Review of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) by Mazmorrero47 — 30 Apr 2015

After watching this film, I’m glad Joss Whedon isn’t taking over Avengers: Infinity War, since there are several things I hated about it:

1. I didn’t find Ultron very menacing or compelling since he acted like a buffoon Disney villain. Just like Joker in The Dark Knight, his pretentious pseudo-philosophical babble tried too hard to sound important, but it really wasn’t. Not to mention his plan was pretty silly (it never seemed to me like his “meteor” could exterminate mankind).

2. Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were miscast, they didn’t bring much charisma or depth to the table, their characters' motivations made no sense, and their awful Eastern European accents that came and went were quite distracting.

3. Blatantly recycling plot elements from the first movie, namely, Hulk going rogue against the team and the villain controlling the mind of a scientist for his own gain.

4. One of the reasons the first movie worked so well is because it kept things relatively simple, whereas AOU’s script has too stuff much going on. Because of that, it felt incoherent and disjointed at times. It almost gives The Amazing Spider-Man 2 a run for its money.

5. Overall, I thought the scenes in Hawkeye's house were boring and didn’t really go anywhere (why does Hawkeye’s wife act like she knows the Avengers perfectly after a few hours of meeting them?).

6. The only reason the Hulkbuster armor scene exists is to have another toy to sell.

7. Why is S.H.I.E.L.D. suddenly active again? Did Joss Whedon not care about the events in Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

8. Most notably, the contrived and cringe-inducing attempt at a romance between Black Widow and Bruce Banner. Not only does it come out of nowhere, it’s entirely out of character for both Natasha and Banner, especially the former. Black Widow was established as someone who tries to keep her distance emotionally speaking so things can stay professional in the previous films. It seems Joss Whedon forgot about the moment when she said “love is for kids” in the first movie. As for Banner, well, I guess we’re supposed to pretend Betty Ross never existed….

The only positive aspects I found were Vision and the long shot at the beginning. Just like the Iron Man sequels, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World, it's one of those films that was made to sell merchandise rather than telling a good story. Joss Whedon was going though the motions and seemed to think "who cares about character development and making sense? the movie is still going to make millions!" Such a massive disappointment, especially after the wonderful Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Heck, even Guardians of the Galaxy was better.