Saw The Avengers last night.

I leave it to people to make up their own minds about the film, but here's a couple of my observations:

Standouts for me were Loki (maybe it shoulda been called The Loki Showki!), and Mark Ruffalo's portrayal of Bruce Banner.  

Joss Whedon seems to be the most capable individual out there of creating a true ensemble cast movie; probably from all his work on Buffy, Firefly, etc.  We'll forgive him for Alien Resurrection, since he only wrote it and someone else was given the task of utterly messing up that movie.

They kept what I'd say are the better elements of the comic, which is to say the ideological conflict between The Avengers and SHIELD, or idealism versus Dr. Strangelove-like Cold War plotting.

Space Aliens: apparently our puny weapons ARE a match for their superior intellect...  

Nick Fury's assistant was the best looking woman in the entire film - and that includes Chris Hemsworth.  I can write that because I know he'll never read this.  Because he's got better things to do, and because he's illiterate.