2012's The Avengers was a remarkable achievement. For the first time, a film combined elements and characters from a series of preceding films. Thus, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America all set the stage for The Avengers and box office gold was the result. The film was ambitious, thrilling, and while the plot would tend to disintegrate if you stared at it for more than a few seconds, it was, above all else, grand fun.
Now here we have its sequel and while Avengers: Age of Ultron is occasionally lots of fun, it just doesn't hang together as well and ultimately feels empty. Part of this is because this is, in essence, a middle film, and partly because there's just too much going on. While the film starts strong, builds reasonably well, it just collapses under its own weight by the end. I also can't shake the feeling that there's some validity to the complaints about how Black Widow, and women in general within the film, were handled.
Is it a bad movie? I want to say no, not really, but then I wonder if it's really any better than any Bayhem film, like Transformers: Age of Extinction. And Age of Extinction is unquestionably a bad film.
In Age of Ultron, the Avengers have reassembled to crush-kill-destroy Hydra, the group that infiltrated and ultimately destroyed SHIELD in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (Should that have come with a spoiler warning? Maybe, but c'mon, these films are all within the same universe, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the holy MCU, and you've got to learn to keep up.) While assaulting the last Hydra stronghold, our mighty band of earth's mightiest warriors (or is that another film) are confronted by new villains, Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). The former is a bore and the latter likes messing with people's heads.
As a result of said messing, having been confronted with his greatest fear, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) transforms himself into Frankenstein, convincing Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to be his Igor as they create Ultron, an artificial intelligence capable of defending the planet. Alas, Ultron's idea of defending the planet is to annihilate the human race because there are always extinction level events and the planet recovers by trying again, so what the heck, humans might as well die die die.
This might have made a really intriguing Iron Man story, because Ultron (voiced to wonderful effect by James Spader) plays like an anti-Tony Stark. It's remarkable how much he speaks and acts like Stark, only with less concern for humanity. If the film has any saving grace (and really, it does have some) it's with Spader's performance. I'll buy the blu-ray just so I can really listen to the dialogue. I love Spader's work here. He puts so much emotion into his delivery. An entire scene is conveyed with him simply saying, "Oh for God's sake…" Really well done.
Nothing else is done as well. That opening action sequence is a blurry mess. I compare Age of Ultron to Transformers on purpose. It feels like Bayhem but not as clear. The fighting was just a big blur of color and sound. The characters start in one spot, the camera shakes around, and everyone ends up somewhere else, somehow something having happened in between. It's dreadful.
Later action sequences are better, but are never really what I'd call "good." There's a certain exhausted feeling to the entire proceeding. Joss Whedon (writer/director) is on record as saying it was exhausting work, almost overwhelming, and there are rumor of conflicts with Marvel on how things were done. Looking at the finished product, I believe it.
The best moments of the film are the quietest. There's a moment after a party, seen in clips released months ago, when one by one our various heroes attempt to lift Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) hammer; Captain America (Chris Evans) almost succeeds. This leads directly to their first confrontation with Ultron. This is all good stuff and it's really where Whedon shines.
Of course, no one really makes any serious argument against what Stark does. They're annoyed that his Frankenstein monster goes on the rampage, but they can't really articulate why the concept of an autonomous force defending the earth is wrong. Indeed, Stark's case is all the more persuasive, because he can define the threat and the other Avengers can't respond beyond, "Well, we think it's icky!" Having a more detailed discussion would require thought, and thought is something these films tend to avoid. Not that they have to, it's just the Marvel formula, alas.
For the technical aspects of the film, the cinematography is by rote, the music is derivative and repetitive (and I know that both Brian Tyler and Danny Elfman are capable of much, much better work), and the visual effects are paint-by-numbers. Where'd the $250 million production budget go?
So you see that as I write this I begin to wonder just how bad a movie this actually is. There are some exciting moments, I laughed a lot, there's that great Spader work with Ultron, and within that work there was the potential of a serious discussion about artificial intelligence. It just doesn't happen here. Instead it all colorful fury signifying not a damn thing.
And maybe that's the problem. In recent months, I've seen action films that have demonstrated that they may be filmed in a clear, clean, exciting manner, while at the same time having some human dimension, which doesn't happen and doesn’t exist within Age of Ultron. I mean, good grief, have you watched the trailers for either Max Max: Fury Road or Tomorrowland? The trailers for either are more exciting than the whole of Age of Ultron.
The Marvel formula worked to perfection with The Avengers, it fails with Age of Ultron. Maybe they'll rally by the time we get Avengers: Infinity Wars. But that's going to be two films, probably totaling over five hours in length, and that just reeks of bloat.
Hurry, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, you're our only hope.
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