So much money, so little meat...

Rating: 2/10 (16 November 2014)

Sometimes I do not get the ratings at all on the site. This film was. without a doubt, the most overrated film I have ever seen, and that is saying a lot since I have been an avid film watcher for 60 years.
I am used to comic based films as being somewhat thin on the depth of plot, lack of character development (I suppose one is expected to be a comic reader to fill in the gaps...I am not), and filled with a plenitude of special effects to wow the audience, taking their attention away from the actual film not being that good. That said, at least a newbie to the story line of the comic book being portrayed can get some minimal entertainment from the film genre. This film did not even provide that.
I was embarrassed for the actors who apparently knew only two degrees of acting: recite the lines with no emotional involvement or overact every single line from the simplest to the more emotionally complex (of which there were few). It was painful for me to see the art so debased.
The dialog itself was sophomoric and clichéd, requiring only a third grade education to comprehend. The film editing subtracted more than it added to the film. While there was much action in the film, the editing jumped too quickly between different shots of the action to get anything more than a vague sense that something was happening, with no real sense of the specifics of the action.
All in all, at $170,000,000, Marvel could and should have done something to engage more than a superficial response in their audience , which began and ended with opening their wallets to pay to see this $170,000,000 travesty. I gave it 2 stars only because of the film's budget and took away 8 because it proves that spending that kind of money still cannot create a film with any redeeming social or intellectual value whatsoever.