Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Review

Spoiler Free Review, Spoiler Thoughts at the End  

After waiting a painfully slow three years, the world’s mightiest heroes finally re-assemble for Avengers: Age of Ultron, a sequel not only to 2012’s The Avengers, but the one to cap off Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. My expectations couldn’t have been higher, and while I can’t say it lives up to all the hype, Age of Ultron was a fun, epic, jam-packed summer blockbuster with huge ambition and the signature Marvel elements fans have come to expect.

The plot in a nutshell is Tony Stark has designed an artificial intelligence (A.I.) called Ultron to protect the earth so the Avengers don’t have to, but when Ultron gains sentience and decides the planet must be destroyed, the Avengers assemble to stop him. Along the way, new kids on the block Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver enter the fray. Ultron puts his master plan into action, and the Avengers must throw everything and everyone they have at him to try and save the world.  

Writer-Director Joss Whedon did a fantastic job wrangling all these superheroes together for one movie, and he successfully does so once again, but this time, thrusts even more characters into the mix. The addition of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch wasn’t particularly thrilling, but they weren’t bad. Their accents took me out of the movie at times (especially when Elizabeth Olsen [Scarlet Witch] slips into an American accent) but they did contribute to the story and were built up well by the end. All the main heroes make a welcome return—I’ll break down each one and explain how I felt about them.

The Good:

Iron Man was in Age of Ultron more than he was in Iron Man 3, which is a big plus. Tony Stark has a number of excellent quips and jokes—maybe not as many as previous films—but he’s still my favourite Avenger. Hulk is back, though not present throughout the whole film as much as I had anticipated. He still hulks out more than in the first Avengers, destroys tons of stuff, and is fun to watch. It felt like Bruce Banner had a more limited role than before, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Black Widow and he have an interesting relationship, and she gets more character development. Captain America had plenty of great scenes and there was a bit of back and forth between Tony Stark that I’m sure is only a taste of what we’ll see in Captain America: Civil War. But perhaps the biggest and most pleasant surprise of all was Hawkeye’s role. He’s given a lot more to do than just be brainwashed, and becomes a much more rounded character and kicks a lot more ass.

The Bad:

Sort of like the first Avengers, Thor just shows up and is hanging out with the Avengers and fighting with them, and there’s no explanation about how or why he’s there. It’s not that he doesn’t do anything cool—he is mighty in all the fight scenes—it’s just that the bulk of Thor’s role in Age of Ultron feels like its setup for an upcoming film (looking at you, Thor: Ragnarok) and there’s a scene teased in the trailer with him going into a pool in a cave that felt like a weird detour from the main plot and lacked much explanation.

As for the main villain, the evil A.I. known as Ultron, my response to his role is mixed-to-positive. Unlike last time where the villain (Loki) had already been set up in Thor, this as much an Ultron origin story as it is an Avengers film. Unfortunately, a lot of Ultron’s story is glossed over in the first act of this film, and it’s one of the main downfalls.

In fact, the entire first act feels rushed—there’s so much going on and so much is stuffed into this first act that I found it jarring and almost confusing. There’s no substantial follow-up on The Winter Soldier and how Captain America’s pursuit of him is going, there’s no follow-up on Tony Stark not really being Iron Man anymore at the end of Iron Man 3, and the whereabouts of the other Avengers—what’s Bruce Banner been doing all this time, does everyone know Nick Fury almost died not that long ago—is ignored. The film drops the audience in the middle of a huge action sequence and goes from there.

But once the first act is finished and Ultron has been established, the film starts sorting itself out and improving. Ultron has plenty of great dialogue and exudes menace, but he also has fun moments and tries to make jokes. It might sound dumb, but it actually works very well. In my opinion, Ultron is the best villain from Marvel’s Phase Two, but I wanted more scenes with him in it and a little more one-on-one interaction with his creator, Tony Stark. Ultron is almost like Tony Stark from the first Iron Man, in a way, because he’s cocky and still learning, only he’s doing what he’s doing for the wrong reasons.

There’s one other character I won’t go into too much detail here but will mention because he’s been teased in the trailers and has his own poster and is no longer a secret, and that character is The Vision. In short, he is my new favourite hero in the M.C.U. and was extremely awesome. I wanted more from the character—what his range of abilities are, for example—but what we do get of him is great, and I don’t regret having bought a shirt with him on it just so I could wear it to the movie.

Age of Ultron has tons of great action scenes, an entertaining villain, and more of the one-liners and humour present in the first Avengers. While this is all positive, it’s also negative in a way. There is an element of “we’ve seen this before”, but there’s just no replicating the sheer awesomeness of seeing the Avengers team up for the first time. Age of Ultron is like a thanksgiving feast. There’s so much good stuff all in one meal, that by the time you’re done eating, you might forget about how great some parts were because you’re so full. It’s easy to forget the basic concept of all these heroes in one movie is really quite spectacular. But looking at it objectively, Age of Ultron is not as well-refined as the first Avengers, and has some notable flaws. This doesn’t make the fun parts any less fun, but it gets excessive in some regards, while feeling stingy on other fronts.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a solid summer blockbuster superhero film—certainly the biggest Marvel film since the last Avengers—and if you’re a fan of the first one, chances are you’ll enjoy this one. If you aren’t a Marvel die-hard, you might want to wait until the blu ray.

SPOILERS BELOW

With my spoiler-free review out of the way, now I’ll get into some specific things I liked and disliked. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

To elaborate on The Vision, I just wished he was in it more. His creation was well handled—even more intriguing than Ultron’s own birth, I found—and the way he embodies elements of all the heroes was really cool. Thanks to Thor’s lightning and the body Ultron built, he’s super-powered, but also a really good guy like Captain America. I can’t wait to see more from The Vision in future Marvel films—hopefully sooner than later.

Ultron’s ultimate plan came off as a little farfetched, even for a film where, as Hawkeye says, they’re on a floating city fighting an army of robots and he has a bow and arrow. The idea to destroy earth with a chunk of land acting as a meteor is fine, but the concern the Avengers have is that the higher the chunk of land goes, the more likely it is to wipe out the whole planet when it falls back down. The meteor that killed the dinosaurs (which Ultron referenced) was the size of Mount Everest. That little piece of land was nowhere near that size, but I suppose the Vibranium he used would make it more destructive, and once I realized that, I sort of found it easier to believe. I’m sure Ultron thought of that.

This brings me to my next big problem. If Ultron is so smart, and can delete all the files on Tony Stark’s computer, and can build an army of robots and fly a chunk of earth into the sky to turn into a meteor, why doesn’t he just set off a whole bunch of nukes and blow up earth that way? It’s even mentioned that he has access to nuke codes and could do that. Wouldn’t that have been simpler? I guess it could be argued that Ultron is trying to have some fun, given that is like a kid, in a sense, but his plan seemed, even for a Marvel film, a little implausible.  

But Ultron was awesome nonetheless, and I’m sure we will see more of him. There’s a reason they didn’t show Vision kill that last Ultron drone. I would say chances are good he will return.

And speaking of returning characters, what kind of spoiler talk would this be if I didn’t discuss the mid-credits scene? My cousin and I speculated over what it might be, and we were confident it would have something to do with Ant-Man or maybe even the new Spider-Man. After all, Ant-Man needs a boost. A mid-credits scene at the end of the biggest movie of the summer would do that.

Nope. Get a load of this, Joss Whedon says.

My jaw literally dropped and I let out an audible gasp when I realized I was looking at the INFINITY GAUNTLET. And then THANOS puts his hand in it and says he’ll do it himself. Of course this means he’s going to go get the infinity stones (explained some more in this film), put them in his infinity gauntlet, and rule the universe.

At first, I was really, really angry they teased Thanos AGAIN! Mark Ellis on AMC Movie Talk made a comment about hoping they didn’t tease him once more in an end-credits scene, and I agreed. But having thought about it some more, I think teasing Thanos again was a bold but good choice. It came completely out of nowhere, and at the same time, made perfect sense. Of course Thanos showed up, the whole movie has essentially been about the mind gem, and Marvel has been setting up the Infinity War for several movies now. We saw Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy last year, and here he is again, still lurking around, but now we know his endgame has been put into action, which sets the tone for Phase Three. This might be the best mid-credits scene in any Marvel film yet.

...Only have to wait three more years for Avengers: Infinity War......Part 1.......