The Avengers was the film that made me fall in love with Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. It was the scene when Agent Coulson died, and our comic book heroes turned on each other — backbiting, blaming, lashing out as their center collapsed. After five and a half movies’ worth of comic book acrobatics and space villains, we were suddenly watching just a handful of scared people in a room, acting all too human.
Avengers: Age of Ultron, follow-up to 2012's Avengers, springs no surprises.
It is mindful of the reality of the sacrosanct formula,
and it does not scrimp on delivering exactly what is expected of it.
and it does not scrimp on delivering exactly what is expected of it.
Age of Ultron is an overload of eye-popping action sequences featuring an all-star team of superheroes, plus a couple of new entrants with unique powers. Given that we were dealing with larger-than-life characters like Thor and Captain America, it was nothing short of a miracle. But that one scene elevated an entire franchise, and $1.5 billion later, Joss Whedon had cemented the Marvel empire as a blockbuster factory.
Marvel's "Avengers: Age of Ultron" stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk and Chris Evans as Captain America. Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine, Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, the team must reassemble to defeat James Spader as Ultron, a terrifying technological villain hell-bent on human extinction. Along the way, they confront two mysterious and powerful newcomers, Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen and meet an old friend in a new form when Paul Bettany becomes Vision.
**Warning: very mild plot age of ultron spoilers ahead**
THE OPENING SEQUENCE IS AN INCREDIBLE PIECE OF ACTION FILMMAKING
But between Ultron's lame jokes and general lack of motivation, he never manages to become a villain you can take seriously. It's a depressingly bland dynamic compared to the fun Tom Hiddleston had as Loki in the first film, but thankfully Ultron has some backup in the form of a pair of twins (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen) who have some special powers of their own.
What’s shocking is how so many things that were strengths in the first film fall flat here. Whedon hits his chatty stride early on as the team hangs out and ribs each other during a party, and it’s filled with some signature character bits. But given the events of the last few films in the series, the lightheartedness feels strangely out of place.
There can be no denying that Avengers: Age of Ultron is expertly mounted and spiced up with a dash of humour.
But the quality of the ride, in its totality, is uneven. Watch it for the spectacle, not the substance.
FILED UNDER: ENTERTAINMENT, AGE of Ultron
But the quality of the ride, in its totality, is uneven. Watch it for the spectacle, not the substance.
FILED UNDER: ENTERTAINMENT, AGE of Ultron
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