There’s no big movie that just came out to review… right?
Oh, wait. Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Well, shit, and I have a huge backlog of reviews dating back to January that I
still haven’t gotten around to posting. I guess they’ll have to wait a week so
I can get to this. Also, Cap, don’t start with me about language, time for a
review!
Before getting into Avengers
2, let’s preface by telling you the necessary backstory. Why? Because Avengers 2 has LOTS of moving parts. If
you fall asleep or didn’t watch the other films (or both) then you’re not going
to get as much out of this movie as you would otherwise. So what’s necessary
and what isn’t? Obviously, Avengers 1
is necessary. But remember that was acting as a sequel to multiple films as
well. So going further back, you most certainly need to see Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America
prior to Avengers 1. After that, Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2
are all necessary. Yes, I skipped Iron
Man 2 because it really is a mess of a film, despite being loads of fun. I
also skipped Incredible Hulk because
while good, you don’t really NEED it to understand what’s going on. And the
actor changing between films doesn’t help either. Guardians of the Galaxy gets a pass simply for having virtually no
direct connection to this film, making it optional as well. Lastly, if you’ve
seen Agents of SHIELD, then great,
that’ll certainly help. If not, just watch Captain
America 2 and you’ll get the gist of it, but the TV show can really flesh
out details you might have missed. 
As for WHAT actual things you need to remember from previous
films – Tony Stark is trying to find more efficient ways to protect the world
and still believes he can do it as a one man army. In his last movie, he
decommissioned all his old suits and has, since then, rebuilt from scratch and
made new robots. This leads into his construction of Ultron itself (more on
that later). Thor found another Infinity Stone during his adventure against the
Dark Elves and it is safely stored with “The Collector” who also appears in Guardians of the Galaxy. And HYDRA (from Captain America 1) has secretly been a
part of SHIELD since the end of WWII and recently emerged, destroying SHIELD
and causing acts of mass terrorism around the world. They also (in Agents of SHIELD) raided the dangerous
artifacts vault to claim Loki’s scepter from Avengers 1 and are using it to run experiments, build machines, and
so forth. And those are just the big details. For the small bits of info that
help explain things in Age of Ultron
without long bits of exposition, just watch the previous movies. I’m paid to
review, not recap. (Actually, I don’t get paid for this at all, so whatever).
Continuing from that summarized recap, the team meets up to
bring down another HYDRA base in a fictional country that’s in the middle of
Europe somewhere (Bermany?). It’s a cool action scene with some fun dialogue,
but it introduces the first plot-device of the film and two of our new
characters. Tony finds Loki’s scepter (see Avengers
1) which is being used to power the HYDRA base somehow. The mission was to
retrieve said scepter for Thor to return it to Asgard, but Tony wants to play
to see how it works. During said initial mission, the team runs into the Marvel
Universe versions of Quicksilver (also seen in X-Men Days of Future Past) and Scarlet Witch (who was surprisingly
absent from that film), who first act as henchmen for HYDRA, but become rogue
agents later and are recruited by Ultron (for a bit).
In messing with Loki’s scepter, Tony’s discovers a way to
make a more advanced AI system than his already existing Jarvis and justifies
his need to explore it by saying he wants to use it to protect Earth. But
things get carried too far after numerous failures in getting this AI to
function with an automaton shell, resulting in the eventual creation of Ultron.
Ultron takes the logic of protecting Earth too far, believing humans to be
flawed and broken and requiring extinction to keep the Earth safe, starting
with the Avengers themselves. Obviously, the Avengers find out who made Ultron
and the team wants to tear Tony apart (for a bit).
Ultron sends robot shells carrying his programming around
the world to collect what he needs for his ultimate plan. He also enlists the
help of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (Pietro and Wanda for short) who believe
he is a force for good, but eventually discover he wants to wipe out all
humanity, not just Tony Stark. Man, Tony cannot play nice with anyone, can he?
The other part of his plan is to brainwash a bio-engineer to create a flesh and
vibranium shell to move his programming into. And while this plan almost works,
the Avengers manage to foil it and turn it against him, creating ANOTHER new
character, the Vision.
There is one big final fight with high stakes and high
tension. Everyone gets a final “big hero” moment with a cool move or stunt. But
unlike the last film, there are some major losses here and it makes me wonder
where the future films will be going. I won’t spoil who lives, dies, stays, and
goes but I will admit I was surprised by at least one of the above and I’m
certain most others will be too. And before I start chewing on the film in more
detail, one last bit of advice, there’s not an “END” credits sequence, but only
a mid-credits sequence. So if you don’t want to stay the whole time, it’s not
necessary. Just a heads up. Good? Okay, let’s get detailed here. Warning, more
spoilers inbound. 
First, let me start by saying this steps up from Avengers in a lot of ways, but something
about it certainly feels off compared to our first big adventure with the team.
I can’t quite place what it is, but it does seem off and it’s unsettling.
Perhaps it is the personality of Ultron himself. He acts insanely human for an
automaton that’s hell-bent on eradicating humanity. I’m used to Ultron
iterations from the cartoons and comics having a more robotic tone of voice,
being less sarcastic and witty, and ultimately just cold and unmovable in their
logic. Here, we have a psychotic killing machine that has the same smarm as
Tony Stark, but without the loving affection to go with it. 
This is something that, again, feels off, but doesn’t
outright kill the movie in any way. Especially when certain aspects do
everything they can to make up for it. For example, there are several moments
dedicated to giving Hawkeye more screen time and characterization that we never
saw in the previous films. There’s even a moment where we were honestly led to
believe he would die, and I’m impressed the direction that scene took (I said
spoilers, but I won’t go too far). This should make up for people questioning
his reason for being there among the other god-like heroes (as pointed out in
the film).
The new characters, Pietro and Wanda are interesting
characters. Looking at how things go, the better Pietro is still in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but this
Pietro is just in a better, more coherent film. Wanda is getting her first big
on-screen appearance ever and while I’ve never fully understood the bizarre
logic behind her powers, they did a good job making her have a plethora of
skills here in Age of Ultron. My
favorite scene among them is likely to be the one where the entire team (save
for Hawkeye) is suffering through an illusion exposing their worst nightmares
in order to tear the team apart. This ultimately leads into the Hulk fighting
Iron Man like you saw in the trailers.
And with that said, it brings me back to what I ultimately
love about this film. The Avengers fight each other due to differences,
mind-control, and other factors that lead to the tensions between friends
exploding into something horrible and destructive. There are lots of issues
where the Avengers fight one another. There are lots of times when villains
become heroes for a variety of reasons on their own (such as Hawkeye, Scarlet
Witch, Vision, etc). So this movie does push that a bit leading to a mostly
satisfying ending where we see a new team pick up where the old one left off.
Bonus points have to go to the one who came up with the idea
to push a relationship between Natasha and Bruce Banner. Avengers made us think she was to be involved with Hawkeye. Captain America 2 made us think that she
and Steve would end up together. But here we see these two actually care about
one another and would even run away together if something else didn’t happen
first. It’s one of the several unexpected moments from the film I really
enjoyed.
That’s another thing this film gets points for that few
others do. In most comic book movies follow a formula based on a story line in
the books (as with most adaptations). So it makes it kind of easy to guess how
the plot will turn out. Here, lots of unique twists surprised me in ways I
never could have expected. Certain deaths, romances, plot-device usage, and
character actions as well as backstories make for some surprising moments that
ultimately make for a fun film.
Be warned, again, there are lots of layers to the film that
are borrowed from the previous films, so you may get lost in the lore. And
there are moments where the film slows down, which feel really slow in a
high-paced action film like this. But outside of those moments, the film really
works well on multiple levels. It doesn’t feel like another Iron Man movie or
Captain America movie. It truly feels like an ensemble cast making a film as a
team. And that’s something I have to applaud for. Great job guys!
That’s all for today, so be sure to like, share, comment,
and subscribe if you’ve got the time. And while you’re here, also check out
other articles on the blog or visit our YouTube page. We’ll be back soon for
more Reloading.
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