It also does a very good job of flowing from one character moment to another. A fried of mine noticed something I hadn't, recently: "this is just a scene of som

It also does a very good job of flowing from one character moment to another. A fried of mine noticed something I hadn't, recently: "this is just a scene of some Avengers doing team-up stuff in some combination, then one of a single Avenger personally beating Loki, repeat until every Avenger has beaten Loki, culminating in the Hulk". That could be dull but, crucially, each of these differs from the others, whether by significantly varying the setting, or the way the characters fight, or the sort of bad guy they're fighting. It's also excellent at both short and long term setup and payoff, at least in minor ways, several times completing such an arc in a single scene—which is what you're supposed to do in just about any scene if you can swing it, of course, but many filmmakers seem to forget that, especially once the CGI explosions start. It may be paint by numbers but at least they, you know, actually paint every number, as if they are, if nothing else, very good and professional number-painters. Contrast, say, Man of Steel, where it's mostly just one or the other of two dudes getting smashed or laser-blasted through/onto something hard, over, and over, and over. Or Age of Ultron, which has more variety and setup/payoff than Man of Steel (not a high bar to top), but is still way worse—clumsier and more slapdash, might be a good way to put it—than Avengers. [EDIT] and yes of course you're very much correct, the pacing of the final fight in Avengers is part of the variety that keeps it from becoming a slog. The plotting and editing work on that whole sequence is damn impressive. It could probably be the main subject of a whole class on modern action storytelling in film—if you for some reason can't just use the entirety of Mad Max: Fury Road as your key work instead.