, plenty of action, and even heavy serious stuff like speechifying and tearful confessions. Additionally, there are tons of scenes that follow the classic summer movie formula. Self contained, setup delivery and punchline, guaranteed to elicit applause and/or laughter. The best example would be a scene where some wiseass cops don't want to take orders from Captain America, then they see him kick some ass, and then of course they immediately fall in line and do what he says.
The best part of the movie is of course The Avengers themselves. They are not just interesting costumes. Iron Man becomes de facto leader of the group, perhaps because he is oldest and played by the most well known actor of the bunch, and must deal with the consequences of maturity and sacrifice that he's not used to. He probably gets the most funny lines, which makes sense, and also makes other less quippy character's jokes stand out more. He also gets some scenes with his significant other, Gwyneth Paltrow reprising Pepper Potts, which is not afforded to any of the other heroes, even those that are also dating Academy Award Winners, like Thor or Hulk in his first movie.
Scarlett Johanson plays Black Widow, a secret agent whose expertise include punching, kicking, filling out a catsuit nicely, fake crying, firing pistols akimbo, and occasionally pulling off an action sequence that feels like it was written for another character. She was not given much of an introduction in Iron Man 2 other than letting Robert Downey Jr. drool all over her although he seems to have gotten over that by this film. Her character does seem a little bland compared to the guy with the robot suit, guy who's really a god, and guy who turns gigantic.
Mark Ruffalo steals the show as Dr. Bruce Banner and 'the other guy' as he calls him. I think one of the problems with previous film Hulks was too much emphasis on the gravitas of the situation. You need to balance the sadness of a man on the run from his own life/power with the inherent ridiculousness of, as Iron Man puts it, an 'enormous green rage monster.' The balance here is damn near perfect. When ScarJoWidow tries to ensnare back into SHIELD early in the film, he pretends to lose his temper, just to see how she'll react, and the test works just as effectively on the audience.
Chris Evans does an interesting turn as Captain America. Most of his movie has a feel good aw shucks gee whiz optimism to it, but then he got frozen in ice for 70 years, so now he's kinda bummed about everybody he knows being dead and all. He's a man out of time, best evinced by how strange everybody looks at him when he keeps addressing Black Widow as ma'am. He also gets the most laughs out of an honest endorsement of monotheism that you'll ever hear.
Clark Gregg has been appearing as one of two SHIELD flunkies in the Marvel Movie-verse (The other is Agent Hill played by Cobie Smulders who leaves almost no impression whatsoever). Gregg plays Agent Coulson whose wry wit about his unusual job has been key in defining the tone of these films. He won't laugh or shrug or make goofy faces, but he will acknowledge the inherent ridiculousness in many scenes with a quick remark which is important when dealing with things that quick become too ridiculous. He is the smirk to Sam Jackson's glower.
Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye (I don't think they ever call him that) is a bit problematic. He was given almost no introduction during his first appearance in Thor and he is no better explained here. We know he likes using a bow for some reason (although he does use a pistol briefly) but it's up to use to either know or guess why. When he runs out of arrows and starts whacking dudes with the bow, I'm not sure if it's supposed to be funny or not. He's supposed to have some sort of camaraderie, or battle tested friendship, with Scarlet Widow, but they probably couldn't have any less chemistry together, so the whole thing is a non-starter.
Any half-baked ideas that don't work? Well there is the World Security Council. They are a collection of shadowy faces that appear through video conferencing software to nag Samuel L. Jackson about bullshit. They are a non-parodic version of the Council of Thirteen from Venture Brothers. You can have fun spotting Powers Boothe and Jenny Agutter as two of it's more vocal members, but their appearances are generally pointless. But those are just small nitpicks in an otherwise enjoyable film.
~ I honestly think this film might have been closer to a PG rating than a PG-13 rating. Somebody talks about suicide and somebody gets stabbed real bad, but most of the carnage is completely bloodless.
~ I was expecting at least a few cameos from previously established characters but I was not expecting a cameo from Harry Dean Stanton. He mistakes Bruce Banner for an alien, possibly a reference to his role in the original Alien from 1979, which gets a prequel next month in Prometheus which co-stars Idris Elba who co-starred in last year's Thor.
~ Stay through the credits for two bonus scenes, one momentous and one funny.
~ Thor is reassured that Natalie Portman will be safe during all this. Well that's fine, but how come nobody reassured Bruce Banner that Betty Ross would be okay? Is it because they haven't gotten around to recasting that part yet, especially not for a cameo in an already crowded film? Alright fine. But what about Don Cheadle? Why didn't they call him?
~ Stellan Skarsgard reprises his role as a scientist from Thor, Paul Bettany returns as the voice of Iron Man's robot butler, and Stan Lee makes his cameo just late enough in the film that you might have completely forgotten he was destined to appear.
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