It was always going to be a hard sell for Marvel to return after the success and sheer quality of the first movie without picking up a few critical reviews for Avengers: Age Of Ultron. The good news, though, is that it doesn’t stop the film being a whole lot of fun to watch. For us, the comparative success in the eyes of the viewer of the sequel will depend on their Marvel comic book history knowledge. If your knowledge of characters and themes stems solely from the new Marvel Cinematic Universe then you might find the movie tough to wrap your head around entirely. However, for the well read comic book fans out there AOU will feel like a tour de force of old-school brilliance.
As you read through online review after online review it becomes apparent that a fair few of them don’t really know that much about the many story arcs that intersect the comic books of the past 70 odd years. That’s not to say that all of their criticism is wrong as such, it’s just that some of it is slightly warped by a lack of perspective. They talk about Ultron, Vision and the Maximoff twins as though they’ve only just been conceived, rather than being around for decades, and seem to miss the importance of bringing these characters to life to the overall construct of The Avengers team.
One thing that most reviews agree on, ours included, is that the storyline for the film makes a strong bridge between Avengers Assemble and the Infinity War closers that are scheduled for 2018 and 2019. It picks up with a united team of Avengers after their initial tumultuous formation in the first movie as they battle it out with a growing Hydra threat, led by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. It starts to look as though the team have got the situation under control when Strucker unleashes the havoc of his genetically engineered mutant twins, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, which lights the touch paper for Tony Stark to finish his Ultron programme, leading to the creation of the movie’s main antagonist.
It gives the film a lot of variation as it shifts from threat to threat in a high octane pathway of destruction to the big budget, action packed final battle. It also introduces a lot of new characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which we like a lot, much in the same way that X-Men: Days Of Future Past did last year.
We weren’t necessarily expecting too much from Ultron, if we’re honest, and while he’s a good way shy of being the most fearsome of bad guys, he’s still pretty cool as the embodiment of artificial intelligence personified. More could have been made of his apparent invulnerability due to his connection to the internet. While it’s a feature of his progression it isn’t capitalised on as well as it could have been. It’s sort of inferred and quipped about, but there’s no stark, brutal warning from him that spells it out in menacing terms that his robotic forms can be pummeled, blown up and ripped in two, but he can never be destroyed, so the Avengers are ultimately doomed.
You wouldn’t guess from looking at him, but James Spader has got a lot of gravitas to his voice, which gives Ultron the majority of his impact. However, this could have been dialed up further with the right lines and direction to make him the ultimate villain. That’s not to say that he isn’t impressive in the role as it is, but it just felt like there was a lot left in the engine room if he’d been given the opportunity to crank things up to full force destruction.
Other reviews have also been critical of the humanising elements of the movie that attempt to give background and character definition to stars of the show, including Hawkeye, Black Widow and The Incredible Hulk. We’re not going to give too much away here in terms of the surprises in store in the movie, but we’d have to say that we like the personal touch Age of Ultron gives to these characters. It taps into the old school style of the comic books and cartoon series once again, which worked hard to ground its hard hitting action in the vestiges of a normal life for its troubled heroes.
In addition to this, the film also puts a lot of effort into providing a good amount of comic light relief to counteract the sheer chaotic ferocity of the action sequences, building on the success of Avengers Assemble and Guardians Of The Galaxy. There are a lot of funny lines in the movie and some well-crafted scenes, especially the calm before the storm party where all of the Avengers try their hand at lifting Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir.
The cast are a big part of what makes the film so much fun and while it’s not quite as good as the breakout brilliance of the first movie, they do a solid job of returning for the sequel. Scarlet Johansson (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) is probably the most improved actor as she delivers much more depth to Natasha Romanoff. The best acting comes from Mark Rufallo (Foxcatcher), who is very good at portraying the temper-frayed human side of the Incredible Hulk, Doctor Bruce Banner. Jeremy Renner gets much more airtime as Hawkeye in AOU and he helps to keep the film down to earth with some good deadpan lines and self deprecation.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Godzilla) and Elizabeth Olsen (also in Godzilla) both make good debuts as the nightmarish duo of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, following their brief cameos in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Paul Bettany does well to step up from his voice acting role as J.A.R.V.I.S to the fully fledged android Vision. Sadly, there’s no Tom Hiddleston (Thor: The Dark World) as Loki in the movie, following his apparent death at the end of The Dark World, but he’ll be back for the sequel, Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1.
Visually, the film is an oracular onslaught of epic proportions with some very impressive special effects that range from the stunning CGI animation that went into creating the Hulk vs. Hulkbuster Iron Man battle scene to the cool introduction of Vision into the mix. It looks all the more mind blowing in 3D with the kind of SFX that pops out of the screen really well, so if you somehow manage to miss it at the big screen, you should probably try to plump for the 3D Blu-ray version of the film.
The cool visuals make the action scenes look all the more impressive and the only slight flaw is that there’s sometimes a bit too much going on without the same amount of cohesive progression that typified Avengers Assemble. There’s still a whole lot to enjoy, but it can sometimes be a little disorienting as you try to follow what’s going on, where you are in the fray and who’s doing what and why. It’s an issue that Marvel will also struggle with when the release of Infinity War comes around in 2018, as it’s due to bolt in the Guardians Of The Galaxy on top of the growing roster of Avengers.
Director and writer, Josh Whedon, has done another good job of bringing the world of Marvel Comics to life on the big screen and while the negatives should land firmly at his feet, so should all of the positives. If he’d given James Spader a few more power plays and room to grow, and delivered more flow to the action scenes then it could have been close to perfect, but it just falls a little short of the line.
Avengers: Age Of Ultron is definitely one for comic book fans at its higher end, but it still has a pretty broad appeal and we defy anyone to watch it and not be impressed with the visuals, as well as the better sections of blistering action, on some level at least. It’s one we’d happily watch again and potentially again over the years, so that’s got to be a good thing, and we suspect that there will be more that we like the more we watch it. AOU sits very nicely in and among the other big Marvel movies in recent years and opens up the Cinematic Universe to some of the lesser known old school characters, which we kind of like. Roll of Infinity War – Part 1.
Avengers: Age Of Ultron review: 3.9/5
