A few quick thoughts on The Avengers.
First, it's awesome.
Second, it's easily the funniest movie I've seen in years.
And that's basically it.
Okay, that's not really it. Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America were my favorites of the lead-in movies, with The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 being interesting but not horribly engaging. But the idea that you could just give the main characters their own movies and then stride right into an ensemble movie was never in the cards. Because the movie has to stand on its own.
I think it's certainly advisable to have seen all the lead-ins, or at least the three I highlighted, before seeing this film. Of them, probably Thor would be the most important since the main antagonist comes from that film.
The really great thing about The Avengers, though, was that each character got to shine without it feeling like "and now, Thor will get his introduction." Joss Whedon managed to work some ensemble into his individual character introductions. Not easy to do.
The language of the film was also interesting, and I'm not remarking on the use of profanity, which was light and on par with the previous Marvel films. I approve. No, it was more that the characters had their own ways of speaking, and here I'm speaking mainly of the Big Three: Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Iron Man had the typical Stark Snark, Cap had his retro Greatest Generation thing going, and Thor spoke with his normal Asgardian I-Am-Awesome-ese.
But, to me, the highlight of the writing of the film was the fact that the guy who I'm not sure actually ever spoke in the movie got the best "lines." Yeah, Hulk stole the show, as you might imagine he would. And I particularly liked the way he responded to Loki's monologuing.
There's humor in all the lead-in films, but The Avengers easily surpassed them all without ever seeming like a comedy. Everybody got a good one-liner or two (wait, is that possible?), though Hulk had to do his with more physical comedy. I can't remember the last comedy film at which I laughed half as much as here.
Since Thor and Captain America are really my favorites of the lead-ins, I was glad to see The Avengers stay true to their characters. Cap still gets to be a bit old-fashioned without coming off like a stick in the mud, despite the Stark Snark directed at him, and Thor was the guy from the end of his film, not the beginning. (Except for one brief bit of "putting down the hammer," but that was still awesome.)
Well, this wasn't particularly quick, but you can probably guess I'm giving my recommendation for the movie. It increases the amount of awesome in the universe, and that's a good thing. And I'm totally going to see it again. Maybe I'll even do the 3D showing just for fun.
Oh, and don't forget to stick around for the post-credits scene. And the post-post-credits scene. Yep, two of them.