Starting to get a little dry

Rating: 7/10 (17 May 2015)

I must admit that for all of the hype that was leading up to this film I didn't feel that it came out all that great. Maybe it is that I have never really liked superhero movies, though some of the Marvel Universe offerings have been pretty good. However, all I can say is that this one was okay. I guess there is only so many times that you can have a bunch of superheroes get together and start beating up bad guys. Also, when you have a bunch of superheroes collaborating then you must have something pretty bad to send them up against because, well, they are superheroes so they tend to stand out from the crowd anyway, and your typical petty criminal generally can't stand up to them.
I guess Wheldon had a real task in bringing this film together since not only was he trying to bring together a number of strands from the Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America story lines, he is also trying to work with three major characters as well and giving them the screen time that affords their character is difficult at best. Personally, I'm not sure if he managed to do it all that well, though unlike the previous installment, Iron Man wasn't dominating the action this time.
However, while we had Hydra from the Captain America films, and the infinity stones from Thor, the Iron Man story line seemed to dominate. Loki, who had a major part in the first film, does not make an appearance, and Hydra is shut down pretty quickly. Instead we have Iron Man and his buddy Bruce Banner sitting down to create this super artificial intelligence to bring peace to the world. As can be expected with most (okay all) experiments with artificial intelligence in Hollywood films, this one goes off with his own idea as to how he is going to bring peace to the world.
Mind you, I didn't necessarily hate this film, it was just that it didn't really meet my expectations. I probably should have learnt my lesson by now that if I anticipate a film too much then it is going to disappoint me. I probably should also mention that the tie ins with the other films can also be problematic at best, namely because you may need to remember things from the previous films to be able to understand parts of this film. Okay, it does work as a stand-alone, however a part of me feels that unless you have seen the Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man films you may be a little lost, and also a little confused as to why these guys are working together. While it may still be an enjoyable movie if you come in at this late stage in the series, you may need to go back to the beginning to get an idea of what brought them up to this point.