Movie Review – Avengers: Age of Ultron

The Marvel fan in me has been waiting for this movie for too long. Overall, the MCU has achieved entertaining mass audiences with well written, well acted, and overall well made movies (except Iron Man 3). They’ve also managed to bring in characters unknown to those who do not read comics into the big screen, like the Guardians of the Galaxy line up, the Collector, Black Widow, Thanos, etc. Avengers 2 sought to up the bar from the first movie, and if it intended to be the best MCU movie to date, it had big shoes to fill, such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Avengers: Age of Ultron was everything I expected it to be. If you saw the other MCU movies, then you’ve noticed there’s a significant difference between solo hero films (Iron Man 1-2, Captain America 1-2, Thor 1-2), and hero team films (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Avengers). Whereas solo films have had a huge focus on the plot and character development of the film, the group flicks have focused more on the action and visuals. Age of Ultron is no exception. Here are my thoughts on the movie (note that I might be biased due to my love for Marvel flicks, but I’ll be as objective as possible).

Story – like the first Avengers, the plot for this film was a very basic good vs. evil plot. There was nothing interesting or original to the story, save for the attempt at trying to include the moral dilemma about how far can one go (taking away humanity’s freedom, or committing mass murder) in order to save humanity, which has been used so many times in so many other movies: I, Robot, the Terminator saga, and Eagle Eye all present examples of an A.I. antagonist deciding that the only way to protect humanity is to exterminate it or strip them from their freedom; whereas Watchmen, The Dark Knight, present examples of films where the superheros are faced with the choice of preserving basic human rights, or violating them for a greater good. Having such a big ensemble cast left the movie little space to deal with the personal or internal stories of our main characters. But, thankfully, the MCU managed to give us an inside look into our characters in their standalone films (Iron Man 3, Captain America 2, Thor 1-2, The Incredible Hulk). Still, they did what they could, introducing a love story, and a different side to one of the characters, which brings me to my next point...

Hawkeye – Clint Barton/Hawkeye was probably my favorite avenger in this film. The writers managed to bring in a background story and more insight into his personal life. I was happy with the decision of the writers to focus more on the personal stories of Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Hulk, since they have not had as much stand-alone screen time as the others (Hulk had his own MCU film, but Mark Ruffalo’s performance is a completely different character than that of Edward Norton).

New Actors – probably my favorite aspect of the film was the performances by many of the new actors, specifically Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen. Bettany isn’t new to the MCU, as he’s voiced J.A.R.V.I.S. in all of the Iron Man films as well as in The Avengers. He finally got his MCU screen debut as the Vision, and delivered a good performance, as expected. Elizabeth Olsen surprised me. I’ve seen her before in Godzilla (also tag-teaming with Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but her role as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch was one that I really enjoyed. Almost overshadowing Bettany’s performance was James Spader’s role as Ultron. He did a great voice over for a good villain. Spader’s Ultron brought a somewhat new and interesting personality than that of the comics. It was enjoyable as it was terrifying. I did not expect his child like side to Ultron, but he did a great job at balancing his ‘playfulness’ with his ‘evilness’. Although Aaron Taylor-Johnson was neither my favorite actor, nor Quicksilver my favorite character in the film, I think that with this role he managed to show his versatility in acting (remember Kick-Ass?), while establishing a signature he couldn’t do, or at least didn’t show in Godzilla.

Lack of Loki and Nick Fury – I was somehow surprised I didn’t see Tom Hiddleston in this movie, as he has been a fan favorite since his appearance in Thor. He also plays a very important role in this film, as the main story line starts to develop thanks to his scepter. I read director Josh Whedon’s talk about why he cut off Loki’s scenes, and I agree with him. The movie had way too many main characters and was packed with subplots and action, adding Loki into the mix would’ve meant having to cut away importance from other parts of the story. Nick Fury’s absence in this film did bug me a bit. He does make an appearance, as he has done in several MCU films, but his role was not as big as in The Avengers or Captain America 2. This was somewhat disappointing, since he is a key character in the MCU. Still, the writers tried to force his importance into the film by providing a Fury-ex-machina set of scenes for him to appear on, which took away suspense and thrill from the action scenes.

Miscellaneous – there were other aspects of the film that I liked or disliked. Some unimportant to the film itself. I would’ve preferred more development into Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s characters, instead of the rushed story we got (remember, these two were villains in X-men before actually joining the Avengers). As villains, they proved to be a match to the Avengers themselves, managing to catch them off guard and defeat them. Having them as villains throughout most of the film would’ve given a good thrill feeling to the action sequences (as seen in their first two battles with the Avengers). Their inevitable change to the good team was very much expected (we can see from the trailers that they fight alongside the Avengers), but in my opinion, rushed.

And finally, just a thought:

Magneto? – Yes, I know Fox owns the X-men characters (Marvel Studios managed to share Quicksilver and Scarlet With thanks to their association with the Avengers), so I know that Magneto cannot make an appearance in this universe. But, there was a scene of the movie that felt to me like a nod to the main X-men antagonist:

In Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s backstory, they mention that a shell blew up their home and killed their parents, and a second shell hit their house, but didn’t set off. They spent hours (or days) under the rubble of their demolished house, staring at that shell, knowing that any minute it would go off. But it didn’t. That shell said STARK, and it was then that their hatred for Tony Stark was born.

But, we know Stark is a genius and the reason Stark Industries grew to be the leading weapons developer in the world was because his weapons never failed. Why would a shell that was set to explode fail at that moment? Was it because we needed a reason for the Maximoffs to hate Tony Start? I think it was because someone was preventing it from setting off. Someone caught in the rubble, was using his last remaining strength to prevent the shell from killing his children.

This could or could not have been a nod at Magneto’s existence within the MCU. Remember when Disney was trying to reach a deal with Sony that would allow them to include the OsCorp building in the New York skyline? We know that Marvel Studios is open to adding other Marvel characters into their universe, even if it’s just a nod or a hint at their existence. Hopefully we’ll learn about this in future films.