Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

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1. 

   lachyas

   By now it's abundantly clear that I'm not in the target audience for Marvel films, which is fine, but I quite enjoyed Guardians and Cap 2, so there was really no reason for the second Avengers film to not offer at least something of value. Sadly, this was just a huge disappointment. Probably more telling was that the people I saw the film with, all of whom loved the previous instalments in this franchise, also left feeling underwhelmed.
   
   I'm not sure what people are seeing here. The action is fairly unremarkable and generic, with individual scenes blending together with few standout moments and the film eventually doing what all Marvel films do and descending into a CGI destruction porn spectacle with an arbitrary race against the clock to save the world. Again. Meanwhile the overarching storyline is nothing new and, in broad strokes, could have been lifted from any number of previous superhero movies. I don't know whether all the comic book source material is overwhelmingly similar or it's just how it is being adapted, but this is by far the most risk-adverse and cliched Marvel movie to date.
   
   None of that is overly surprising, but the real killer here is the dialogue. I've never heard so many forced attempts to be witty in a film; it's like every second line needed to be this quip or piece of hilarious banter between the team and, whilst some of these work, for every joke that lands ten fall flat on their face, with the result that everything feels extremely forced, rather than letting the dynamic between the Avengers flow in a more natural way. This comes at the cost of character development, which is disappointingly sparse; it feels like all the Avengers come out the other side of the events here more or less the same as how they came in, other than perhaps a romance subplot with about as much chemistry between the players as those in Fifty Shades Of Grey. Given the possibilities raised by the mental manipulation powers, this is a huge wasted opportunity.
   
   It's a real pity as well, because the cast is phenomenal: Johansson is coming off her career-best performance in Under The Skin, similar can be said of Renner in Kill The Messenger and Ruffalo in Foxcatcher, and Olsen and Spader are very strong additions. These are seriously talented people, not just big names, but they're given absolutely nothing to work with. I can't think of a single scene that required any degree of acting talent to the point where it couldn't have been performed by any number of lesser actors. Spader's antagonist in particular is just the next entry in a long line of utterly forgettable Marvel villains, forgoing the menacing presence promised by trailers to become another mouthpiece for Whedon's quips, and the strength of the twins as characters is diminished by their

   complete 180 degree turn in motivation mid-movie

   which was far too rushed and under-explained.
   
   Of course the film is going to make a billion dollars and criticism is just going to be waved away as 'haters gonna hate', which is one of the most damaging things you can possibly say to film discussion. It's a shame, because there's a lot to discuss here, particularly given that Whedon himself has admitted to feeling tired and worn out while making the movie. It remains to be seen whether this will be reflected in general audiences after one too many superhero blockbusters, but I have no doubt that given time this will be seen as one of the weakest instalments in the Marvel franchise behemoth. Which is saying something. 8 years 12 months ago
2. 

   MrDoog

   Predictably uses the usual, worn out Marvel formula whereby each hero gets their allotted time to showcase their bag of tricks in taking down yet another flimsy generic army - yet it still falls short of the distinctly average super hero movie standards.
   
   It was far too long and bloated.
   The jokes fall flat, I think I chuckled once near the beginning.
   The twins' accents were hilariously bad.
   The love story didn't work.
   Hawkeye's scenes and general presence was surplus to requirements.
   
   The whole loud thing was more tedious than fun and felt devoid of any heart and soul. There have been worse mcu installments to date, but this is supposed to be their flagship release. Definitely the last marvel movie I waste money seeing in theaters. That said, i'm sure fanboys will lap it up 8 years 12 months ago
3. 

   DisneyStitch

   Somehow watching the opening fight sequence you can tell that it won't be as fun as the first Avengers, a feeling that persists all the way to the mid-credits bonus scene. The movie suffers from too much plot and it rushes through so many plot points in rapid fire succession that you can't help but feel as if they put far too much into it.
   
   Ultron would have benefited from more screen time and the Avengers are being slowly defeated by the problem of having way too many characters on screen. The Marvel universe works pretty well with each Avenger having their own love interest, enemies, and sidekicks in their own individual movie series. However, throw all of them into one movie and the mixture totally implodes. Based on the ending scene of the movie it looks like things are only going to be more crowded and overstuffed in future films.
   
   The first Avengers did what it intended to do very well. It allowed each Avenger to shine, introduced the problems with having all of them in the same room, and gave a great apocalyptic scenario with the suave villain Loki in charge of it. Age of Ultron tries to copy the same formula but with twice as many characters and a villain that is nowhere near as much fun to watch as Loki. 8 years 11 months ago

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