Immediately after watching The Avengers, I was confused. All of my friends seemed to love it, the theater roared its approval as the credits rolled, and most of the reviews I've read are overwhelmingly positive. For these reasons, I'm not entirely sure I watched the same movie as everybody else, but I'm perfectly willing to comment on what I saw.

The film opens with Loki stealing the Tesseract, an all powerful energy device that poses a significant threat to Earth's security. Thankfully, Nick Fury assembles the "Avengers", the group of superheroes who are the focus of the film. Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, and Mark Ruffalo all reprise their roles of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the Incredible Hulk, while Scarlet Johansson and Jeremy Renner portray the Black Widow and Hawkeye. Every single one of these characters (Loki included) is entirely one-dimensional and frankly, boring to watch. With the possible exception of the Hulk, they are straight-forward, flawless superheroes, who have absolutely no trouble dispatching anyone who crosses them. This makes the prolonged action sequences particularly difficult to watch; you never doubt who is going to prevail.

As for the central story of the film, it is a complete mess. It's an action movie in the truest sense of the word; every aspect of the plot is twisted to encourage more fighting sequences, which really prevents the film from moving forward at all. The story doesn't provoke further thought in any way, and really just serves to provide mindless action and downright terrible dialogue. In particular, Downey Jr. relentlessly delivers sarcastic insults every few minutes, which just aren't that funny (in my opinion). Once or twice, I found it amusing, but by the end of the movie I was sick of it. The other characters aren't much better, with the exception of Thor, who had a few funny moments.

Despite everything I have said, there's no criticizing how the film looks. The CGI sequences are stunning, and the various locations in the film are visually pleasing. It doesn't break any new ground, but it's still entertaining.

Overall, this is not a good movie. The characters are flat, static, uninteresting people portrayed by uninspired actors. The story is atrocious and riddled with holes. The action sequences are painfully long and predictable. And perhaps worst of all, when it was trying so hard to be funny, it simply wasn't.

Looking at all the names that contributed to this movie, I am frankly shocked at the finished product. Joss Whedon is a brilliant director and writer (I loved Firefly), and most of the actors (particularly Downey Jr., Renner, and Ruffalo) are usually enjoyable. So I'm not quite sure where everything went wrong, but hopefully they can produce a more thoughtful sequel with their next efforts.

RATING: 4/10