The Avengers review

This movie is a great film, very little emotion, but it wasn't meant to have much of it, it's meant to be just an action-packed thriller superhero film.
I'll cover the story and as I go along I'll say my opinions on the various plot-points, Dr. Erik Selvig is examining the Tesseract, I'm surprised they called it that, in Captain America: The First Avenger, they called it the Cosmic Cube, all the other films that included it included it as an Easter Egg and never referred to it by name, and then Loki is zapped into the lab, where he brainwashes Selvig as well as Agent Clint Barton (Hawkeye.) Loki attempts to open a portal with the Tesseract to bring in his army, however it collapses on itself. Desperate for reinforcements, Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division, for those who don't know) orders the execution of the Avenger Initiative, a program that was first mentioned in Iron Man, implied in The Incredible Hulk, and expanded upon in Iron Man 2. Which entails assembling Earth's mightiest heroes to "fight the battles we never could." Agent Phil Coulson visits Tony Stark (Iron Man) and tells him that he's needed by S.H.I.E.L.D., meanwhile, Agent Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) goes to find Dr. Bruce Banner (The Hulk) as the radiation from the Tesseract are gamma rays. (we all know how much Banner knows about gamma rays. ;)) and Fury goes down what I'm guessing is a gymnasium of some kind and talks to Steven Rogers (Captain America), an abridged version of this scene was shown in the post-credit scene of Captain America: The First Avenger. They all meet up on board a S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft carrier, which reveals itself to be the S.H.I.E.L.D. Heli-Carrier. Agent Coulson is revealed to be a Capt. America fan, and frequent mention is make about his collection of Captain America trading cards. Fury puts Loki into a holding chamber meant for the Hulk. Under the supervision of Dr. Banner and Stark, Loki's spear weapon (not Gungnir from Thor) is examined and they also track the Tesseract using mass-spectrometers. Thor, who had attacked the Quin-Jet to try to convince Loki to change his ways, leading to an epic fight scene between Rogers, Iron Man, and Thor, is also there. Barton and some friends arrive at the Heli-Carrier and trigger Banner to hulk out. The Hulk nearly destroys the Heli-Carrier, and this is where we see exactly how far ILM has come from making a Hulk, their first attempt in 2003, was great, but a bit cheezy, it looked like a guy painted green walking around a miniature set of the city, then Rythm & Hues did their Hulk and it was a lot better, however he was almost too realistic, now, they got that perfect blend of Ang Lee and Louis Letterier, creating what I hope is the Hulk we see in all future Marvel films starring Hulk. One issue I do have, though, is that the Hulk rampage makes him out to be a mindless beast. Which is okay for the comics or cartoons or the Ang Lee Hulk film, but in The Incredible Hulk, it is shown that the Hulk only attacks what's attacking him, he never attacks an innocent person. Yet he battles the other Avengers when it was Loki's men who were triggering the Hulk-out and are attacking them. Anyway, the Hulk and Loki's minions do a considerable amount of damage to the engine, and Capt. America and Iron Man are charged with getting it back up. Stark goes in to push the turbine back in motion and tells Rogers to pull the lever to slow them down long enough for him to fly out, however Capt. A is attacked but manages to save ol' Shellhead. Meanwhile, Loki escapes and kills Agent Coulson (or a Life Model Decoy, as implied in promos for the new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show. Fury uses this to motivate them into a cohesive team. The team learns that Loki has prepared a proper support device on top of Stark Tower, opening a portal through which his army of aliens come. Tony returns to his place, talks to Loki in a casual manner, secretly putting on wristlets which come into play when Loki throws him off the Tower, and he deploys his MK VII armor. The newly assembled Avengers, rejoined by Banner and Barton, who has been cured strategically by Romanoff (she KOed him), hold of the Chitauri, Loki's army. Then Selvig is cured and he tells them that the Tesseract is giving off a protective shield that can only be penetrated by Loki's spear. However, Fury's superiors resort to nuking Manhattan to destroy the invaders, however, Iron Man is able to destroy the oncoming waves by sending the missile through the portal before they destroy it. Then the Avengers emerge victorious and go out for shawarma. Then comes the mid-credit scene, where we learn that the next big bad guy will be the infamous Thanos...
A more light hearted post credit scene is shown after that where we see them eating shawarma together, while Capt. A covers his face to mask Evans's newly grown beard.

Overall it's a great movie. I can't wait for the sequel which features Ultron and potentially Vision. This movie was great and I was totally psyched to finally see all these heroes together on screen, since until recently, it was simply impossible as rights were dispersed across studios. From Fox, to Sony, to Universal. Overall I give this movie a 9.5/10, subtracting half a point just because of their poor portrayal of this iteration of the Hulk