By Mike McCarthy
The first summer blockbuster has arrived in the shape of Avengers: Age of Ultron and it does not disappoint. The original team has returned to once again defend the earth with some help of some new friends and one beloved assistant. The action and effects live up to the hype but the script could use a little more pep in its step. One liners galore, some in situations where it takes away from what is going on and in essence falls a little short. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the film, by it does need a little help.
It starts off right in the heat of the action, right after where Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D ended a few days prior to the release, finishing off the last of Hydra’s leaders. Keeping the television and film worlds of Marvel in sync is what keeps watchers enthralled. The same thing occurred last year with Captain America: Winter Soldier, which really helped save agents of shield after a slow start. It is the K.I.S.S method, keep it simple stupid, so everyone knows the players on the board.
With the team fully engaged in taking out the hydra base, the leaders of Hydra have sent out their only two successful human test subjects, the Maximoff twins, Wanda and Pietro, otherwise known as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Scarlet can control minds and has bursts of energy that can in retrospect eviscerate objects. Quicksilver is exactly that, fast as lightning and can pack a wallop. In my opinion, this version of Quicksilver as opposed to the X-Men: Days of Future Past is pretty dulled down. Aaron Johnson Taylor is a fine actor and plays the part well, but Evan Peters’ depiction of Quick was so much better, and had quite a bit less screen time. Just the way that this version of Quick was written really didn’t tickle my fancy and I had a real high hopes for it. Elizabeth Olsen’s perpetration of Scarlet was great and she totally nailed look and accent of her. Without having something to do with her hands like the others do, like carry a bow, a hammer, a shield, guns etc. trying to make shooting blasts of a red power force out of your hands look good is difficult, and she pulled it off quite well.
Like the rest of the films there are one-liners that we all love and quote later on …like in the first Avengers, “ Doth mother know, you weareth her drapes,” is one of my favorite lines from any movies. This one tones it down a little bit, but they all kind of give Captain America some crap about saying “ Hey, watch your language,” and hey I get it, he is like the grandfather of the team and the leader but after the first time it got old pretty fast. Other than that specific line there weren’t really any that popped out at me and really kept stayed with me. The most entertaining scene that was not an action scene is when all of the heroes are trying to lift Thor’s hammer off the table, which obviously none of them can. Iron Man and War Machine aka Tony Stark and James Rhodes put their gauntlets on their hands and try to lift the hammer together and still can’t do it.
The addition of James Spader as the voice of Ultron to the film was the perfect choice. His voice is very distinctive and sort of has a robotic type of twinge to it, not any offense but I loved it. Ultron is an AI created by Tony and Bruce Banner as the world’s deterrent to any kind of attack. They take it a little too far and try to use the stone from Loki’s sceptre to bring him to life and make him an even more advanced being. This is obviously a large mistake since Ultron turns on them and wants to eliminate The Avengers, and eventually the human population. JARVIS, Tony’s AI that helps connect the team and gives them specs of everything tries to fight Ultron before he can fully automate himself into some robotic bodies. JARVIS is more like Tony’s best friend and confidante then he is just an Artificial Intelligence. After JARVIS is defeated and brought down by Ultron in the virtual world, Tony tries to find a way to bring him back to life. *SPOILER AHEAD* Ultron is trying to create the living android with a flesh body. The Avengers steal the one body that he has created and put JARVIS’ protocols into the body, creating Vision an android based lifeform with JARVIS’ mind and voice. Not only do they give him a body, but they give him the Mind Infinity Stone to help fight evil.
Now this is the first time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that one person has played two different characters. Now technically, Paul Bettany isn’t playing different characters, just one was only a voice before and now he has an actual body. The only other exception of one actor playing two different characters is Chris Evans who plays Captain America now, but previously played Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four. The difference between the two is that Marvel owns the Captain America character and Fox owns the Human Torch, so they aren’t in the same universe…technically. It is definitely skirting the line since in the comics you will see Johnny Storm fighting with Cap, but as of now in the MCU, that can not happen.
Now going back to the twins from earlier, they joined up with Ultron due to their hatred of the Avengers, especially Tony Stark for killing their parents. Eventually they become part of the Avengers team to fight Ultron, after Wanda realizes what his end plan is, which is to destroy the human race. They join up after Hawkeye gives them a pep talk about what is going on and if they are going to walk out the door, they are Avengers and they will fight alongside the rest of the team.
This film really has some emotional undertones and hidden lives incorporated in to it. We won’t ruin it for the people that haven’t seen it yet but it is surprising to see what the film has in store for you when it has love involved. Let’s just say that some characters that you wouldn’t expect, have some secret lives that no one knows about and want to keep it secret for everyone involved, including the team.
Overall it was a well done film with some incredible CGI, but maybe just a little too much of it. When you go to see a comic book based film, you expect to see lots of effects and CGI, so we can’t fault it for that alone, but the script could’ve been a little better. The acting and characters were on point and some Easter Eggs leading into what MCU Phase III will be all about. There were some cameos that were hinted at before the film released that we were looking forward to but were let down when none of them occurred. Supposedly the first cut by Joss Whedon was three and a half hours long, but the released version was more than an hour shorter. I am very curious to see what was cut from the release and see what we didn’t get to see. We give the film 8 out of 10 stars, which is higher than a lot of reviews but we knew what to expect when going to an Avengers film and are not going to give it a lower review just because of the effects and CGI.
*all images property of Marvel and Disney