In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that I have never so much as picked up a comic book in my life, so this review is coming from the basis of seeing the other movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and not from the lack of knowledge I have regarding how the events of this movie are supposed to go down according to the source material.
You can’t help but be in awe of what Marvel has been able to accomplish the last few years with their movies. Even though I tend to not love their work (outside of “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”), they’ve found a way to capture everyone’s imagination on film with high-flying heroes and villains, sarcasm and of course, destroying entire cities with no regard for human life. Say what you want about Marvel, they know how to make an entertaining film.
Here, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner have been working on a program that would protect Earth from alien invaders. It doesn’t go as planned, and now the program wants to kill everyone rather soon, which is problematic. It’s up to our team of nearly invincible superheroes to stop Stark’s creation.
I’ll start with what I didn’t like. For the sake of brevity, this will read like a list, but bear with me, I promise to end on a positive note.
The supporting cast of Beats, Adidas, Audi and John Deere got quite a bit of screen time, despite the fact that they all have the unfortunate characteristic of being inanimate objects.
Ultron is far from a worthy foe. Sure, he’s pretty cool, and the idea behind him is effective, but the execution was undermined by his inconsistent character development. Depending on the scene, he’s a robotic Tony Stark, an angst-filled teenager, a psycho-killer or a fighter you don’t want to mess with. You never truly grasp the fact that he is an artificial intelligence designed to protect the earth, and his oddball sense of humor is completely unwelcome for this kind of villain.
Quicksilver is not nearly as cool as his “X-Men: Days of Future Past” counterpart. Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s accent doesn’t cut it, and the humor Evan Peters brought to the other version was fun to see. It is funny that the guy who played Kick-Ass plays a “real” superhero in this film.
I have no clue what Thor was doing in this movie. His motivations and story arc never quite made sense to me. I don’t know if this is because there was footage that had to get cut, but it involves water spirits and I just got really confused.
**(Spoilers)** Ultron captures Black Widow. Her kidnapping is all Ultron has over the Avengers at this point. Presumably, given her importance, she would be incredibly well-guarded. With no indication of how he got up there, Bruce Banner (not even Hulk) just waltzes on in and frees her. _How did Ultron let a wimpy human do that right under his nose?_ **(End spoilers)**
Marvel needs to learn that not every movie needs a love story subplot. I won’t tell you who it is in this one, but it’s totally forced. The scenes hold up okay because of the caliber of acting in them, but it’s just unnecessary and only adds a little bit of character background to one of them. This entire subplot could have been scrapped and the filmmakers could’ve used that time to tell me what the heck Thor was even doing.
OK, that’s enough of being critical. There are two crucial reasons that you should see this movie, and those are Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch. Hawkeye gets some great character development, and is as funny and awesome as we’ve ever seen him. He adds a very real human element to this movie, which is desperately needed. Newcomer Scarlet Witch has debatably the coolest super powers that we’ve seen to date, and she is a thrill to watch.
Hawkeye summed things up better than I ever could when he said, “The city is flying, we are fighting robots, and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes any sense.” Sure, it’s not entirely cohesive, but Marvel delivers with an amazing cast, spectacular action and good humor that almost everyone in the family can enjoy. The most disappointing thing is that “Age of Ultron” doesn’t really accomplish anything in the grander scheme of the Marvel Cinematic Universe outside of introducing a few new characters. In a shocking development, they’ve only opened the door for even more sequels.
Despite all of the negatives here, I can’t deny that this film entertained me greatly for its full runtime, and when a movie does that, it’s hard to criticize it too much. “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is far from the best movie you’ll ever see, but you won’t regret seeing the latest thing Marvel has offered up.
**Pass the Popcorn if:** Let’s be honest here, you were probably going to see this movie regardless of what I have to say about it. That being said, enjoy!
**Pass it Up if:** You’re dead set on going against the grain.