Avengers: Age of Ultron
Directed by:
Joss WhedonScreenplay:
Joss WhedonCinematography:
Ben DavisCast:
Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, James Spader (more)VOD (4)
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Marvel Avengers: Age of Ultron stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, 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, Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and meet an old friend in a new form when Paul Bettany becomes Vision. (Disney / Buena Vista)
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So after watching this movie, I wondered if I were crazy, thinking that all these comic book adaptations are all very much the same in the last few years, so I decided to give The Guardians of the Galaxy another try after the second Avengers. And it really had it. It had what I really missed in this instalment of the Avengers. And this essential thing is nothing but the humor that the first instalment still somehow kept going. And that’s too bad, because Age of Ultron would have had the characters for it. Iron Man and Thor are clearly a pair of top catchphrase makers and here it’s as if someone deflated their ego. I have a feeling that it is humor and catchphrases that make comic books into movies that will create an extraordinary experience for the viewer, to which they will be happily returning. And now I know that I will definitely not return to this film. It is not just about humor, but also about the villain, who not only does not have the charisma (which is difficult to have by default in robots) but mainly one is not afraid of him, let alone respect him. Technically, it’s handled well, including action scenes that are exquisite. But everything else just doesn’t work here. In fact, this film accurately describes the type of comic book adaptations that I would prefer not to be repeated, but of which there are more than enough in recent years. As far as content repetition goes, I hope that the next episode will be called Avengers vs. X-Men to experience a complete Marvel recycling.
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Successful continuation develops on some loose ends and also manages to warn against AI. Unfortunately it suffers from being a sequel and the movie would benefit from half an hour of character background building, because there simply isn’t enough time for that, what with all the action. Even Ultron’s motivation to attempt to annihilate the Avengers seems to me unconvincingly explained, but he certainly doesn’t lack charisma. Spader enjoys himself. Sidetracking to the infinity stones take your attention the wrong way, even though Whedon tried to squeeze Age of Ultron into the story legitimately, this way it just acts as a bridgehead for the two-part Infinity War which won’t come along for another three years. The powerhouse of the movie it Jerry Renner’s quite (pleasantly) surprising Hawkeye in together with the anti-heroes Stark and Banner who spoil everything they touch. The digital orgies are occasionally a little exhausting, because the action tries to focus on all characters at once. The chemistry in the chit-chat scenes works splendidly, however. I’m quite curious how the changed team lineup affects the next Marvel movies. I’m pleased that they decided to go ahead with something like this. The vision deserves more space.
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As with the first episode, I give it an awkward three stars and save any more for the DVD version. It's not that I didn't like the second Avengers, there were just so many things to fault in it that the film doesn’t deserve a higher rating from me right now. I was disappointed by the underutilization of Baron Strucker (and he was played by Thomas Kretschmann!), Joss Whedon's annoying need for someone to say or do something at least a little funny every now and then, a bland Ultron who was not scary (and who of course also had to say things that were supposed to be funny), and the near absence of suspense. But I liked the scenes like the hammer raising (really funny) and the conversation between Black Widow and Dr. Banner (dramatic, touching, it had everything), I was thrilled by the Hulk and Hulkbuster duel, ILM's special effects were a joy to behold (except for the first Hulk and Black Widow tranquilization scene, which is actually topped by any King Kong - even the oldest one) and, so I don’t forget, Vision was the best of all.
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“I’ve had a long day. Eugene O'Neill long.” Unsurprisingly, Whedon is wagering on the tried and true. Also, the second Avengers is a sharp ensemble action movie that entertains more with clever dialogue than with massive, stylistically intoxicating action sequences, which this time are at least a tiny bit clearer thanks to the long “relay” shots (whereas the first film culminated with this technique as an illustration of the team’s cohesion, it serves as a visual leitmotif in the second one). ___ The interaction between the characters is no longer only about the necessity of finding their way to each other, maintaining their individuality and learning to cooperate. They begin to get to know both each other and their own dark sides better, which leads us to see them also as people (or rather characters with human problems) and not just as superhuman and essentially courageous saviours of civilisation (not for nothing do the heroes address each other mostly by their civilian names). Despite that, the film doesn’t cross the line into mutual teasing at the relationship level and it lacks serious conflict that would pose a threat to the team’s unity. Whedon remains too obliging toward his heroes and their somewhat pubescent thought processes, and despite being slightly more serious, Age of Ultron is still far from the bleakness and seriousness of Guardians of the Galaxy or at least The Dark Knight. From the beginning, the tone of the film makes it clear that it’s not going to get heavy, no adult problems will be resolved (“corny” is the best description of the relationship between Natasha and Bruce, as well as Clint’s family life), no serious crisis will occur and the allusions to American foreign policy will remain at a general level (Ultron as the result of the advancing mechanisation of warfare, violence perpetrated in the interest of protecting democratic values, the tension between the transparent and the concealed war on terror, with the former approach represented by the idealistic Captain America and the latter by Stark). ___ Unlike the elitist first film, the primary interest in the human element is not limited to the superheroes – the final action sequence is based on trying to save as many civilians as possible. The absorption in their own tragic story, the mutual flirtation and the amusing measuring of egos against one another are thus balanced by concern for ordinary human lives, though that concern serves mainly to underscore the mythological dimension of the narrative. It would not have been necessary to depict the heroes in the form of classical statuary in the closing credits in order for us to realise that they have the same role in the modern (fictional) world as the Greek gods did in antiquity. ___ The second Avengers is a more masterful, albeit somewhat mechanical, manifestation of what made the first Avengers movie surprising – the combination of a loud blockbuster with an informal and imaginative conversational relationship flick. If it represents the final development phase of Marvel adaptations, that won’t make me angry. In relation to genre conventions, however, the subversive Iron Man 3 and the narratively sophisticated Captain America: The Winter Soldier showed us that it can be done more imaginatively. ___ In the end, Age of Ultron is the most audacious in terms of the demands that it places on viewers who want to flawlessly find their way around in the story and among the large number of characters throughout the film’s entire 140-minute runtime. It begins without any in media res exposition and it doesn’t linger on explaining who is who and what they are after during the next two hours. The many hints, signs and allusions assume that you are as familiar with the fictional encyclopaedia as the characters are. Though I have mostly kept up to speed so far, I cannot imagine how I will manage to sort through the tremendous amount of facts ten movies and a hundred series episodes later. 80%
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The same thing over and over again. Unfortunately, there is a lack of coherence and it lacks the dynamism of the first film. Among all the comic-book clichés, the only things that remain are the well-developed characters and the sharp emphasis on the supporting, not so powerful, yet very interesting figures (Hawkeye, Black Widow). The could have spared the nonsense with the Hulk, as well as the cheap action just for the sake of it, but those smooth digital sequences are cool, right? (even though they look lilke Zack Snyder’s stuff.) Joss Whedon doesn’t deliver anything revolutionary, he just pockets a lot of money because he does what works the most: a little bit of everything, so no one gets offended and everyone gets their fill. I wonder how many dozens of comics with the same plot narrative and framework Hollywood will have to make before audiences realise that it's all the same? Then a creator like Nolan will have to come in and rewrite history again.
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Photo © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
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