Wait. How? I thought the international release was on the 27th, while America gets it a week later.

(I'm actually going to watch it at 11 AM on Friday, well before all my other friends across the world, bwahahaha)

25th of april at 00:09

Over here it won't even play until some time in May.

Same over here, I think we have to wait until May 3rd or 4th.

Why is that?
One would imagine that they want to release in the US first, not last.
There's evil magic involved, I'm sure of it.

It was the same thing with Thor. Well, on the other hand, we got Captain America about 4 weeks after the States. >_>

Ah, well, who am I to complain? I'm gonna go see it tomorrow night. The English-language version, no less. ;)

I couldn't really say why. I've no clue, in fact.

Bump.

Went to a midnight showing on release day.

I don't really know what else to say except that I should never have really doubted the almighty Joss Whedon's abilities to truly deliver a sharp, tightly written and executed script.

It's a film which really captures the essence of the fact that while all of the characters are powerhouses in their own right, it's as a team that they all truly excel. I can think of past superhero/video game ensemble movies where the writing and story ended up focusing too much or too little on a given character or set of characters; here, Whedon's script manages to give everyone their turn to shine. Unlike, say, Watchmen, Whedon was really able to make a movie which the fans could truly get into, while at the same time making it approachable for anyone with a cursory knowledge of the key characters. And even if you didn't see any of the earlier movies, you had a very clear notion of what the roles and relationships were among the characters.

That's all I can say right now, I think, without going into potential spoiler territory. The easter egg scene at the very end of the credits though was simply delightful icing on the cake...Don't be surprised if you get a sudden craving when you walk out of the theatre.

I brought up Watchmen because while it may not necessarily be a superhero movie (more of an antihero movie, I suppose) it does share some level of similarities in that it's source material isn't immediately mainstream, and there is a considerable amount of lore in both universes. In both cases, the films had to tread a delicate balancing act between both appealing to the fans and being reasonably accessible.

In my opinion, where Watchmen failed for me (even though I don't think it was by any means a bad movie) was that it was that Zack Snyder and the writers of Watchmen made a film where you had to really know the original source material, and the context it was all placed in, to get the most out of it. That was true of the original graphic novel as well, but it was doubly-so for the movie. In short, the characters were a lot more well-rounded and relatable in Avengers than they were in Watchmen. It brings me back to wondering if they should have split Watchmen up into several movies, or even if they should have made it at all.

I can't think of any other comic book hero ensemble movies that I've seen (I didn't bother with Fantastic Four). While the first X-Men was decent, I found X2 disappointing, and from all accounts I've heard X3 didn't really set the world on fire either. Well, there was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but the less said about that the better.

Oh, and why on earth was the easter egg cut? I'm talking about the sequence at the very end of the credit crawl, not the sequence at the end of the first set of credits.

The after credits "second" bonus scene (not the mid credits one) is actually cut from most places, so feel lucky if you do get to see it. It is on the international version and the American version, but isn't on the UK version. Here's hoping that the bonus scene gets uploaded to YouTube soon so we can all get to see it (not that there's much to see of course). I saw the film two nights ago, really enjoyed it.

Saw it on the 27th, and thought it was absolutely amazing. Saw it in 2D, it was great, wouldn't bother paying the extra for 3D.

The Hulk steals the entire show, Mark Ruffalo was excellent. He's also signed on long term (six film contract, so he should get his own film and no doubt a couple of cameos.)

Saw the mid-credits extra, now I just need someone with a bit of comics knowledge to interpret it.

Also annoyed that there's another bit that UK viewers have missed... no doubt it'll be on youtube at some point.

I would have opted to see it in 2D, but the truly devilish thing about it is that they only offered it in 3D on release...what I am thankful for is that this was the first live action 2D-to-3D conversion I'd seen in a long, long time where the 3D actually added something extra to the film without being overly obnoxious the way it was in Clash of the Titans or Alice in Wonderland.

The final post-credits scene isn't earth shaking, but it's a nice extra piece of denouement from the action that put a real smile on my face after seeing the group go through so much throughout the movie. As I said to korell on PM, if I can find it on YouTube I'll be sure to post it ASAP.

I have to disagree with you on Watchmen (*disclaimer: I only saw the ultimate cut, or whatever the longest version is called). The movie pretty much has the whole comic in it. There is hardly anything left out of it and the things that are cut are mostly "fluff" not really relevant to the main plot.

There are, imo, two key differences between the Avengers and Watchmen. Avengers is pure mainstream, it is one of the longest and well known superhero series. The series has "broken through" the "nerd barrier" and is also available in supermarkets and such for non-comic affieciandos. It has seen a lot of love in the comic scene in the recent years and the characters itself have even achieved "movie mainstream" due highly successful films in recent years.

Whereas Watchmen was always a "comic nerd insider". The only "breakthrough" it had was into the realm of non graphic novels (it was on the times list of 100 books of the century). It has received a lot of critical acclaim from comic book nerds and normal book "nerds", but it has never achieved the mainstream of your average Marvel/DC comics.

Secondly Avengers builds on a massive lore of a plethora of different characters build for literally decades (stealth pun, bitches!). With Watchmen however you see what you get. It was one (trade-paper) book and that's it. There was no deeper lore, no real origins and previous adventures. To fully appreaciate it, you need to know the comic book tropes especially of the superhero comics. But the core story was one of fear and surrender of power that actually transcends your average comic book story (at least for comic written back then). And the movie pretty much gave you the whole story that the book gave you. (I probably know the book by heart, so maybe I'm not the perfect judge). All the feeling that "there was more" was the same in the book.

Therefore I don't think those two movies are at all comparable. I think the X-Men are actually the better comparison. And I personally consider X2 one of the, if no the best "superhero" movie. X3 sucked big time however. The two Fantastic Four are ok, nothing special, but nothing really bad (Hello Catwoman).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanos
One of the GREAT villains of Marvel Universe.