Actor John Cusack once said that there are no more big production studios anymore. There are just a bunch of banks which provide funding/credits for projects and approve which script would be produced according to box office profit it is projected to generate. ( because Hollywood mentality became like : more money , bigger stars , bigger budget , bigger marketing , bigger blockbuster , bigger box office income that's all it matters ) Since comicbook / superhero genre is the newest and biggest market to be milked in popular culture for Hollywood in these harsh economy ; is it surprising that The Avengers , a childish intake about a bunch of ridiculously costumed "Superheroes" with one dimensional immature behavior getting together to repel an alien invasion ( AGAIN ! I think any actual alien seeing these alien invasion movies would not even close Earth ever again. Our "always winning despite odds" thing would be silly to them ) ? Unfortunetely not. This is another shallow seasonal product , another "leave your brain at theater door" movie aimed for Comic Con Convention fans. And I admit it is a BIG market.

Just like most movies in this genre ( there are a few exceptions ) it has its own cliché's and tropes like they are coming out of a factory assembly line. At least director Joss Whedon ( a great TV writer/producer. I was a follower of Firefly and Dollhouse ) does not deny them and recognizing what they are , wears them at movie's sleeve. Bickering superheroes ( that's fine amusing with Whedonesque humor but humor got overwhelming and made "superheroes" childlike not multi dimensional characters ) , threat from outer space from a sneering arrogant enemy with another comic book costume ( at least Tom Hiddleston performed as well as he could with material he was given , but what the hell was Loki's motivation in conquering Earth ? ) , his boss with a digital voice , super secret ( American as usual ) military spy agency ( I can never understand American film industry's fetish of military - for a nation devoid of conscription ) , national stereotypes ( Russians are evil you know ) , hot ass kicking super agent babes ( Scarlett , Scarlett are you so desperate ? ) , Aryan looking superheroes from WW2 era ( Thor , Captain America , blond blue eyed , with whom we were fighting with anyway in that time ? Did you realize that there were no other ethnicity among these heroes like Oriental or Latin ) , Tony Stark rich jerk , Hulk a Doctor Bruce Banner marked with tragedy ( Mark Ruffolo is the only actor with proper character material and performs admirably in this ) , Hawkeye with baby faced Jeremy Renner ( I never warmed to that guy as an actor ) , and Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury big boss of agency with an eye patch ( no fake protez in nowadays ? ) because it looks cool , a final battle with lots of laser rays and CGI explosions without casualties in another American urban area ( this year it is New York City's trashing time ) , good vs evil , government made the mistake of launching a nuclear missile , it is averted , heroes are victorious blah blah it is the end....

After all this sequence of predictable events where no protagonist was harmed and good guys win , what do we have ? An empty blockbuster which will make a big Box Office hit , probably a franchise but at the end an empty film. I can not wait in 20-30 years our grandchildren asking "Is this the stuff your generation was watching ? No wonder everything really mattered like environment , economy , politics or simple psyche of human or society condition all of them gone hell. Your visual arts stopped reflecting them !"