Almost completely soulless flash, bang, wallop

Rating: 6/10 (18 May 2015)

(53%) Could the original live up to all that build up in all those many, many films? Well it got close, but not quite as it was near impossible. So how does its sequel fair? Well instead of Thor having something to do with the world nearly ending this time it's old iron balls, but apart from that this is more or less a sliver of super simple plot stretched out for well over two hours. Because the story is so narrow and the length is so long this feels the need to stuff as much comic book based claptrap as possible meaning much will go over most people's head with things just sort of happing without any real logic. Oddly though this doesn't feel like a comic book of the screen, much more a video game with tons and tons of CG based action interrupted only by character interactions that feel more like cut scenes than actual parts of an actual movie. Much of what happens takes place in many different locations throughout the world, but there's so little sense of the vast distances between them that they may as well be in the very next room (or studio). Though with that said the good cast do attempt to bring something out, but there's so little substance that it's a losing battle (both Thor and captain America in particular do very little indeed besides fight robots). In terms of very basic entertainment this does the job, but in terms of anything deep, interesting, or memorable there's next to nothing to see here meaning the inevitable next entry really needs to get its act together otherwise the series has no future.