Age of Ultron Avengers: Age of Ultron Fan Review Thread (Spoilers) - Part 1

[MrB]

I absolutely loved this movie. It was my favourite movie of 2015.

 

[Leo Zelinsky]

Civil War really made this movie better to me.

Before CW I'd give this a 7.9

After CW I'd give this a 8.6


Switching up Thor's subplot (I didn't mind it but the execution was bad and that pool was dumb and he explained the stones really poorly. The Collector did it excellently)

Toning down a few jokes and making Ultron a little more powerful he was very easily defeated every time he fought.

But I now love this movie and would rather watch it over the origin film.

 

[First Avenger]

Civil War really made this movie better to me.

Before CW I'd give this a 7.9

After CW I'd give this a 8.6


Switching up Thor's subplot (I didn't mind it but the execution was bad and that pool was dumb and he explained the stones really poorly. The Collector did it excellently)

Toning down a few jokes and making Ultron a little more powerful he was very easily defeated every time he fought.

But I now love this movie and would rather watch it over the origin film.

I think they did good by not explaining the Infinity Stones again,but yeah the Water of Sights scene is a bit too awkward in the context of the movie, that's probably why it's so short. I always loved the movie but I think this,TWS and CW really make for a great sub-trilogy in the MCU. They just work beautifully for me together thematically.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

It feels a bit weird watching this again after Civil War.
I don't know how to put it, but it's about the characters relationship between this and that shortly after.

 

[scarlet-witch]

It feels a bit weird watching this again after Civil War.
I don't know how to put it, but it's about the characters relationship between this and that shortly after.

When I rewatch it, I just see the seeds planted for Civil War. Especially Cap and Tony disagreeing.

 

[Awest66]

When I rewatch it, I just see the seeds planted for Civil War. Especially Cap and Tony disagreeing.

I agree.

 

[King23DC]

BvS and SS makes any issues in AOU seem like nothing.

Theatrical version, which is truncated? Sure.

BvS Ultimate Edition, however? Easily better than AOU.

Even down to the mutually pointless, duel plot derailing Thor Bath scene and the Knightmare sequence.

The latter while unnecessary or redundant, still informs motivations, and is a much more imaginative as well as entertaining scene.

SS however is dog crap.

 

[Erzengel]

While I did think the Ultimate Edition was better than the Theaterical release, I still found it pretty joyless. In the end, if both AOU and BvS were on and it was the last 30-40 minutes left, I'd watch the AOU end battle. I wouldn't be annoyed after the B vs S. fight.

 

[King23DC]

While I did think the Ultimate Edition was better than the Theaterical release, I still found it pretty joyless. In the end, if both AOU and BvS were on and it was the last 30-40 minutes left, I'd watch the AOU end battle. I wouldn't be annoyed after the B vs S. fight.

Why does it have to be joy filled? Just because it has the Batman and Superman? The former isn't a joy filled character to begin with.

DCEU is purposely, at least the Synder films, designed as the anti thesis to the MCU. It's dark and gritty reflection. Deconstructing it's heroes.

The DC universe exists more in our own grounded effed up world. Which makes it socio and political commentary more intriguing. As well as the threats more frightening or engaging. Yet it still has the over the top comic book elements.

It just doesn't have quip, meta humor, and tension deflating joke over load. That on the surface make the MCU more likable. But they don't strive for the same heights of greatness.

Marvel films are joyful and easier to consume. Especially on first viewing when the jokes are fresh.

But rewatch ability is poor on most of them, and there is little in the way of substance or nuance. BvS is dark and gritty. Even joyless. But I also think it's better as a film. The true Ultimate Edition though. Possibly ahead of it's time. Long term without the excess forced humor like most Marvel films, it could age better.

 

[Erzengel]

I find that BvS has poor rewatch ability. Most of the recent MCU films on cable, TWS, AOU, GOTG, Ant-Man, I could just stop and watch anywhere in the film. It's a chore to watch BvS even in the Ultimate Edition.

And I understand that Batman is dark and gritty character. However, I have no issues watching the TDKT or Mask of the Phantasm, or Burton's Batman or even Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

 

[Erzengel]

I also disagree that BvS will somehow age better.

And I've said this before, when the current cinematic landscape has 6 movies of the same genre being released every year, it's hard for people to look back on the heavily criticized one from a few years ago especially when it's contemporaries are rated by critic and fan as higher.

 

[King23DC]

I also disagree that BvS will somehow age better.

And I've said this before, when the current cinematic landscape has 6 movies of the same genre being released every year, it's hard for people to look back on the heavily criticized one from a few years ago especially when it's contemporaries are rated by critic and fan as higher.

Look at the critical response of Batman Returns 25 years later ...

 

[Erzengel]

Look at the critical response of Batman Returns 25 years later ...

Even back then Batman Returns wasn't lambasted by critics. Not as good? Too dark? Maybe but never bad.

I just don't see how especially post internet, post social media, that somehow people will come around on BvS.

Even so, 25 years later, how many more CBMs are we going to get?

 

[TeeKay]

Thor's subplot derailed the plot but also informed him about the infinity Stones and Vision who he woke up layer in the film. It was set up and paid off. Though it could have been written better. If you remove it from the film, then you start questioning where 0 Thor was during the Soul sequence and why he suddenly appears and wakes Vision up.

You could have cut out the Knight mare sequence in BvS and it wouldn't have made a difference. It was unnecessary, confusing and cane outta nowhere especially when Flash appears.

 

[Filmfan93]

Theatrical version, which is truncated? Sure.

BvS Ultimate Edition, however? Easily better than AOU.

Even down to the mutually pointless, duel plot derailing Thor Bath scene and the Knightmare sequence.

The latter while unnecessary or redundant, still informs motivations, and is a much more imaginative as well as entertaining scene.

SS however is dog crap.

BvS UE doesn't change much about the movie and doesn't remove its fundamental flaws that ruin it.

 

[moreorless]

Honestly the Thor subplot for me is small enough that I don't think it has a significant impact on the film, especially at the point its introduced.

I would tend to agree that the film carries a bit more weight in retrospect knowing whats coming afterwards. The climax and really the whole Ultron character/plot do feel a bit underwritten to me not really selling his nature of indeed his threat as well as I think could have been. It actually ends up being the early/mid stages of the film that carry most of its rewatchability for me.

Writing wise I do tend to think Whedon does go to the metahumour well a bit too often(although I'v less probablem with it here than in Abrams Trek or Starwars) and does I think drop the odd clunky line. The Widow/Banner romance being perhaps an example of the latter at points but obviously has the benefit of the actors to sell it.

 

[slowdyingflower]

Does anyone know where this image appears in the movie? I'm writing a paper and I've rewatched the film but I must have missed it.

 

[seriesofdreams]

BvS UE doesn't change much about the movie and doesn't remove its fundamental flaws that ruin it.

I mean, at the end of the day, a bad movie is still a bad movie. All the extra footage did was prolong my boredom (and agony).

As for AOU. We get off to a riproar of a start until the now infamous Hawkeye's farm scene, which I would've been fine with had it been shorter and didn't stall the movie so much. I think a lot of the Banner/Widow stuff also bogged the film down as well. The Thor scene seems out of place, perhaps that could've been a credits scene. At any pace, the scene just kind of happens and doesn't distract from the main narrative it's just....there.

Don't get met wrong, Ultron is a good villain. Spader does him justice, but I agree with an earlier poster that he is a bit underwritten. There should have been more to the Vision/Ultron relationship. Could have made him more menacing and underscored his utter disdain for humankind.

Just my two cents for an otherwise good, albeit flawed second installment to A1. We've since picked up momentum from it with Cap: Civil War and the latest GOTG so we're doing just fine leading into my most anticipated film of the year, RAGNOROK!

 

[moreorless]

Spader certainly gives Ultron personality but I never felt the film really nailed down the drama around him falling back too easily into the "Skynet with attitude" plot. I think it could have done for example with playing up more the idea that he's inherited a lot of Starks personality becoming more of a twisted mirror of him.

I actually felt that the twins plot was a lot more successful, there motivation is clearer and Scarlet Witches mind manipulation presented a much more interesting thread. The Thor section was a bit pointless but the Stark and Widow ones were both very effective and I wouldnt have minded see more focus on them.

I don't really have a problem with the farm scenes personally, I think the film needs to slow down at that point and its generally the kind of thing that Whedon does best.

The whole climax to me seems a bit rushed, Ultron kidnapping BW especially seems like a big missed opportunity. it ends up as simply being a way of locating him when it could obviously have been an opportunity to show his motivation more clearly and indeed to follow up more on her earlier flashbacks. When the action does kick off I don't think its ever really desperate enough, not to the degree its easy to buy the idea that self sacrifice maybe needed to beat Ultron

 

[JtheDreamer]

Spader certainly gives Ultron personality but I never felt the film really nailed down the drama around him falling back too easily into the "Skynet with attitude" plot. I think it could have done for example with playing up more the idea that he's inherited a lot of Starks personality becoming more of a twisted mirror of him.

I actually felt that the twins plot was a lot more successful, there motivation is clearer and Scarlet Witches mind manipulation presented a much more interesting thread. The Thor section was a bit pointless but the Stark and Widow ones were both very effective and I wouldnt have minded see more focus on them.

I don't really have a problem with the farm scenes personally, I think the film needs to slow down at that point and its generally the kind of thing that Whedon does best.

The whole climax to me seems a bit rushed, Ultron kidnapping BW especially seems like a big missed opportunity. it ends up as simply being a way of locating him when it could obviously have been an opportunity to show his motivation more clearly and indeed to follow up more on her earlier flashbacks. When the action does kick off I don't think its ever really desperate enough, not to the degree its easy to buy the idea that self sacrifice maybe needed to beat Ultron

The third act and final showdown with Ultron was sloppy and lacked focus, not to mentioned various half-baked sequences suffering from the editing. Got tired of watching Ultron get punted around like a football.

 

[simeon]

One of my favourite movies. Hulk always dominates and crushes !!

 

[Darkprime]

yea rewatched it a couple times recently you can tell Whedons heart just wasn't in it this time. It shows. The movie just looks depressed. Visually. Lots of dark and grey colouring.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

I feel as though my criticism will be much harsher than the average fan's. But it is what it is (my opinions).

Let me start by saying what I said in the unpopular film related opinion thread, in that this movie felt very much like filler. [blackout]whether or not this has to do with the rumors of av2 originally being the infinity wars and av3 being the civil war could definitely explain this reason of filler, but i don't know if it's true so that's that. just gotta go with with what we know. So what we know is...[/blackout] The first phase of the MCU spanned for 5 years. 2008-2012. Phase 2 is 2 years shorter, from 2013-2015.

Couple this with the fact that Iron Man had 2 films in the first phase, and as much as people try to argue he isn't the main character of the MCU, he definitely was in phase 1, I don't care what anyone says. Even if that's not what they intended, that's definitely the vibe they were giving. Cap1's end credit scene was nothing more but a teaser for av1, which makes me believe that while it is a good standalone film, it was essentially there to build up and set up for av1 - NOT in the same way as the iron man films were. that's the key thing here. thor was also a good movie, but the end credits has the message "thor will return in the avengers" - this line alone made the entire film feel like an amount up for av1 buildup.

TIH didn't do as well as the studios probably hoped, so phase 1 was really just iron man & his amazing friends, which ended with: the avengers.

now fast forward to the end of phase 2, which before antman, is av2. it almost felt like this film happened because it is a routine for marvel's phase to end with an avengers film. it did not feel organic.

it would've helped if there were maybe a few more sequels before the next avengers films. then the actual buildup would've felt like it had more merit. for instance, there is 1 iron man, 1 thor, and 1 cap movie each that happened before av2. which means each superhero went through 1 series of events before teaming up with the rest. i feel like i would've made more sense for them to have gone through a couple of solo events before they saw themselves teaming up with each other. which is to say, like how iron man had 2 films in phase 1, instead of him having 1, i'd rather all the rest have the same amount of exposure before the crossover.

and these are some of the things i've picked up from other reviews - the end of iron man 3 saw tony stark having an epiphany about being iron man but in av2, he's just being iron man like he always is. besides the 1 mention of the winter soldier in av2, there's no development of that story but i'll get into that later. and nothing reflects of thor's story - he just had his solo film and is right back to being with his team.

now, onto my analysis of the actual film. it starts off with an avengers action sequence...with barely any context. it's straight to the point but does not do much to explain how and why the heroes came together to do what they went to do.

similarly with av1, since I was not paying attention to the hype due to the lack of spiderman in the mcu, from watching the trailers I was under the impression that these heroes were coming together to face a fierce opponent. instead, they came together because of an army of superhuman proportion. now the same thing happened with av2. from watching the trailers, i was under the impression that ultron was going to be an extremely imposing threat, just on his own, but he wasn't nearly as menacing as he was made out to be in the teaser. this was basically another film about the avengers vs a superhero army - were those robots even supposed to have superhuman strength? cap was able to take on several of them on his own and hell, was even able to hold his own against ultron longer than he was when he was fighting loki. so is cap supposed to have some level of superhuman strength? that isn't made clear in the mcu, i know his powers came from something called the SUPERsoldier serum but I've been under the impression that it gave him peak human physicality. and if that is the case, I feel as though sometimes he is overpowered. and i'm not talking about that time he pulled that chunk of wood in half. that was cool. i mean how he's able to tear apart those robots and fight toe to toe with ultron.

ultron himself did not feel that menacing. he was a cool villain but he did not feel as much of a threat as he was made out to be. as a result, for me, it felt like the movie was dragging a bit.

i love that they did more with hawkeye this time around, but I hate that they wrote for him to have a wife and kids. not that there's anything wrong with an avenger and a superhero wanting to have a normal family (this ties into my complaint about hulk/widow), but they clearly made hawkeye and widow a thing in av1. but for av2 they just wrote him off as her bestie. i like romance, and I wish that it kept going strong with widow and hawkeye. they were a great match.

hulk and widow as a match felt god awful. so forced, so unnecessary. they was a clear mutual respect between these two characters by the end of av1, but no reason was there for them to become a couple. WHERE THE HELL IS BETTY ROSS?? GODDAMMIT. I hate how they're not doing anything with that character. recast her if you have to, but SHE is hulk's woman. she deserves to have a place in the mcu, and not be forgotten, and definitely not replaced with someone else like widow. ugh.

i like elizabeth olsen (she's so hot) and aaron taylor johnson, but frankly, their acting was not very good in this movie. my mother is a fob and i told her there would be two main characters in this film with accents and she'd have trouble understanding them. so we're watching the movie and the maximoff twins show up, having their scenes, but it wasn't until andy serkis's scene showed up when my mother asked "is this the character you were saying that has that accent?"

now with all this being said, notwithstanding that another version of quicksilver exists cinematically and i made a thread comparing the two, the way the character went out was lame. it should not have even happened. not just because he was a fresh new character to the mcu, but because the weight of his death wasn't even felt. the film quickly went on and transitioned. now, of course the film has to do this, but the part of the film where you'd see the weight of his death would be in scarlet's scenes. she had the breakdown where she went after ultron (and even after ripping out his "core" he didn't "die") later on we see her just becoming an avenger. i don't think it was stated how much time had passed at the end of the movie since the climax of the film, but regardless - she got over her beloved brother's death so quickly that his death felt very inconsequential to the film. it would have been better if it showed she was still grieving - moving on in some sort of way but not 100%.

and speaking of the climax of the film, why wasn't falcon there to help? war machine showed up to help, so why not falcon? the winter soldier *could* a viable reason here, but I feel like since he was already a part of the movie, cap would've contacted him about what happened after the party with ultron & such. falcon even said the avengers is not his world but his main objective is to help cap - and immediately, helping to fight ultron would've been just that.

I don't usually rate movies on a numerical scale but I'll say this. guardians, cap2, iron man1, & thor were all better movies than av2. i enjoyed all those movies more than this.

Been so long that I typed this out, but unfortunately I feel the same way. In fact looking back, I'll go so far as to saying Av2 is one of the worst films in the MCU.

 

[TheVileOne]

The Hulk/Black Widow thing happened because Mark Ruffalo and/or Scarlett Johansson, perhaps just Ruffalo, pushed for it. I didn't care for it either.

But I mean case in point, the movie never really does anything with that relationship following Age of Ultron other than a passing reference in Ragnarok and one little beat in Infinity War.

I don't care for family man Hawkeye either.

 

[craigaat]

Such a waste of James Spader. You're right with the "filler" comment, this was a nothing movie that exists solely to set up the events of Civil War.