What happens when you assemble some of the biggest B-team superheroes on the silverscreen for one of the biggest blockbusters of all time?

More explosions and action than you can shake a stick at; a little bit of crazy; some humor and all in all a pretty good superhero movie courtesy of director Joss Whedon.

“The Avengers” should not work. With so many egoes crammed into one film, it’s easy to lose focus. For those who forgot, the Avengers consist of Captain America (Chris Evans), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). And to be honest, it does get crowded at times with so many backstories and unresolved issues floating around. But with a little help from an unlikely source, in the end it works.

Starting with the first scene, “The Avengers” is packed with action sequences. Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who apparently fell right out of Asgard (at the end of “Thor”) and into Crazy Town, makes a grand entrance via the Tesseract (that blue cube from “Captain America: The First Avenger”) and begins wreaking havoc. Of course, he escapes and promises to unleash the Other’s (Alexis Denisof) Chitauri army on Earth.

What follows is pretty astounding, and we learn a valuable lesson about power in numbers. An amazing thing happens when you assemble too many superheroes in one film, the supervillian pulls focus.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki, steals this film. Despite the character’s departure from his motivations in “Thor,” Hiddleston manages to pull off a convincing and believable performance. With every one-on-one conversation with each of the Avengers, he gains power. To put it simply, he makes evil look good.

It may not be the greatest superhero film of all time, but it’s entertaining and provides the opportunity to answer some crazy “what if” questions. For example: who would win in a fight between Captain America, Thor and Iron Man? Answer: no one.

And at the very least, it’s good enough to set up “The Avengers 2.”
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…just for fun: