Age of Ultron's issues start popping up in the opening sequence. Though the fight is very well choreographed, it manages to weaken the ending to Winter Soldier and start a cringe-inducing running gag with "Language!" The film kicks off with The Avengers going after what is apparently the last HYDRA base, which feels like there's a film missing. The last appearance of HYDRA in Winter Soldier had them still as this massive organization where we have only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg. Here, however, we jump straight to HYDRA's last stand. It doesn't add anything to the film that this is their last stand instead of just another raid on a major HYDRA base and feels rushed to just get them out of the way for whatever they have planned going forward.
Rushed is a good description for most of the film up to the third act, really. Unfortunately, instead of feeling like a film that's just constantly moving (ex. The Dark Knight), it feels rushed. Ultron's creation, though a really good scene, is one of the worst cases of this. I'll go into that more when I talk about Ultron later though. Apparently an hour or more of the film was left on the cutting room floor and it really shows.
Steve I think this film handles well but there's not a whole lot to say. He's the moral center of the film, as he should be. Evans plays the part well, as always. The language joke was awful every time they went back to it. Seeds were planted for Civil War and I thought it felt natural, building on points from Winter Soldier in regards to innocent people dying (...yeah, right. We'll get to that later.) when people try to stop a war before it starts. I do have another issue with him and other characters, however I'm going to address that when talking about Tony.
I think this film attempted to do potentially interesting things with Stark but came up short. Rather than Ultron being a Frankenstein's Monster kind of situation, Stark simply switches him on. This, unfortunately, gives Stark much less to feel guilty about than the film tries to tell you. I think it would have been more effective, since we're ignoring Pym as his creator anyway, if Stark just created him. But I'll deal with Ultron more later, lots to say about him. There's one scene when Stark wants to turn on Vision that just left me baffled as to what was going on. Everyone just...started fighting. It was like:
Tony: "I want to turn on Vision!"
Banner: "No!"
Tony: "Yes!"
*Cap walks in*
Cap: "No!"
Hawkeye: "FIIIIIIIGHT!"
*Thor wanders in after a while*
Thor: "I'm gonna turn him on anyway!"
*Fight over*
I don't know why, it just started happening. And then it stopped. It didn't really accomplish anything, it didn't really add anything. Banner was needlessly involved even though he was opposing Stark moments seconds before. Maybe they were trying to do some kind of Civil War set up?
Thor...umm...was there. That's about it really. His side plot feels like an advertisement for future films. Scarlet Witch showed him the trailer for Thor: Ragnarok and so he goes and wades in a kiddie pool looking for the trailer of Infinity War. While the cave sequence plays a role with Vision, I don't think it was necessary to be handled the way it was and felt like the film paused to advertise future films to the audience that likely will be there anyway. Going back to my point about the film doing a poor job following up on Winter Soldier, it also brushes over a plot point of Thor: The Dark World. Between films, Selvig is just suddenly back to normal with no explanation.
Hulk, despite being one of the breakout hits of the first, was just kind of there as well for the most part. The only notable thing with him is his relationship with Black Widow so I'll talk about that. It's awful. Every scene about it had me cringing. Ruffalo and Johansson have no romantic chemistry and their relationship is so far out of left field that even they didn't know it was happening. Johansson has said in interviews that she doesn't get that relationship and why it happened, if memory serves. She even convinced the Russos to give Widow a Hawkeye necklace in Winter Soldier to point to them having a relationship. And Widow wanting to run away with him was far too sudden, they've been dating for
2 days? 3 days? It felt out of character for her and much to quick regardless. Oh and so Fury somehow knew this was going to happen? ...kay. This just simply did not work on any level. There's also the distinct feeling with him of retreading old ground. He's not really pushed in any new directions.
There was a lot of controversy about Black Widow and, though I don't agree with it, I can see why. I like the idea of her not being able to have kids because of that program. It makes sense, it works fine. However, how it's phrased in that scene doesn't do it any favours with "You're not the only monster" coming right after a line about how she can't have kids. I can see how it'd lead people to think that was what was being referred to, though I really doubt that was the intent. It was simply a poorly executed delivery of that information. The flashes we got of her backstory were good, however I'm glad I watched Agent Carter prior as otherwise they feel a bit too brushed over. While they don't really take up any more or less time than the other visions, due to her lack of an origin-explaining solo film, the quick flashes feel too brief when it feels like there may be more to explore there. And though it wasn't the film's fault and I don't hold it against it, I'm not sure why Julie Delpy popped up there. She's a great actress but she has about three lines of dialogue and 5 seconds of screen time, I don't see why such a talented actress was needed for a nothing role. But back to Widow, I think she was serviceable her. Not really great but not bad. It felt like there was potential for her to be a lot better than she was. Winter Soldier did a better job with her.
Hawkeye was fun this time around, thankfully. Whereas he was a mind controlled puppet in the first with nothing to do, here he actually got things and Renner did a great job. He was funny (pretty sure his bit about shooting Quicksilver at the end there was the funniest part of the film) and his family was well handled. I can't say I'm overall fond of this element, however despite that it was well executed.
Scarlet Witch was probably my favourite character in this film. She was simply well handled, I thought, and Elizabeth Olsen did a great job. Loved her scene with Ultron Prime at the end, taking out his heart. Not too much to say about her though, I just really enjoyed her.
Quicksilver seems like he was good on paper. He got an arc, a funny moment or two. Could have been a good character. Unfortunately, they hired Aaron Taylor Johnson for the part. ATJ has the charisma of a cardboard cutout in this role, much like Godzilla.
Maybe I would have liked Vision more had he not been hyped up for me. As is though, he was fine. He was...there. That's really about it. He had a really good moment with the last Ultron drone at the end, the makeup and effects on him were good, but overall he's just fine. I don't know, maybe it's just because of all the hype for him, but he was just fine to me.
Ultron...oh god where to begin. Ultron, sadly, joins the ranks of Marvel's mediocre villains. They cast the perfect actor for him, however they don't really do anything interesting with him. The scene where Ultron turns on and is confused is pretty well handled. He's scared, trying to figure out what's going on. It was a good scene. Unfortunately, it does feel too rushed. In this scene he almost instantly jumps from a quest for peace as programmed and quickly just jumping to "must exterminate Avengers so humanity can evolve" with no progression. Later in the film, he jumps again with no progression from the previous motivation to "must cause extinction-level event so humanity can evolve." It just doesn't give you enough time to understand him. It tries to make him childish and I'll touch on what I think is the intent with that later but they do nothing with it. The film tries to imply Stark imprinted on him and that's why he shares elements of Stark's personality, however Stark doesn't even interact with him prior to him going rogue. As I said before, they should have gone with more of a Frankenstein's monster type of situation instead of Stark pretty much just hitting the on button. It tries to make this personal with Ultron but there is no relationship with him to make it as personal as it tells you this is. And to top it all off, he's just not threatening. This surprised me the most, as the trailers made him seem like he would be and they cast someone who could easily pull that off. But in the film, he's not in the slightest. He's ineffective, constantly getting beaten at every turn and he never seems like a threat to the team or the world. Even his CGI is often spotty (on the Prime form) and the lip sink off. Ultron is a massive missed opportunity.
Fury being in this was odd and yet another element that weakened the ending of Winter Soldier. Winter Soldier disbands SHIELD and Fury goes off into hiding, everyone thinking he's dead. Here he just pops back up again with a helicarrier and it really doesn't feel like what should have been universe-changing events from Winter Soldier had any lasting impact.
Speaking of the helicarrier, let's talk about the climax. The climax was well choreographed, as was most of the action, and overall enjoyable. However, it really did have a lack of stakes. Ultron is supposedly such a big threat, however it seems not a single person in the city dies. I kept an eye out after wondering about it and didn't see a single body. The Avengers seemed able to save everyone. This doesn't really lend itself to Ultron feeling like a threat. The only casualty of the battle was Quicksilver and that had no effect as the character was played by a plank of wood with a face drawn on it. I think it would have been more effective and dramatic to have had the Avengers unable to save everybody. Have civilians actually die and the Avengers unable to save them. I think that would have added to the climax, made Ultron feel more like a threat and had more drama than Quicksilver's death.
As I said I would talk about in the paragraph about Ultron, the film I think attempts some kind of family theme but doesn't manage to pull it off or say anything. I say this because Whedon often talked about how Ultron is child-like and it comes through in the film, even with references about how Stark is like his father. Combine this with the introduction of Hawkeye's family, the twins, the settling down talk during Cap's hallucination and Natasha not being able to have kids and I think there was some kind of point he wanted to make. However, nothing is said. They do nothing with this and the film has nothing else to say thematically so I assume this was what Whedon wanted to do with this film. It just, unfortunately, isn't fully realized. Or even partially realized. It just...is there kind of.
The cinematography, as with most Marvel movies, is too digital looking. Too polished and clean.
Despite all these complaints, I don't think that Age of Ultron is a bad film. It's fun. The action scenes are well choreographed, there's some good humour and certain scenes are really good (ex. Ultron's awakening, Scarlet Witch taking Ultron Prime's heart, Vision and Ultron at the end). It's just easier to talk about the flaws for the most part. My good points don't leave much to discuss really. As with the first, there are a lot of good ideas but they're rarely well executed. It's a shame, as I think the film is one or two drafts away from a great film. As is, it's a fun but greatly flawed film. 6.8/10
), this film was such a mixed bag for me at times.
