Preface

• Yeah, yeah, yeah insert joke here about the, ‘low budget, indie film with a relatively unknown cast’ that I saw tonight.
• Fact is, Ultron was my second most anticipated of 2015, and OH MY GOD AVENGERS IS AWESOME.
  • I’ll say this: it isn’t perfect, but it met my expectations.

Premise

• You guys probably know what this movie is about but if you don’t…
• In the follow-up to 2012’s The Avengers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Thor, and the rest of the gang accidentally create an AI that is bent on world domination. This globe-trotting film further develops each of the characters without sacrificing laughs, yet also making it darker and much more complex. More on that later.

Cast and Characters

• Let’s be real: the reason you guys go to see these Avengers movies is the characters
• In this movie we have RDJ’s Tony Stark, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Funny enough is that those are the guys I don’t want to talk about. I loved how well they played off of each other and the witty script allowed them plenty of fun. But you knew who these guys were.
• First of all, let’s talk about possibly my favorite character in the movie: Hawkeye.
  • Yeah, I can’t believe I just said that either.
  • I was like, the biggest Hawkeye jokester ever. Of course we all said he wasn’t a real Avenger and that he never had much to do, but overall Age of Ultron built upon him.
  • Though these crossover events did develop characters such as Steve Rogers and Thor, it takes characters from the past and makes them even more relevant.
  • You learn more about Hawkeye’s personal life, as well as what drives him.
  • He’s funny, he’s sincere, a couple times he makes you tear-up.
• The next two characters worth mentioning together are Hulk and Black Widow
  • This was hinted at before, but there is a romance aspect going on between these two.
  • I don’t know that the romance was COMPLETELY necessary, but I think it served as an interesting tool as a means of development between the two.
  • There was a specific scene between these two as well that really made me almost cry! It was sad stuff man, and I was glad to see these formerly secondary characters get their great development too.
• Then the handling of the new characters: Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver was done very well.
  • You don’t know much about these two going in (except for Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past) and the two are set up extremely well.
  • I like seeing that they aren’t necessarily good guys or bad guys, but just kind of personal figures who make decisions as they go, adding a very realistic feel to the whole thing.
  • And, like Banner/Widow scene, there’s one particular scene where these two are talking to Ultron and that scene just makes you feel for them.
• And Ultron.
  • Marvel is usually a little lacking on the villains, but Ultron was great.
  • He was charismatic, he was sarcastic, he was methodical.
  • He was everything that teaser trailer presented to you of him being.
• Overall, Joss Whedon really knows how to handle characters and each one had a great sense of development and great consistency throughout this film.
• I loved seeing these personalities meeting up again, and seeing how the Phase 2 changes make things different when they all come to a head.

Script

• In terms of dialogue, I think that Age of Ultron has even better dialogue than the first Avengers.
  • It’s wittier, it’s snappier, it overall has a very built-upon quality to it. What I mean by that is that the characters have been established, and some jokes were cracked, but now you REALLY know these people and seeing them all do their thing in this specific scenario is fantastic.
  • Joss Whedon continues to be the Prince of Dialogue, or the PG-13 Tarantino.
• In terms of flow, it went well for the most part.
• The beginning was really, really good. It started off high with action for me, continued making everything feel like the Avengers in terms of character interaction and built-development.
• I will say, one of my two simple flaws of the movie was this, and it was in the first act: the origin story to Ultron was a little rushed.
  • They really nailed the simple breeze-by of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s origins, but the Ultron one was just a little too quick.
  • I’m sure it will probably be drawn out more on the 4.5 hour Blu-Ray, but it would’ve been really great to see Ultron just with a little bit more
• But then, we move into the second and third acts and that is where the movie becomes phenomenal.
  • I’ll discuss the changing-point more in my Spoiler-Filled Review, but there is a definitive point in this movie where everything starts to feel much deeper, and all the characters start to become more developed, and everything that may appeared irrelevant before (the romance for instance) becomes relevant.
• My only other real complaint with the movie is that the stakes don’t feel extremely high.
• As I’ve mentioned several times already, I won’t be delving into spoilers here, but with no-spoilers I’ll just say that the stakes don’t feel super high.
  • You understand the antagonism that Ultron poses, and you understand how evil he is, but you never feel like the heroes are as in danger as they were in the first Avengers, or Cap 2, or Guardians. Even Iron Man 3!
• So some real superb dialogue, really great layout, Whedon had a lot to cover, but just a few flubs in Ultron’s origins and everything at stake.

Direction

• Overall, Whedon did a phenomenal job directing this movie.
• He needed to weave in every movie from Phase 2, make this stand on its own as a great movie, set up for Civil War, set up for the Infinity Wars, drop Easter Eggs, develop his characters, and balance characters probably along with a lot of other stuff.
• Was this a perfect movie? No. Was it the best movie that he could make it? I think so.
• Whedon did a great job making sure everything ties in together, and ultimately I think this movie was the PERFECT conclusion to Phase 2.
  • Phase 2 of the MCU was a little darker, and Whedon captured that, yet still had the fun and light-heartedness that Marvel stood for. Almost no directors can blend those two absolutely opposite themes so well, but Whedon did it!
• The action, OH MY GOD the action in this movie!
  • Shot so well that the ‘CGI’ looks real.
  • It’s movies like this that make me feel bad for any Transformers-like movies, because you got bwah bwah bwah, can’t see anything action in Transformers. But in Age of Ultron you got absurdly visible action that I’m surprised was in that great of quality.

In Conclusion

• In Conclusion, Avengers: Age of Ultron was one of my most anticipated movies for 2015 and I was not let down.
• This movie was shot beautifully with so much precision.
• It tied everything together into one amazing product, and I was actually surprised how well it all flowed without anything being tripped over.
• The characters were awesome. Hawkeye was great, Banner and Widow were great, Maria Hill and Ultron, also awesome. The whole gang, and especially those who needed to take the backseat before.
• There were a few missteps in Ultron’s origins and the stakes not being as high as I’d like, but the first 1/3 of this movie was a 4.5 and the next 2/3 was a 5/5.
• So I’ll say that Avengers Age of Ultron is somewhere around the middle, and if Marvel movies have taught me anything, it will only get better with time.

4.7/5

***

So guys, there’s my much anticipated review of Avengers Age of Ultron! What did you guys think of this movie, and who was your favorite character? Let me know in the comments down below, and as always, thanks for reading guys.