The Avengers assemble once again in Age of Ultron. This time
the Avengers must face their ultimate villain in the form of Ultron, an artificial
intelligence bent on saving/destroying the human race. With more characters, more
special effects, and more surprising than the first, Age of Ultron lives up to
the expectations it has set for itself.
To begin, we had some really incredible trailers: Jurassic
World, Ant-Man, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Age of Ultron explodes on the screen the moment the film
starts. The story begins exactly where
it should, in the middle of the action, introducing the new players, and
bringing all the Avengers together for a spectacular fight scene. I won’t go
into any details because I, for one, do not enjoy spoilers. As you already
know, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are in the movie and we see them straight
from the get-go. No waiting, quick history, and I have enough to know that
these are characters I care about. However, they are never mentioned by the aforementioned
names, but are referred to as The Twins through most of the movie. The Twins
are a nice counter to the Avengers and added to the movie, rather than fill it
with unnecessary characters.
Of course we have Ultron, the main protagonist, who is new
to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Big, bad, and chrome-plated. Ultron has a
very subtle and haunting introduction during one of the funniest and fun scenes
in the movie. We see old and new characters having fun, then Ultron crashes the
party. Ultron is quick, single minded, and has a lot of character. However, I
felt we didn’t get enough screen time with the ultimate villain to truly understand
him. I always took Ultron as a very tragic figure, and he was, but we needed to
be told that by all the other characters, Ultron did not show us that.
Humor was on par with the first Avengers and really shown in
this movie as the characters play so well off each other. You can tell the
actors had fun on this movie. Always placed at the right moment, the humor
never over shadowed the seriousness of certain scenes.
I’ll leave The Vision alone, you’ll just have to see the movie.
The movie offered plenty of surprises, humor, and wit to
match The Avengers. At times the story was a little rushed and convoluted. But
there was a lot going on and a ton of
characters to juggle. We also have nods to
the Infinity Stones, which everyone now knows is what the MCU is leading up to.
Some things were left unexplained, but I’m okay with that because I really don’t
need to know what happened. Because of the pace, the movie is relentless. We
only have one very calm and serene moment with Hawkeye, which was very Joss
Whedon-esque and really brought the movie back to the ground. The Avengers are
real people, doing real things, really dangerous things, and aren’t invincible.
The theme of “What is a monster” is challenged time and time again in the
movie, with almost every character giving their own answer to the question
Ultron has posed. The major issue with Age of Ultron is so much in so little time. I would have liked to have seen another half hour to really fill in the gaps. The original Avengers had all the previous movies to set-up all the characters, including the villian, Loki, Age of Ultron introduces 4 new characters and only has 141 minutes to explain them plus the plot. they did a good job, but a little extra time would have been nice.
The movie was great! It had everything I wanted from The
Avengers and more. Surprises are in store, action is abound, and the characters
were true to themselves. We are being ushered into a new age for the MCU and
Ultron had lead us there.
