I'm not huge on "action" films and don't know the characters (other than the Hulk) very well but I liked it. Except for the woman character...the men all have amazing powers but all she does is look hot, kick ass, and shoot guns. That apparently puts her on equal footing with the super-guys. It's 2012, for heaven's sake! Surely, they can do better with women characters than this.

The special effects were quite good. This was the first portrayal of the Hulk that I've seen where I actually felt the impact of his bulk and power. Interesting concept of air travel, too. I also thought the street scenes were amazing but they probably could have done some editing there. I'll probably have more to add tomorrow...it's getting too late to remember much more.

The female side of things could be rectified fairly easily, too, and it's been discussed over on the very geeky rpg.net boards where I hang out. There are a number of female superheroes who have passed through the Avengers in the comic-verse. Scarlet Witch is a favorite of mine (she was an Avenger back in the days when I was reading comics regularly) but the problem with her is her origin - she's the daughter of X-Men chief baddie Magneto and the film rights to X-Men belong to Fox, not Avengers' distributor Disney. There's also Wasp, whose husband Antman will apparently be coming to the movie Averngers universe in both his own movie and Avengers 2 so she's more likely. Then there's She-Hulk, who's not as big but is less bestial than the male version. So, it's a problem but not an unresolvable one. That said, the X-men have always been better for strong female characters (Phoenix/Jean Grey, Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde, Storm) than the Avengers even in the comics.

Mendalla

I don't tend to pick this kind of movie apart for equality issues.  It was pretty much what I expected. Action from pretty much the first minute. With a fair number of entertaining one-liners and even a couple of touching moments - Stark having that little serious talk with Banner about how he has shrapnel inches from his heart for example.  And I nearly hurt myself laughing at that restaurant scene after the end credits.  I think they did a reasonable job of giving all the main characters screen time.  My husband and I intend to see it again and buy the DVD when it comes out.

I saw it in surround 3d and thoroughly enjoyed it. some of the scenes had the entire theatre laughing.

If you look at the female role  a little differently we don't need super powers to kick butt.