Its Rotten Tomato rating is a lot better than I feared when I read the Guardian review.
I think the technical movie term is "schlock." There's a place for that in the Hollywood ecosystem - often a very lucrative one. I thought the Avengers wasn't much different. Far too many characters, too much CGI, mostly poor characterisation (save Loki and a lot of his characterisation was assumed from Thor).
I actually think he needs a schlocky success. Money talks and he has had a lot of financial duds recently.