Review of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) by Samichsupernova — 14 May 2015

It's hard to review this film, knowing that the three-hour director's cut we're going to eventually get will almost undoubtedly be better. As a stand-alone film, "Age of Ultron" is kind of all over the place. But as the punchline to Marvel's Phase Two, it's a satisfying ensemble character piece, packed with action, and better than it needs to be, but only just slightly. Thanks to Marvel cutting out 40 minutes from the film, the plot is both standard in its progression, and weird in its digressions and handling of violence.

The good stuff definitely outnumbers the bad: the Seoul highway chase was intense, beating out anything in Furious 7. Paul Bettany's take on The Vision was a revelation, easily the film's most interesting character. The Hulkbuster sequence ruled (despite it sugarcoating the consequences of the destruction wrought). Most of the character moments, such as those between Black Widow and Bruce Banner, were great showcases of Whedon's ability to layer these otherwise two-dimensional characters.

My biggest problem with the action is that it wants to play on such a huge scale, but doesn't show much of the consequences. There are hardly any shots of dead civilians, although based on the insanity of the destruction it should be assumed that hundreds if not thousands of innocent people died. Instead, the film spends a lot of time showing our heroes rescuing people. It defies logic. Although I understand this is technically a Disney film, the bloodless violence makes me a bit uneasy.

If it were not for Whedon's sardonic writing and the well-choreographed, fast-paced, kinetic action scenes that seem ripped straight from the pages of Marvel's finest hours, this movie would have been just par for the course. Jay from the RedLetterMedia's "Half in the Bag" described this film as the first time we are seeing chinks in the Marvel machine's armor, and I would have to agree. The editing is so disjointed at times, with half-realized ideas, that I would have to say the sum of this film's parts are greater than the whole. For instance, the sequence in Africa with Andy Serkis' character felt shoehorned in. Thor's subplot was almost entirely cut out. The relationship between Tony and Ultron was undercooked. Captain America has some great lines ("it's not about who's better, it's about who's right") but zero character development. But one of the film's glaring problems (for me) was Ultron, who didn't turn out to be as menacing as he made himself out to be in the first few scenes. His insanity angle was not convincing to me. However, my brother really liked the portrayal of the character, so there's that.

So the film is not perfect. But for what it is, it's a flawed epic, one that will likely disappoint some and invigorate others... but given the ever-increasing audience expectations and demands, it's actually amazing how well it holds together. Thank you Mr. Whedon for your hard work, and I wish you all the best moving forward.