Although Avengers: Age of Ultron has been out for a few months now I never wrote up my actual review for it. I went to see Age of Ultron a few times at the cinema, 4 I do believe, the initial excitement after the first viewing made me think it was an amazing film, I do sometimes let the inner geek in me get over-excited but after seeing it again I have decided to rate it 7/10, 3 stars.
Avengers: Age of Ultron starring James Spader (The Blacklist), Chris Evans (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Snowpiercer), Robert Downey Jr (The Judge, Iron Man), Scarlet Johansson (Her, The Island), Elizabeth Olsen (Godzilla), Chris Hemsworth (Rush, The Cabin in the Woods), Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher, Now You See Me) and Jeremy Renner (Mission Impossile 4, The Hurt Locker) is the sequel to the fantastic Captain America: Winter Soldier, it also was a sequel of sorts to Avengers Assemble (2012) so it had a lot to live up to and I don't feel that the film managed to take the title for best Marvel Studios film, most films have a few plot holes but there were some in Age of Ultron that I can't overlook, if you went to see it without being a comic-book fan, or because you're an action film fan you probably wouldn't have even noticed nor been bothered by some of these but I was and so I will include them.
The story was quite rushed and I'll start this review with the opening scene; the Avengers are attacking a Hydra base in which Baron Von Strucker is located with "The Twins" who later on we see to be Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, a lot is left unexplained or have been overlooked in the film, firstly to me most importantly is Iron Man, at the end of Iron Man 3 Tony Stark says that he doesn't need to and won't be back in the suit yet in Age of Ultron he appears right at the start and with no explanation, secondly is what lead them to that HYDRA base? We have no idea, it is never said. We all gather that the Avengers have been hunting down HYDRA bases after the collapse of SHIELD but we don't know how they found this base I guess we just have to assume that Tony Stark had intel. Next with the antagonist of the film, Ultron. James Spader's performance as Ultron was absolutely brilliant, his voice was perfect for the genocidal android but I was disappointed by how quickly the A.I found in the Hydra base manifested as Ultron. I was really hoping that we'd see more of Ultron's progression from activation in Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr) lab and then over a time Ultron would start to challenge the Avengers, building up it's hatred for humans and declaring itself a god-like sentient (which is what Ultron thinks him self as) but the A.I was stumbled upon, activated and almost instantly challenged the Avengers and then left, which I believe to be wasted potential. I was pleasantly surprised at Thor this film, I felt that Thor's own films haven't really provided the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with much and his character hadn't changed all that much but he was a huge character in Age of Ultron and had a high level of comic relief which was very nice. Age of Ultron introduced a few new characters to the MCU; Vision, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. It was fairly obvious from quite early on to me that Quicksilver was either going to be killed off or wouldn't be continuing into the next films, his character concept was very bland and his sister Scarlet Witch massively over shadowed him, however Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) was a brilliant addition to the film brought something to the table that none of the other Avengers have; a mix of mystery, passion and supreme power which is highlighted at the end when Quicksilver dies and she unleashes a blast of matter-altering power that erases the drones around her.
I did really love Ultron though, when we pass the issue that he became the sentient, human hating being too quick, the design of Ultron was amazing and as stated earlier, James Spader's performance of him was brilliant, classy and sharp. Ultron was very important in a sense other than the Avengers 2 antagonist, next year in 2016 Marvel are releasing Captain America: Civil War which will be the third installment of the Captain America series, in Civil War heroes will take sides with either Captain America or Iron Man over a registration act to monitor superheros, the creation of Ultron effected the team dynamic and set into motion the rivalry between Cap and Iron Man which we have seen teased and building up in other films, with Ultron being a creation of Tony's doing and thus in Cap's eyes betraying the rest of the team by not coming to them and talking about it, the damage that Ultron causes is on Tony's hands. This set up for Civil War was brilliantly done and we see sides start to take form briefly which is major foreshadowing. Vision is one of the new characters introduced to the film and MCU, Paul Bettany delievers an outstanding performance, he fits the character brilliantly and provides the perfect balance of serenity and power.
A few more things that need highlighting: a romance in Avengers: Age of Ultron between Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) that served no purpose what so ever, it didn't benefit the film at all, it made no sense and like some other unexplained features of the film, came out of nowhere, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) reveals that he has a wife and family that were hidden to the rest of the Avengers and we're supposed to believe that HYDRA, who knew everything about SHIELD had no idea about it. While we're on the subject of HYDRA their presence in the MCU has been pushed a lot and in the mid-credit scene of Captain America: Winter Soldier we are made to believe that Baron Von Strucker will make a big appearance and be a big deal in Avengers: Age of Ultron but he did not, he had barely 5 minutes of total screen time, there is also no explanation as to what exactly Bruce Banner has been doing all this time since Avengers, we gather he has been working with Tony Stark but nothing else has been said and finally at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron Thor explains about the importance of the Infinity Gems to the Captain America and Iron Man in which he mentions the Power Stone and as they aren't aware of the Guardians of the Galaxy, they shouldn't have had knowledge of its existence.
The comic book fans and followers of the MCU will have noticed several Easter Eggs and teasers towards the other Marvel film verse, there were various nods to Black Panther who is having his own film in 2018 and a huge shout to Thor: Ragnarok when Thor is put under a spell/illusion from Scarlet Witch in which he sees everyone in Asgard dead, Thor: Ragnarok is said to be the pivotal film of Phase 3 and then towards the Infinity Gauntlet story-line in the mid-credit scene which is after-all, what these slates of films are leading up to for the climax of Phase 3 in 2018 and 2019.
All in all I liked the film but there were several (as highlighted) features that could have been better addressed, it did how ever set up for the events of Phase 3 starting with Captain America: Civil War brilliantly and I loved in the ending scene we saw the 'New Avengers' team of Vision, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, War-Machine and Black Widow led by Captain America. This was the first Marvel Studios film to not have a post-credit scene but it did have a mid-credit scene, which is probably the best so far; Thanos reaching into a vault and putting on the Infinity Gauntlet. We know from the end of Thor: The Dark World that Loki is in control of Asgard now, posing as Odin so that was one thing in particular that set up nicely for Thanos to make an appearance, he takes the gauntlet and says "Fine, I'll have to do it myself" which I think is a reference to Phase 2 and 1 in which we see villains try to use the cosmic cube/Tesseract and Infinity Gems as weapons but all fail so Thanos is saying that he will do it himself now, I think we can safely assume that we will be seeing a lot more of Thanos over the next slate that leads up to Infinity War Parts 1 and 2.
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