Last year, on a random Tuesday, Kevin Feige introduced us to the films of Marvel’s Phase 3. Fans’ wishes were granted when we got exactly what we wanted: threequels to our beloved heroes, fan favourites like Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Doctor Strange, and a (hopefully, remarkable) substitution for X-Men in the Inhumans. We also got the Infinity War. Marvel is set to give us some spectacular films. But, to the average moviegoer, those who don’t read the comics, those names meant nothing. Inhumans? Infinity War? Thor: Ragnarok? I know these phrases. And I know most of you know them as well. But then I realized something; this is it. This is the point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where EVERYTHING is going to take forever to explain. For all of the things that Mavel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron does correctly, and that is quite a bit, the film does fail in a number of places. This is my review of the film. Age of Ultron does entertain. It doesn’t hit you with explosive, collateral damage like some blockbusters. Dear I say, it even has a little bit of heart. But this review is not about what’s good with the movie. Instead, this is where the movie went wrong.
If you have not seen the movie, this is your spoiler warning. You cannot turn back from this point.
You’ve been warned.
All right. If you’ve kept reading, I would like to draw your attention to one of the links between this film and its predecessor: Loki’s scepter. This film begins with a great battle scene leading our heroes to regain Loki’s scepter. As the film progresses, we learn that buried within the blue jewel was the yellow Infinity Stone of Mind. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it has an equal amount of destructive capability as the Tesseract or the Aether. But we only sparingly see its full power in this film. Instead, it is used primarily as its namesake implies, to control the minds of others. When Stark begins to analyze Loki’s scepter, JARVIS discovers that within the jewel is a power source that can think for itself. It could be very difficult for people to simply ACCEPT that within a non-mechanical, seemingly archaic weapon could be something with a brain. So, Joss Whedon and company gave us a new interpretation of the Infinity Stone of Mind, a jewel capable of thinking for itself. And from that point, it is perfectly logical that once Stark realizes the jewel can think for itself, he can use it as a mind for Ultron. Once he is able to build a digital map of how the jewel thinks, he can adapt it to a machine. Thus, Ultron was born. Sounds logical, right? This is where I kind of lost my mind, pun intended. The implications of artificial intelligence could have taken the film miles down the road. Instead, the only traction it seems to gain is a few bad jokes about how Stark should have known better. That Stark should have been intelligent enough to realize that putting A.I. in a machine could have unforeseen consequences. Not an entirely original or unique idea. Even geniuses like Stephen Hawking or Bill Gates have warned us about artificial intelligence. Of course, it does fall within Stark’s mantra: “Sometimes you have to run before you can walk.”
Next, I want to bring your attention to something that, in my opinion, takes away from the film rather than adds to it. Too many characters. I’m not referring to any of the original Avengers. Or Ultron. Those characters are necessary. I’m not referring to characters like Nick Fury or Maria Hill, who really do not play much of a role other than to be a sounding board for the main characters. I’m not even referring to characters like the twins or the Vision, even though Vision’s birth is something of a bit of nonsense to me. Instead, I am referring to, specifically, Helen Cho, War Machine, Ulysses Klaue, and Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. War Machine simply was not needed. He first appears at the party after the successful raid on Strucker’s castle just to crack a few jokes. Then he randomly shows up with Fury and Hill (and a seemingly refurbished Hellicarrier) at the end of the film. I feel like the only reason War Machine is within this film is because he is one of the new Avengers at the end of the movie. Helen Cho’s character is some kind of scientist. I am uncertain If the film specifies what her actual discipline is. However, this is a character who was also not needed. Her entire purpose was to create the body that would become the Vision. The problem I have with her character is that if Ultron knew she was smart enough to build the body, why wasn’t he smart enough to do it himself? I honestly do not believe Ultron needed Cho. He could have killed her, taken the cradle, completed the body on the run and may have possibly succeeded in uploading his consciousness to it. But instead, he left her alive to do the work because the plot demands the more obvious choice. Ulysses Klaue is a monster of a character to me. I loved seeing him in the movie. But again, I have to ask, why bother having him here, other than to introduce us to him? So we remember him when he reappears in Black Panther? Ultron didn’t need to BUY vibranium from Klaue. He could have just entered Wakanda and taken it from the source. The obvious defense to that line of questioning is that Black Panther could have taken him out before he even got the vibranium. Well, that’s possible. But for those of us who read the comics, we know Klaue actually kills T’Chaka. In other words, Klaue can handle himself. And if Klaue can handle himself in Wakanda, of course Ultron can. Another useless character introduced for the sake of introduction. Lastly, Strucker. His use in this movie absolutely breaks my heart. I remember Strucker being a badass. He is reduced to being another glorified scientist. And that wouldn’t be so bad if we knew he was going to show up in a more physical manner, like the way we remember him from the comics. Oh wait…that’s not going to happen.
So, for the aforementioned faults, the films flows quite well. But there are so many weird places in the film where you can just tell that something was removed. Which brings me to my next, and biggest point of contention, about the film. The editing. Joss Whedon himself said that he wanted his sequel to be shorter than the original. To that, I ask why. Even though the movie only came out one minute shy of its predecessor, why would you possibly want a shorter movie, knowing that it is a sequel to an already massive film? Going longer might have actually saved the film from having too many characters or giving us ample time to understand how, in this world of science and technology, something ancient, powerful, and cosmic in nature like the Infinity Stone of Mind could be interpreted as a thinking machine. But I feel as though important parts of the movie were left on the cutting room floor. Interactions with characters like Cho or Strucker, the entire conversation involving Klaue and Ultron. All of it seems so rushed. We didn’t really get to settle into scenes like that, because once we figure out what Ultron was doing, the Avengers show up and give us our obligatory battle scene. Luckily, the battle scenes never get out of hand. They are not directionless or shapeless. And for being as big as they are, this is an extraordinary feat. My hope is that there is an extended cut of the film. To put back into the movie, parts of the film we all know are missing.
Do not take what I said to mean the movie was bad. The first Avengers film was incredible. But I think what surprised everyone was just how incredible the film was. Those of us who knew the film was going to be good knew so only because we trusted in Joss Whedon, who had DIRECTED only one film until we got Avengers. The sequel reaches highs that the first movie could never have reached. But unfortunately, the sequel reaches lows that the first movie could never have reached either. Ultimately, trying to squeeze so much movie into so little a film, hurt the movie. Perhaps Joss should have been reigned in a little bit more than he was. They gave him Vision. They gave him Ultron. They gave him $100 million to come back for this movie. He wanted to give us a more personal story. Which happened. He wanted to give us a more painful story. Which happened. But he also wanted to give us a smaller, shorter story. And those things simply did not happen. In the first movie, we got a wormhole unleashing aliens attacking New York. In this movie, we got a floating city which doubles as a meteor. By the way, I absolutely LOVE that idea. But for what Joss wanted to do, I feel like he did the exact opposite. Age of Ultron was an extraordinary film. In some ways, it is superior to its predecessor. But it falls short of being a great film. Too much in too little a space. In a space that was only arbitrarily small. It could have been different.
Overall Rating - 8.5/10
[EA] – “You shouldn’t have buried me. I’m not dead.”