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Avengers: Age of Ultron Movie Review

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a 2015 superhero film directed by Joss Whedon, it is a sequel to ‘The Avengers’ and it is the eleventh feature in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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“The city is flying and we’re fighting an army of robots.

And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense“

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The story concerns their quest to defeat Ultron, the robotic artificial intelligence created accidentally by Tony Stark. The story is problematic, as is most of the things in this movie. It is fairly simple, but also filled with too many characters so it all feels rushed and jumbled. It also reminisces the first ‘Avengers’ a bit too much with their inspirational speeches and cheesy one-liners.

The characters are very well developed for better and for worse. It is of course wonderful to have all these characters fleshed out, but because there are too many of them, their development sometimes feels very forced and interrupts the flow of the movie. Iron Man is good here, he still has his humor and I would say that he was way funnier here than in the first film. Also, his relationship with science and Bruce Banner is nicely realized. As for Thor and Captain America, both of these had their moments and jokes, but they are still those stoic, super heroic, God-like creatures that need a lot of development and that do not feel human as the rest of the team. Black Widow is properly developed, but she is too aggressive and pushy at times, whereas the Hulk still feels too much out of the comic-book because this character is very hard to pull off in a live-action environment and I think that he still needs work. Their relationship is very interesting to say the least, but, as everything in this movie, is incredibly rushed. However, their talk about children and family as well as the ending are pretty good.

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Hawkeye got his time finally with this film and his moments with his family are all emotional and properly realized, but he still feels like he doesn’t belong on the team and that’s why his joke at the end about his uselessness was spot-on and one of the best and most clever humorous moments here. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are the new characters introduced and they are both pretty good. Their accent was interesting and their sibling relationship was sweet. His finale was brave and her struggle with her new responsibilities and a shift to the good side are all very well done and she is quite a good character and a welcome addition to the team.

As for Ultron, he is troublesome. Yes, he is the best Marvel villain to date, but that doesn’t mean much because their villains are awful. He is at times funny, is well developed and he is a presence, but he does not prove to be a threat at all in the end and his origin story was extremely rushed and contrived. On the other hand, Vision is simply great. His behavior, inception as well as personality are all excellent whereas his dialogue in the end with Ultron is superb and pinpoints some of the movie’s themes of humanity and technology thus proving that this is not that dumb a blockbuster. The acting is also quite competent, each and every performance is quite good, but not that great. But that is okay for such a film and even stupendous given how great and professional this cast is.

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The action is problematic, it is at times exhilarating and fun, but it is mostly filled with awful camera shots and angles thus reducing the impact overall. The cinematography is very weak here. And the effects are good, but nothing to write home about.

The direction from Joss Whedon is bad and incredibly weak as is the editing of course. The movie literally consists of one big endless action sequence and then the prolonged dialogues that try to flesh out the characters and they achieve that but those scenes are also very forced at times with some of the lines clearly intended to cause emotion from the audience. The character development and emotional plot points and revelations for the characters are definitely forced and the movie is badly edited and directed. But it is not easy to direct such a long list of characters and that is why Joss Whedon failed at this.

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The humor is surprisingly good with a couple of truly funny moments and it is definitely funnier than its predecessor, but it is also filled with too much humor and many lines here are incredibly cheesy and simply ridiculous and cartoony owing to problematic screenplay and dialogue. But what is worth is that the characters have and show personality and most importantly a lot of chemistry and they work as a team thus bringing some heart and characterization to the film.

With entertaining story, great cast, solid character development and evident chemistry between the team, Avengers: Age of Ultron is perfectly solid as blockbusters go with fine humor and excellent characters, but it still is incredibly flawed due to problematic action sequences with bad camera movement, rushed story and very mediocre direction and editing with a bunch of forced sequences. But as superhero films go, it is solid and it is slightly better than its predecessor.

My Rating – 3.5

You can get Age of Ultron for a great price on Amazon. Also included are superb bonus features.