Avengers: Age of Ultron: Movie

     I am very proud to say that fate has intervened here. The timing of my blog post has lined up perfectly with the release of this movie, making it my one hundredth review! I have been doing this blog for two months as of the First of May and it all just lines up beautifully. I didn’t plan this at all, it just happened this way.

I am so grateful for the shared Marvel Cinematic Universe. Earlier this week I was pumped up intensely by the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. lead in. Considering this movie is very far away from the plot of that series, it was still brilliant for the writers of that show to promote this movie in that way. Finally revealing the “Theta Protocol” as the Avengers and adding in a Maria Hill cameo was a stroke of genius. The only problem is that it might be kind of weird for the plot of that show after throwing that stuff in there. It would’ve served them better if they did it in the season finale.

The movie was largely enjoyable. Of course there’s always a major thrill ride when Marvel does a cinematic release. They even managed to up the stakes quite a bit for this one. Ultron proves to be a fantastic villain who seems to be the other side of the Tony Stark coin. Their behaviors are equal and opposite. They are each completely obsessed with their objectives. Tony wants to save the world whether it wants it or not and Ultron is determined to destroy it. The word of his rule is “evolve or die” and we’re pretty sure death is the more likely option, given his actual plan.

The alien intelligence that Stark and Bruce Banner put into him gives him far more personality than possibly any other robot in cinema history and he immediately deems humanity unworthy. He chooses to evolve himself and then move on to the next best thing. James Spader does an incredible job and obviously has a ton of fun with his voice here. Nothin about Ultron seems particularly forced and that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t hold true for everyone else.

The twins, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff who woefully can’t be mutants or Magneto’s children for legal reasons (Damn it Fox!), are nice additions. They bring a nice amount of freshness to the team, but it’s pretty obvious early on that Wanda is just leagues above her brother when it comes to usefulness. His power is cool to see and all, but she’s clearly the heavy hitter. I’ve always thought about that when seeing them in the comics. Their family tree is a little unfair. Wanda, Magneto and Polaris all control fundamental forces of the universe, but Pietro just moves really fast. Not even flash level fast though, just faster than normal people mostly.

My only issue with them is the inconsistency in the accents. They honestly could’ve just left those out. I get that their from another country that is somehow chosen for destruction by Ultron, even though he seems to truly care about them in the beginning, but the accents. I just wasn’t really feeling the accents. One other problem was Pietro’s fate. It just seemed unnecessary. There was plenty of tragedy and darkness in the movie already, why did this have to be the case. Given Marvel’s reputation, it probably won’t last, but still. Other than that I liked them, their backstory made perfect motivation for their appearance here.

While I’m on the subject of newcomers, I have to mention Vision. He was pretty bada**. He’s normally just an android with density shifting powers and a solar gem on his head, but now he’s in possession of one of the most powerful artifacts in the Marvel Universe. It made sense to have the Mind Gem be the thing that made him more human than Ultron and Jarvis’ AI to round him out. He’s probably the only character that Thor truly trusts from the beginning and his presence demanded attention every time he was shown. I hope we get a lot more of him in the future. So many stories can be told about this manlike machine.

Everyone is given the spotlight here. We get to see much more of Hawkeye this time around and even get a glimpse of Black Window’s past. I like her character, who seems to be secondary in all of her appearances, but her out of the blue romance with Banner was kind of off-putting. She’s kind of an emotionless human weapon everywhere else, only showing her humanity to Cap and Hawkeye, but she’s now in love with the Hulk. I get the desire to make him seem more isolated than before, but it is a little forced. Just make the Hulk smash things and Banner make things, that’s all we really need.

Nick Fury was another part that felt out of place. I was pretty sure he was going to pop up where he did the first time, but his appearance at the end was kind of a W.T.F. moment. Where did he get a helicarrier and the staff to run it? I’ve been watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. every week, but there wasn’t even a hint to Fury still having this much power. If he has all of this, why is Coulson struggling so much on his own? Why even tell Coulson to rebuild an organization that’s still going so strong?

I feel like I’m doing a lot of nitpicking here, but this movie is awesome. The action sequences are top notch, managing to feel even greater in scale than the first time around. We never really recapture the full magic of seeing the team come together the way they did the first time, but the familiarity they all have with each other works really well. They are all friends who have helped each other out in their individual movies from time to time and that’s great. The scenes of relaxed camaraderie and particularly the early party scene are fantastic. Especially in terms of pacing.

There are easter eggs galore here, like the appearances of Wakanda and Ulysses Klaw losing an arm. Thor, while suffering from Wanda’s weird “give people visions” power, even understands the bigger picture now. He warns everyone else, but I doubt they really get what’s going on here. While being a part of the larger shared universe can be an enormous strength in these movies, it can also hurt a lot.

If you’ve been paying attention since the beginning of Marvel Studios you can see that each product they make is getting more and more heavy handed in their attempts to set up everything else. That being said I think Civil war is going to be a massive movie, given the recruits shown in the end. It really made the MCU feel complete. My only fear is that the novelty of the whole shared universe thing is in danger of wearing off before Marvel reaches it’s endgame. I still think everyone should go see this movie. Multiple times if possible. I’m certain I’ll be seeing it again next week.

Jonathan Jones

Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.