Now without further ado...
Hey, We're Getting the Band Back Together!
The opening of this movie had me so excited. The Avengers are working together as a cohesive team to take down a Hyrda castle fortress in the fictional nation of Sokovia. The opening action shot is great callback to the (not really one-shot) one-shot in New York during the first film. All of the Avengers seem to be working together well, while still maintaining their personalities that make them individually interesting. It looks I'm finally gonna see this team working together for the full film like I've wanted all along.
Then Scarlet Witch shows up and throws a monkey wrench in all of that. Now let me state up front that I loved Scarlet Witch in the movie and can't wait to see what else she does in the Infinity Wars movies. However, her powers are used for most of the first two simply to sew discontent among the Avengers, throwing them back to the squabbling state that we saw in the majority of the first film.
So now the Avengers are all focused on their internal strife instead of on the threat of Ultron. Cue good old Uncle Nick Fury to come in and dispense some wisdom to get them to all work together again. Thankfully this downtime where everyone is taking measure of themselves is also used to great effect to finally give Hawkeye some much needed character development. The whole farm scene still feels to me like a longer version of the post-Colson death scenes on the heli-carrier from the first movie. Everyone is beaten down, dejected, and trying to take stock of their motivations to be a part of this team.
I really wish we could have skipped a lot of the infighting that came about in this movie. I realize that Disney/Marvel are trying to set up a lot for what's to come next May in Civil War, and that to do so they need to have some kind of rift between Cap and Stark. I just wish they could have done it without retreading so much ground that was covered in the previous movie.
They're Super-HEROES not SUPER-Heroes
Man of Steel got so much flak from people (die-hard Superman fans in particular) for all of the destruction and assumed death in Metropolis, that I don't think anyone making a super-hero movie could ignore the criticisms. Joss Whedon obviously heard the uproar loud and clear. He goes out of his way in this movie to make sure you know that the Avengers are heroes and that they ultimately just want to save people. I think this is one of the best parts of the movie.
I honestly didn't have any problems with all of the destruction in Man of Steel. I felt that logically, there wasn't any way for Superman to have kept Metropolis from getting destroyed. There's no way that Zod would have let the fight leave the city; he was hell-bent on hurting Superman physically and emotionally. He would have done anything to keep the fight there to do the most harm.
Age of Ultron is full of destruction. The proverbial wrecking ball is applied to Sokovia at the beginning and end of the movie. An African nation (not sure if it was Wakanda they went to, or if it was just mentioned as a source of vibranium, and then the boat that Andy Serkis was on was somewhere else; time for a second watching) gets the brunt of the Hulk and Iron Man. Seoul gets the Batman Begins treatment of runaway train wrecking through the city-center.
The thing that is done so well in all these action and destruction scenes is the little touches. Tony Stark deploys the Iron Legion in Sokovia to try to help evacuate the city. Quicksilver runs around ahead of the runaway train saving people from getting the bug-on-windshield treatment. Fury shows up with the last remaining heli-carrier (BTW, I was really hoping for more of a tie-in between Agents of SHIELD and the movie than that) to help evacuate Sokovia from Ultron's death rock. I would say though that the heli-carrier evacuation gets a little ham-fisted in the great lengths it goes to trying to continually illustrate that these characters are heroes.
The best part of this hero-highlighting though, is during the fight between Iron Man and the Hulk. The whole scene is expertly done, a lot of which has to do with Whedon's ability to inject personality into all aspects of the movie; something I'll talk about in the next section, but the part that stood out to me those most though is one particular sequence.
Like I said above, in Man of Steel it made sense to me the Superman couldn't draw Zod out of the city, but it was never really illustrated, I just applied my own logic to it. Whedon takes this logic, and makes it apparent in a really deft way. Stark says something to the effect of, "Alright, let's get you out of here," grabs the Hulk and tries to fly out of the African city. Hulk, in his Scarlet Witch induced rage, isn't having it though and brings the party crashing right back down. You still get your spectacular action scene with crumbling buildings and people running, screaming, and pointing, but your heroes still get to be heroes, without having to suspend too much disbelief.
Levitating With Levity
Joss Whedon has always been a master of witty dialogue. Whether on Buffy, Firefly, or Avengers, his characters always have vibrant and fun personalities. Age of Ultron is no exception here as his trademark humor and back-and-forth between characters is more present in this film than the previous. That Whedon-esque writing is what, in my mind, keeps this movie from being just another generic summer action flick.
The pace of Age of Ultron is absolutely frenetic. It moves from action set-piece to action set-piece with very little downtime in between, with the sole exception being the brief visit to Hawkeye's secret farm home. There's often so much happening on screen at any given time, that it's hard to tell exactly what you're seeing. The movie could have very easily veered off into Transformer's territory; becoming a droning, monotonous hodge-podge of destruction on top of destruction.
Whedon and the cast however, handle all this action perfectly. All the characters have various quips and one-liners (many that were spoiled in the 18 million different trailers) that they throw out to add some levity and personality to the action sequences. Unlike Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf in Transformers, Whedon and the cast of Avengers write and deliver these lines perfectly. Tony Stark frantically yelling "Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!" as he tries to pummel the Hulk into submission is brilliant. Hawkeye's self-awareness of the absurdity of taking on an army of evil robots with a bow and arrow is refreshing. Even the overly long running joke of Cap's insistence on keeping the language clean is fun.
Sure it can be fun to watch the wanton destruction and mindless action of the typical summer blockbuster. Transformers and Fast and Furious have made enough money to purchase an island nation solely on that premise. Age of Ultron is able to bring all the bombast that those movies do, and not require the viewer to completely switch off their brain.
Allow Me to Introduce Myself: My Name is Red...I Mean Ultron
Where that personality and levity goes a bit too far in my opinion though, is Ultron. I'm torn on the character of Ultron in the movie. He had some great moments and some truly great lines. Some of the most laugh-out-loud funny moments came from him ("Oh for God's sake"). I just never felt like he was really that much of a threat.
Having Ultron act like a deranged, sinister, Tony Stark just didn't make that much sense to me. I understand the over-arching reasons behind this; it connects the Avengers to the antagonist, it further serves to set up the coming Civil War, etc. The idea that an AI will bring about peace by destroying humanity is such an old trope now. Yes, Stark wants to "build a suit of armor around the world", but this AI tech was based largely in part on things that Hyrda was doing, and other than him being the bad guy, there wasn't really a trace of Hydra present. Bruce Banner worked on Ultron right alongside Stark, too.
Why not have some kind of internal conflict raging within Ultron? It would fit perfectly with the lineage from his three "parents". Stark's desire to achieve "peace in our time" and obsession with constantly upgrading himself; Banner's desire to do good for the world, his seeming inability to resist pushing the boundaries of science, and of course his rage; and Hyrda's desire to dominate the world at any cost. I think this could have been a much more interesting character. Instead we essentially just get a sociopath Iron Man.
That similarity to Stark serves to be overly disarming in my opinion. Since he ultimately seems like a flawed copy of Stark, he never quite felt like he presented a real threat to the Avengers or the world at large. In the first film, you knew Loki was just a pawn 20 minutes in, but he still felt intimidating throughout. Of course, you know the Avengers will win in the end, but it has to feel like there are some real things at stake, and I never felt that. I almost think that they could lift Ultron out of the movie and just have the Avengers saving people from natural disasters over and over, and achieve much of the same feeling.
2015: The Year of Fan-Service
As a longtime Marvel fan, it was cool to see Ultron on screen, even if he wasn't as menacing and imposing as I would have hoped. This movie is chock-full of goodies for fans of the Marvel comics. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are cool (even if Aaron Taylor Johnson's fake accent is atrocious), Hulk vs Iron Man is fantastic, and I loved seeing War Machine, Falcon, Peggy Carter, and Heimdall. The quick mention of Wakanda was great since Black Panther is such an under-rated Marvel character and will hopefully be a great movie in three years. And of course, Vision was great to get to see on screen.
All of this comes at a price though. I expected the first movie to be problematic due to the fact that it had all of these stars playing all of these big characters in one film. It worked out really well though. I think it didn't work as well in this film. The Ultron creation happens so fast that if you blink you'll miss it, meaning that the story behind his creation becomes so contrived to almost be a joke. The flirtation/romance between Romanov and Banner is nice, but isn't given room to breathe. Vision is awesome but is given short shrift and his power feels a bit deus ex machina (no pun intended). Whedon himself has said in recent interviews that the Thor storyline was significantly cut down, almost to the point of non-existence.
I love the little touches and nods to the comics that are thrown in for the fans. The Force Awakens looks to be doing a lot in the same vein; making sure that fans of the original movies have certain touchstones to be excited about. I think Age of Ultron also illustrates some of the pitfalls of this though. If you try to pack too much fan-service stuff in, there isn't enough room for the movie to become something great on it's own.
Wrap-Up
Avengers: Age of Ultron is a damned fun movie. Deeply flawed, yes, but still a ton of fun. I give it 3 stars, but that is a must-see 3 stars. Don't miss it, just don't expect it to be the best thing ever.
