Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Avengers: Age of Ultron just might have been my most anticipated movie of 2015. I went into the theater yesterday filled with excitement and tremendous anticipation for what I was about to watch. I’ll be honest, deep down I already knew it was going to be a fantastic movie, so my expectations were high to say the least. Turns out my expectations were right. Age of Ultron lives up to the hype and then some. It is an superb film with an amazing cast, and a great story. Let’s just say it did not disappoint.

Right off the bat the thing that stands out the most in the movie is the fantastic action sequences and visual effects. This movie has some of the best fight scenes and action sequences that I’ve ever seen. Most of the movie is one big fight against a crazy number of enemies and the filmmakers did a great job at blending everything together to make the action sequences flow without missing a beat. I think most moviegoers watch movies like this for the action and Age of Ultron delivers tons of it.

One advantage that Age of Ultron had over the first Avengers movie is that it didn’t have to take the time to have the Avengers come together, they’re already a team at the start of the movie which speeds things up a little bit and allows for further exploration of the relationships between all the mighty heroes in the movie. There are several very interesting relationships among the Avengers that we got to see more of in this film. I liked how the movie delved a little deeper into Hawkweye and his private life. He’s a character that I felt was underused in the first movie so it’s nice to see him getting a little bit more screen time in this one. Getting to see the characters as more human and less super powered beings is a good thing in my opinion, because it makes you realize that they aren’t immortal and do have a lot to loose, which only makes the action and fight scenes all the more exhilarating and nerve wracking.

I think it’s very interesting to see the budding romantic relationship between Bruce Banner (The Hulk) and Black Widow, I find the Hulk to be fascinating as a character so It’s always interesting to see how he reacts to different people while he is in “Hulk-mode”. The most interesting interactions though had to have been between Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Captain America. There is definitely a feud building between the two leaders of the group, there are hints of their “beef” in Age of Ultron, but their dispute won’t be settled until next years Captain America: Civil War (which I can’t wait to see either).

There are a few new characters that were introduced in the movie. There were the super powered twins (Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver) and The Vision. I’m a fan of all 3 additions to the film series. I think both Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany did excellent jobs in portraying their characters and I’m interested to see how their future plays out in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I do wish however that the filmmakers had taken a bit more time to explain the twins background. There are a few mentions of what happened to them, but I personally would have liked to have known more about their back story and how they got their powers.

As with the first Avengers film there was plenty of great humor mixed in with all the action and drama. Robert Downey Jr is his usual hilarious self, and the other characters do a good job in mixing in some comedic relief in what is an otherwise pretty dark film. There are plenty of running gags in the movie, I particularly enjoyed the joke with Thor’s hammer as well as Captain America and his “Language” line. I think that compared to the first film Age of Ultron has slightly better acting, and less cheesy dialogue but that’s just my initial impression.

There are very few things that I didn’t like about the movie. If anything there are just aspects of the film that weren’t really bad, but I feel could have been better. James Spader did a good job in portraying the main villain Ultron. He had the perfect voice for the role, making the character intimidating not just physically but also psychologically. With that being said, I’m not a huge fan of how Ultron was ultimately portrayed in the grand scheme of things. I think his character was introduced too fast, and even though I understood his goals, the reasoning behind them was still a little confusing/vague. I wish the filmmakers had spent a little bit more time on Ultron and what made him act the way he did. To me it just seemed like the entire film he was doing something to help his schemes and plans but he rarely ever really went too into depth on his master plan. He honestly wasn’t as badass as I thought he would be from watching the trailer. He seemed pretty immature for a sentient super robot. He has some great scenes and very memorable lines of dialogue, but I expected more from the being that was supposedly the Avengers greatest adversary to date.

On that same note, I think the final confrontation with Ultron was a bit anti-climactic. Without getting too much into it, I can acknowledge that it wasn’t easy to defeat him (the heroes had to do a ton of work to stop him and save the world), but I just think the Avengers made it look a little too easy as far as defeating him in a 1 on 1 fight. Throughout the film he kept upgrading himself and was supposedly becoming more and more powerful yet in the end it seemed that everyone in the team was able to hurt him and he didn’t put up much of a fight. To be fair this is all just nitpicking, Spader did a great job, and even though Ultron wasn’t what I expected he was still a quality villain and a very interesting character.

In the end, I wouldn’t say that Age of Ultron is better than the first Avengers film, but it is still an excellent movie that I think everyone (who is a fan of these types of movies) should see. This film has an amazing cast of actors who all do great jobs in portraying their beloved characters. There is so much action and drama and its all complemented perfectly with great humorous moments and great interpersonal relationships between the characters. All in all, Avengers: Age of Ultron is not a perfect movie, but it is close to it. I highly recommend it. I liked it so much, I might just go see it again while it’s still in theaters. 4.5/5