Avengers: Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014)

Producers: Kevin Feige, Victoria Alonso, Stan Lee, et al.

Director: Joss Whedon

Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action, violence and destruction, and for some suggestive comments

Runtime: 141 min

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Comic

The Avengers are back, and right off the bat you get to see them in action. The opening sequence reintroduced us to a team that has been working together for a while, and it shows in their tactics. One of the things about the first Avengers that bothered me was the lack of team work. I think there was one instance of two heroes combining their abilities to take down enemies in the first film, there are several in the sequel; serving to highlight their growing familiarity with each other. The initial action sequence also brought to light one of the difficulties of working in such a huge shared universe. At the end of Iron Man 3 Tony retired and destroyed his suits. Here we are in Age of Ultron and he's right back in the thick of things without an explanation for his return. Just an acknowledgment from someone else on the team that this was his return to action would have been preferable to ignoring the situation entirely.

The villain of the film, Ultron, was short-changed in they early development of his character. Upon capturing Loki's scepter from Baron von Strucker, Tony and Bruce decide to use the properties of the staff to create a true artificial intelligence. Their first attempts are unsuccessful and with a celebration looming they leave JARVIS to continue their work. Tony's program and the capabilities of the staff are merged while all of the heroes are occupied and Ultron is born. Ultron and Jarvis have a verbal confrontation as Ultron undergoes a Leeloo-esque education on the state of the world. He immediately decides that the only way to fulfill his mission of world peace is to rid the planet of humans. Ultron goes full Skynet in a matter of moments, and I was left wondering how many Hollywood blockbusters would be entirely different films if the inventors depicted in them had read a little Isaac Asimov.

The new additions to the cast all leave you caring about them. Andy Serkis' brief appearance has me excited to see what he can do in a villainous role in the upcoming Black Panther. The Maximoff twins were manipulated by different villains until they made their way to the light side, and the progression worked with what the audience is told about their lives. James Spader brought equal amounts of humor and a sinister tone to Ultron. I was left feeling as though he had too many jokes and one-liners, although I suppose as a creation of Tony Stark some part of his personality leaking through makes sense. Vision was amazing, a being that possesses that much power but was, as he mentioned, “born yesterday” had to played with a strangely confidence naivete that Paul Bettany conveyed wonderfully. The moment after he was born when he looked at Thor and decided he'd like to have a cape too, so he materialized one out of thin air encapsulated his child-like side.

Most of the preexisting characters are much as we remember them, with the notable exception being Hawkeye. After getting shafted in the character development area in the first Avengers a lot of time is spent making us care about him. He has a personal side the audience never suspected and an entertaining awareness of his own apparent shortcomings in a group like the Avengers. Black Widow was also a recipient of some much needed back story that made me more confident than ever that a Natasha Romanoff led movie could be successful. The romance between Natasha and Bruce Banner was a little forced. Not because I didn't understand the motivation, they both view themselves as monsters in their own way, more because Scarlett Johannson and Mark Ruffalo didn't seem to have much on screen chemistry. The only returning character that rubbed me the wrong way was Don Cheadle's War Machine. I don't know if it was his sullen reaction when his story of taking out a tank wasn't met with guffaws from the Avengers, or something else, but I just couldn't get into his character this time around. Which is strange since I've enjoyed his previous appearances in Iron Man movies. His inclusion in the film felt obligatory since Marvel needs every hero they can find for the upcoming Captain America: Civil War.

Speaking of setting up future movies, for the most part the attempts to do so succeed in Age of Ultron. It wasn't as prevalent as I expected, but the philosophical differences between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers will make for a compelling story. Andy Serkis' Ulysses Klaue will most likely serve as the main villain in Black Panther, and getting some of the development for him out of the way will allow that movie to focus on its hero more. The one swing-and-a-miss I saw in the setups for future films involved Thor, whose upcoming Ragnarok has the potential to really shake-up the MCU. The teases of his future were disjointed and incomplete, giving the audience no idea of what to expect, or a reason to be excited for what's to come.

The final battle was what you'd expect from an Avengers movie. The need to differentiate itself from Man of Steel's disregard for collateral damage got a little old, but served to add a different dynamic to a fight the audience knew the Avengers would win. I had hoped Ultron would provide more of a threat to the team as an individual than he did. We've already seen this group beat down hordes of generic enemies, earlier in this very movie and during the Chitauri invasion from the first film, so I was really hoping for a villain powerful enough to threaten the entire group. None of that is to say that the action was disappointing, it wasn't. There was more teamwork than before and the new characters meant new powers, so there were fresh and inventive ways for the enemies to be ripped apart. I was just looking for something different in the overall type of action we got.

Conclusion: Whereas Avengers was the culmination of Phase One of the MCU, Avengers: Age of Ultron felt more like an intermission. I realize one of the Infinity Stones makes an appearance, and that there was a lot of setup for future movies, but overall it felt more like a standalone movie than the rest of Marvel's recent offerings. It wasn't as dark as the trailers led me to believe, which was a good thing, the humor came at the right times, even if the source of the humor was odd at times. The new characters, and the deeper exploration of some existing ones, left me feeling better about the fate of the MCU after old favorites move on to other things.

Rating: 8/10