Every MCU Movie - Ranked From Worst To Best

6. The Avengers

It must have been extremely uplifting for Marvel to see their first Avengers - and the first real step to convincing audiences that the idea of a phased expanded universe - work so well in both critical and financial terms. After setting up the first core team over five films, the ensemble delivered in a way that fans could only have dreamed about when the Avengers Initiative was teased as nothing more than an Easter Egg.

Strengths

Joss Whedon's eye for spectacle and his ability to balance more human stories was applied brilliantly, as the individual issues of each of the Avengers - Tony's arrogance and superiority complex, Cap's alienation, Widow's history and the Hulk's split personality - played as big a part as the chest-thumping action.

The film is all about balance in the face of adversity, managing to ensure that all characters remained three dimensional (aside from Hawkeye, but he was made a narrative victim for a good enough reason), and it laughed in the face of fears that it would be over-stuffed.

Weaknesses

The third act escalation that sees the arrival of the Chitauri is unearned and completely tacked on for the sake of raising heart-beats in the audience. As a result, the alien race - who were a far bigger threat in the comics - are turned into brainless mooks who act as little more than cannon fodder.