Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Review

"Language!"

-Steve Rogers

The Avengers reassemble to take out the last remnants of Hydra and discover some interesting tech in the process.  Frightened that these adventures will result in the death of every Avenger, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) manages to build an artificial intelligence, Ultron (James Spader), to help protect the human race.  Unfortunately Ultron comes to believe that humanity must be destroyed and creates a massive army of robots to do so.  The Avengers have to band together to destroy Ultron before he can destroy them.

What Works:

The core Avengers are all pretty great.  Tony Stark is perfect as always and we also get some really funny moments from Captain America (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth).  I also like the relationship that forms between Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).  It's sweet and unexpected and I wish we got more of that in the future MCU films.

I also like that we get a larger focus on Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).  He definitely got the short end of the stick in the first Avengers, so I'm glad he got an expanded roll here.  He's the only one of the core six who didn't get his mind meddled with and has to step in and save the other Avengers, which is pretty cool for the guy who is considered to be one of the weaker members of the team.

Ultron is a solid villain that I wish we got more of.  James Spader does an excellent job with his performance.  I love the way Ultron carries himself and I find his dialogue very engaging.  He's definitely one of the better MCU villains.

The action sequences are all very exciting, though they can be a bit much at times.  Still, they all have plenty of fun moments and were fun to watch on the big screen.  My personal favorite is the one where Captain America, Black Widow, and Hawkeye chase Ultron through Seoul, South Korea.  It's a fun sequence that isn't quite as over-the-top as the rest.

Finally, my favorite scene of the film comes when Tony, Bruce, Steve, Thor, and the Maximoff twins (Elizabeth Olson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) clash over the creation of Vision (Paul Bettany).  It's a precursor to the events of Civil Way and watching the conflict brew between the Avengers is always interesting.  It's cut short by Thor's arrival and I wish it had gone longer, but it was great while it lasted.

What Sucks:

The biggest problem with Age of Ultron is that it feels bloated.  They try and give every character a story and they don't all need one.  Infinity War and Endgame both learned from this film.  They have every character in the movie, but not all of them have a story arc.  Some of them are just there and that's fine.  It's better than cramming too much in.

The biggest story that should have been cut is Thor's.  None of what we see when Wanda Maximoff messes with the Avengers' heads is all that interesting, but Thor's is definitely the worst.  His little side-quest with Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) is a complete waste of time and doesn't really add anything to the film.  Erik has no purpose in the story and, as much as I love Stellan Skarsgård, shouldn't have been in this movie.

Finally, we have Quicksilver, who, due to some uncertainty on who owned the rights to the character, also appears in the X-Men movies.  His X-Men counterpart is about a million times more interesting.  The MCU version is uninteresting comic relief with powers that could have been much more interesting than what we got (see X-Men: Days of Future Past).  When we finally get to his death scene, I didn't care at all because he wasn't well developed.  The Avengers need someone to avenge and in the first movie we get that with Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), but Quicksilver's death just doesn't have the same impact and I wasn't at all sad to see him go.

Verdict:

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a decent movie that has too many storylines and comes off as bloated.  The action is solid, there are some great performances, funny moments, and a great villain.  It's mildly disappointing film, but still entertaining and, for the most part, has got it going on.

 7/10: Good