Age Of Ultron
Summary: After realizing Age Of Ultron he and his fellow Avengers can’t personally respond to every worldwide threat, billionaire Tony Stark (played to the hilt once more by Robert Downey Jr.) – aka the invincible Iron Man – creates a peacekeeping program called Ultron. Unfortunately, the artificial intelligence quickly evolves beyond Stark’s intentions and starts causing chaos, leaving the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to clean up the mess and save the world from destruction.
Screenwriter/Director: Joss Whedon
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, James Spader, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elisabeth Olsen.
Australian Release Date: May 23rd, 2015
Australian Rating: M
Runtime: 141 minutes
It’s almost impossible to think that just a decade ago, the concept of an interconnecting cinematic universe was universally deemed nigh-unfeasible to realize. And yet, one only has to look at the rampant success Marvel Studios has been carrying to see how much the landscape has changed in this day and age. Once upon a time, Marvel Comics heavy hitters like the X-Men and Spider-Man were among the biggest box-office draws. Now, we live in a world where truly obscure characters like Ant-Man are worthy of their own movie. What a difference the passage of time can make, eh?
Only a few years ago, writer/director Joss Whedon joined forces with Marvel Studios to give the world The Avengers, a project that could aptly be described as the stuff that a comic fan’s dreams are made of. As the culmination of no less than five prior films worth of set-up and anticipation, the big-budget blockbuster debut of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes set a new benchmark for superhero movies, and a sequel was inevitable.
Now, Whedon has the unenviable task of crafting a film that not only lives up to the precedent of its predecessor, but also expands upon the establishment. As much as my inner comic-book buff would love to say that this film is awesome and leave it at that, it wouldn’t be terribly professional of me to do so. With that in mind, I’ll simply say that Age Of Ultron is very much what I was expecting from a follow-up to 2012’s monster hit – Not quite perfect, but fairly close.
This movie’s biggest strength is that while the first Avengers film was more or less a party that gleefully celebrated it’s mere existence, with plenty of action and humour to go around, Age Of Ultron goes in the opposite direction and presents a much more serious and personal affair. The main plot is a story of power, exploring what happens when one well-intentioned man takes on too much of it, only for that power to get out of control.
To the film’s further credit, Ultron is more than just your bog-standard comic book villain: Like any antagonist worth their salt, he – at least initially – genuinely believes that he is acting in humanity’s best interest by carrying out his goals. Ultron’s characterization can best be summed up as an incredibly smart and equally powerful child, and James Spader brings just enough nuance to his performance to make that description believable, in turn providing the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a very different kind of villain.
One that is neither the sly, charming and devious schemer like Tom Hiddleston’s Loki from the Thor films and the original Avengers, nor utterly forgettable like Lee Pace’s character in Guardians Of The Galaxy, Ronan The Accuser. In my opinion, both the film itself and its place in the overarching series of movies are much better for it.
Building upon that, the returning cast are all in fine form. While Chris Evans may not get much more to do this time around than…well…be Captain America, the rest of the cast are each given something worthwhile to play with – special mention going to Jeremy Renner for getting the chance to show the general public that there’s more to his character than simply being, to quote a bystander I overheard while waiting in line for the first Avengers film, “the dude that shoots arrows” – which is made all the more impressive considering not only
just how much is packed into the proceedings (crazy battle sequences, interesting character interactions, spectacular visual effects, and a few genuinely funny moments. In short, all the best parts of the previous Avengers film carry over here), but that what is shown in the final cut was edited down from an even longer version of the film..
But like I said, this sequel isn’t completely perfect and even with such a strong foundation holding it up, something eventually has to give. First and foremost is that in some ways, Age Of Ultron feels very much like the middle chapter of an ongoing saga. To give an example: Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is given newfound purpose as he is tasked with delivering an important slice of exposition to help set up future films.
However, his part in the final cut comes – according to Whedon himself – at the expense of a very different subplot that appears to have been written with the intention of setting up Thor’s next solo feature, a trail I personally think would have been more interesting to follow. In addition, a couple of placeholders are slid under the door, the entire team dynamic is changed by the end of the film, and – much like a significant chunk of Iron Man 2 in relation to the first Avengers film – the obligatory mid-credits stinger is there for no other reason than to allow Marvel to shout “Hey! Remember this? Yeah, this is a thing that we’re going to do!” at the audience.
Another nitpick comes from the inclusion of super-powered twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elisabeth Olsen, respectively), both known to longtime comic readers as Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch, and included here thanks to a legal agreement with the owners of the X-Men film franchise at 20th Century Fox.
While I won’t deny that it was interesting to see these two actors playing brother and sister here after having previously seen them act as husband and wife in last year’s Godzilla reboot, their characters weren’t fleshed out quite as much as I would’ve liked, and the film doesn’t end up properly resolving their motivations against the Avengers. Credit is deserved where it’s due,
however: Both actors do very well with what they are given, and although the version of Quicksilver portrayed by Evan Peters in Fox’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past is infinitely more entertaining and likeable, I can’t help but appreciate Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s depiction of the character for being comparatively more faithful to the comics – Whereas the former was an American-accented prankster that tended to use his super-speed simply for fun, the latter sports an Eastern-European accent, seems a little bull-headed and is fiercely protective of his twin sister.
Despite my complaints and any prior misgivings, I had a lot of fun while watching the film. Although it may not be quite the same action-packed romp most might expect coming off of the first film, The Avengers: Age Of Ultron does well to remind us that much like the ink-and-paper adventures that these movies take their inspiration from, there is room underneath the grandiose and colorful nature of these efforts for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to grow and change.
Now that Whedon has stepped out of the director’s chair, I can only hope his successors – Joe and Anthony Russo (also of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and the forthcoming Captain America: Civil War) – will knock it out of the park when the Avengers saga performs its victory lap in 2018 with the two-part Infinity War.
