1. Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) with Marisa Tomei
2. Marisa Tomei in In the Bedroom (2001) with Tom Wilkinson
3. Tom Wilkinson in Batman Begins (2005) with Cillian Murphy
4. Cillian Murphy in Sunshine (2007) with Chris Evans
5. Chris Evans in The Avengers (2012)

I’m actually quite proud of this one.

I mean, I’m not a professional movie critic or anything, but I think The Avengers just might be the hardest movie to review… ever. Movies like Twilight and Saw VI or whatever number they’re on now have been called “immune to reviews” in the past, but I think Marvel’s superhero epic is truly the first movie to be completely immune to reviews. It’s going to make bank no matter what. (And it did.) But good news: it’s actually a good movie!

I’m not here to extol the virtues of Joss Whedon again, because that’s been done to death. And all the actors here (Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., The Older Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, etc.) fit into their roles with extreme ease. But why shouldn’t they? For example, Downey Jr. is playing Iron Man for the third time.

The movie is surprisingly talky, in a good way (for me, at least). I think the superhero crew spends at least an hour aboard a floating aircraft carrier (yeah, I know) fighting about what to do next. The most memorable scene for me is one where Tony Stark and Bruce Banner (ya know, Iron Man and The Hulk) are just talking at each other. Whedon‘s dialogue shines here, and Stark and Banner discuss the human condition in a really unexpected way.

Many kiddos seeing The Avengers at a matinee could get restless during some of these scenes, but don’t worry: the entire movie builds up to a climatic 30-minute battle in the streets of New York. And it’s worth it. The battle scene is also one of the best-coreographed battles captured on film, mostly for the fact that I knew exactly where everyone was and what was going on throughout the entire battle.

Because we’ve already seen Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger (presumably), Whedon and company don’t have to drag their feet through any origin stories. Instead, Whedon seems to enjoy dropping these familiar in one room and watching what happens next.

Who wants to get some shawarma?