The Avengers: Age Of Ultron – Movie Review
Here is the final chapter of Marvel’s Phase 2. And it’s a rather smooth closing I have to admit. Seeing this movie rather late with 4 weeks after its release, it makes me wonder where the hype has gone, comparing it all with the time when the first movie came out. There is nothing left. It feels like one week after the release everything stopped. Are people disappointed? What did they expect? Wasn’t it enough spectacle?
When talking about spectacle we watch the beginning of the film with a quite extensive action sequence. Everyone is there. Ironman, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. We don’t get an explanation of what’s going on and how it all got to this point. From what I gathered they are on their way to raid a fortress like complex because a bad guy somehow managed to obtain Loki’s scepter. Remember? The one that gave him the power he used to destroy half New York in Avengers 1. That action sequence goes on for a little too long and was close to exhausting. Of course our heroes manage to get the scepter. Banner and Stark start to analyze it and discover an artificial intelligence in it. Both decide to tickle it out of the scepter and see what it’s good for. They don’t tell the other Avengers about it. Which is one of many signs that they’re not the best team ever. The alien A.I. doesn’t like to be played with and decides to take matters in its own hands. While being held in the Avengers HQ it has all the best technology around and immediately starts to form a plan. Before doing that, it gains access to the Internet and basically recognizes that mankind has to get a reboot in order to make a step further. Looking at most of the stuff that’s on the Internet nowadays… I can understand that point of view for sure. The Avengers of course do their best to stop Ultron. Before that, they get a serious beating and decide to retreat for a while. They eventually regain their strength and go on to face Ultron in a final battle.
That’s all I want to say about the story. There is more going on and that even includes three new prominent characters with some cool powers. They way the movie starts, with that big action part, I don’t regret having opted for the 2D showing of the film. This film with its 2 1/2h in 3D would have been exhausting like hell. And watching it in 2D I did not notice a single scene that made me say “Wow! That would have been amazing in 3D!” On the contrary. In the fight sequences I was at least able to see what was going on. A lot of CGI objects thrown against walls. It got tiring after a while. It felt wrong, every damn single time. They way they do it just isn’t physically accurate. It takes me out of the movie every single time. Overall the CGI work was good though. At one point Ironman has to stop Hulk from rampaging through a city. That was done pretty well. Even though that action sequence felt too long as well. So overall the action was entertaining while, at least for my taste, it was always very close to being too much.
To counter the action parts, most movies take a timeout and move to character moments. Mostly to give the audience a breather and develop some characters a little more. And that’s where this movie, much like the first film, shines. Joss Whedon is really good with character interaction and dialogue in the quieter moments. Even better when not so prominent characters have a moment to shine. All the main characters, that have their own movie series going on, take a step aside in this Avengers movie. Instead we get more from Hawkeye, Black Widow and Hulk. It still amazes me how balanced the Avengers movies are though. There is not a single instance or sequence where any of the characters falls short. All of them get their deserved time. Which ultimately results in a very organic storytelling where nothing falls short and the audience gets a new perspective on certain things.
Sometimes it feels a little forced though. By that I mean bringing in as many characters as possible. It borders overkill and they managed to avoid it by only a small margin. To me it still felt almost too much. Even in the third act of the film we get introduced to a new character. A character that definitely, one way or another, will play its part in Phase 3. It’s a very long third act. Aside of that there were also a lot of references, which makes me wonder how lost someone would be, who never saw another one of the other movies. At this point though, it would almost be impossible to make an Avengers movie, that would work without referencing stuff. And then there is the Infinity Stone storyline, that will eventually lead up to the Infinity War movies in 2 or 3 years from now. They have to shove a lot of story elements down the audience’s thoats to explain and move forward the Phase 3 storyline.
A friend of mine said the movie was boring While I found the movie rather good for what it wants to be. I can see how it can be boring to someone who’s not at all into the characters. Even though that friend has seen the other Marvel movies and enjoyed some of them. This Avengers movie is quite a sit though. With all those overlong action sequences and repeating brawls between CGI characters it probably wouldn’t have been hard to cut at least 20 minutes out of that thing. The character interaction works great though. Even in the battle sequences there are a lot of parts where they work together and use each other to execute some great moves to take down some bad guys. That’s always fun to watch. Teamwork between the characters. The strongest moments are still the quiet ones. When our heroes reflect on what’s going on and what’s best to do next.
So overall I would recommend this film, if you are familiar with at least the first Avengers movie and you enjoyed it. It’s more of the same stuff and it, for the most part, works really good. Is it as good as the first Avengers movie? No, probably not. But it isn’t worse either. It just the element of ‘something new’ that is missing in this one. Which worked in favour of the first movie. But still, it’s a cool thing to see all these characters work together in one movie.
A solid 7.7/10 for me.
