I hate to say how disappointing this movie was. Sequels are rarely better than their
predecessors and unfortunately this is case. It is not a bad film by any
stretch, there is a bank of talent that is still trying to make a decent
product, but as a whole the film is weaker than first but a vast margin. The
first was impressive because it tied various directors, characters, and
properties into a cohesive adventure. This feels like a long filler episode.
This review may have some spoilers.
If you watched the events of Iron Man 3 you might remember
Iron Man getting surgery to have the shrapnel removed so that he is basically not
Iron Man anymore. He destroyed all his suits and drove off to live happily as a
billionaire. Well, Tony is back as Iron Man- no explanation there. What about
the ending of Thor 2 where we saw that Loki had taken over the throne of
Asgard? Never even brought up. Instead of acknowledging the films that came
before it like the first did, this movie seems to take great pains to avoid
bringing them up.
Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr. and Bruce Banner,
played by Mark Ruffalo, create an artificial intelligence in the hopes that they
can retire the Avengers and create a force for world peace. The AI-system is
called Ultron, voiced by James Spader, and he feels that the best way for there
to be world peace is to destroy humanity.
The Avengers must band together again to stop this robot menace and save
the world.
Let’s start by talking about what was good in this movie.
James Spader is awesome as Ultron. His line delivery oozes with cold disgust
for humanity and smug superiority. The other actors fall into their old rolls
well and it is comfortable to see them again. The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver
have ridiculous accents that I personally could have done without, but both
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen play their parts well.
The biggest problem to this movie is that there are too many
characters to focus on. They have added several new characters and all deserve
a backstory but all are basically glossed over. They instead focus on things
that add nothing to the narrative, these include: discovery of Hawkeye’s hidden
family, the romance between Black Widow and the Hulk, Black Widow getting
kidnapped by Ultron for no reason whatsoever, the trip to Africa, and the fight
with the Hulk and the Hulkbuster. I would have gladly given those scenes up in
order to have some character development.
The action and CGI is fun to watch but after awhile I felt
like I was just watching cartoon characters duke it out. The realism was just
lost and it became even more silly than usual. Ultron’s plan for the destruction
of humanity is on par with a Bond villain and any amount of physics or logic
should have made the plan implausible from the start. I guess they really
wanted to make this comic movie seem like it was coming straight off the pages.
The worse offense is the obvious attempt to grasp at the
audience’s emotions. There is a character that dies in the film and his death
is supposed to be big, dramatic, and meaningful. It would be if the audience
cared who the character was. In the first film this was done when Agent Coulson
was killed and he united the team in his death. Coulson had been in several
other Marvel films and he was well liked. It was a shame when he died. This
death just seemed empty and manipulative.
If you are a fan of the first Avengers movie you probably
already brought your tickets to this blockbuster. If you are patient enough to
wait then I recommend seeing it a rental. It’s a good movie but it doesn’t live
up to the hype. An Avengers movie needs to be epic with things at stake and a narrative
that isn’t just a mass of quips and action scenes. This movie falls short where it could have
been really unique and interesting. In making a series this epic, mediocrity
can be one of the biggest crimes of all.
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