Well, I don't think any of us were expecting this! The Avengers was so well-received in 2012 that the one critic who dared to slate it ended up facing death threats. Those nutcases will need a lot of paper to write those on this year though as the verdict on the sequel is far from overwhelmingly positive. The reviews aren't BAD either, but the overall verdict definitely indicates that Avengers: Age of Ultro isn't as good as expected. These are critics though, not fans, so let's just wait and see! For whatever reason, many of the sites below didn't provide star ratings, but we included them where possible. As always, be sure to share your thoughts on these reviews in the usual place.
I’m happy to report the stars are all back, especially Chris Evans’ stoic Captain America, but also Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth. Also happily returning is the witty banter and interplay. And writer-director Joss Whedon has expertly ladled on lots of action, in a kind of Transformer-itis excess. But the thrill is gone. For me, it’s a been-there, done-that feeling, like watching the all-star edition of Dancing With The Stars. But does it matter if I was just a bit disappointed? I think not. Marvel and Disney have a cash cow, and nothing will keep the fans away. Much as I admire Whedon, Joe and Anthony Russo will take over the franchise’s next two installments, and I look forward to seeing what they do. Their Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a textbook example of how to take a comic-book sequel forward.
This really is the Avengers disassembling after their honeymoon period, and so it's perhaps inevitable that the film feels increasingly scattershot as the characters themselves scatter. 11 main characters is by Whedon's own admission "quite frankly too much", and you can feel the straining to fit everyone into the frame. But if Age of Ultron is less cohesive than The Avengers, it's also more ambitious and rich in personality, affording each Avenger the chance to develop in relation to each other before spinning back off into their own universes. Anchored by Whedon's trademark wit without becoming a tiresome zinger-fest, it's a thrilling and affable slice of impeccably crafted chaos. [4/5]
Bigger and, yes, darker than the first, this is less air-punchingly gleeful but probably more consistent. Thanks to Whedon and the most charismatic, compelling cast you’ll find anywhere, Age of Ultron redefines the scale we can expect from our superhero epics but still fits human-sized emotion amid the bombast. [4/5]
It’s all operatically mad, and the city-destroying final confrontation is becoming a bit familiar, but Whedon carries it off with such joy and even a kind of evangelism. His script is a thing of wonder, jam-packed with great lines: I loved Stark’s wearied remark: “I’ve had a long day … Eugene O’Neill long …” And the unresolved romantic and sexual tension between Black Widow and Hulk creates a weird driving force to the narrative: even the absurdity is somehow recirculated into the film’s internal economy as comedy and irony and the cast-of-thousands effect never seems to split the focus. It’s a superhero cavalcade of energy and fun. [4/5]
The film is not without its flaws. Even more so than its predecessor, the Whedonisms come thick and fast in Age of Ultron, and there are a couple jokes which don’t quite land. Meanwhile, though Brian Tyler’s score brilliantly incorporates his own Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World themes in addition to Alan Silvestri’s memorable motif, his own new Avengers theme gets lost in the shuffle – and if we’re getting really nit-picky, the climactic fight against Ultron’s army essentially boils down to Avengers vs. cannon fodder. Again. But it’s easier to ignore the flaws when a film is this much fun, and though Avengers: Age of Ultron is not the best film in Marvel’s ever expanding cinematic universe, it’s undoubtedly one of its most entertaining. [4/5]
Source: HeyUGuys
Avengers: Age of Ultron succeeds in the top priority of creating a worthy opponent for its superheroes and giving the latter a few new things to do, but this time the action scenes don't always measure up and some of the characters are left in a kind of dramatic no-man's-land. The returning series actors acquit themselves in the expected agreeable manner, while series newcomer Andy Serkis has a terrific couple of minutes as a tough but stressed South African criminal.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Ultimately, Avengers: Age of Ultron can't recapture the charm and majesty of seeing Earth's Mightiest Heroes assembled for the first time. That said, it's still a lot of fun and offers plenty of great action and character moments. [8.6/10]
Source: IGN
"Age of Ultron" provides an excuse for a reality check. Whedon's script frequently repeats Ultron's eerie verdict that mankind is doomed, which means that the Avengers are fated to salvage it indefinitely. That's a scarier concept than anything the robotic evildoer dreams up. Above all else, the latest "Avengers" proves that even a great franchise has an expiration date. [C+]
Source: Indie Wire
Wait, what? Moral conundrum? What kind of escapism is this? IMO, it's the best kind, the kind that sticks with you. Whedon is the true master of the Marvel Comic universe onscreen. He won't be back when Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1 and Part 2 start shooting next year. The Russo brothers will take the helm. That makes Age of Ultron Whedon's last Avengers hurrah. And the monumental battle between gods and monsters that he stages to end the film does him proud. Bravo. [3.5/4]
Walking out of Avengers: Age of Ultron, it was difficult to wrap my head around my feelings. I’d enjoyed the hell out of the massive movie and was dying to see it again. But I felt a tad empty. Hawkeye helped fill that, as did the Twins and Vision, but it was missing some of the warmness of the first film. Joss Whedon attempts, and succeeds, to make a different, darker, more complex and bigger sequel but he’s a victim of his own success. Age of Ultron works but you can’t help but remember the moments that helped us get here. You end up speculating more about what’s to come than what you just saw, even though what you just saw was incredibly funny and exciting. [7.5/10]
Source: Slash Film
Much like Captain America: The Winter Soldier before it, by the time it's over, each of the Avengers has changed. The world they inhabit has changed. The team's very mission and makeup has changed. To delve into any further specifics would be to spoil the many, many delicious specifics embedded within Avengers: Age of Ultron. I'll say only that the new characters are satisfyingly established, but you're left wanting more. But I'll say this one more time, as specifically as I can: Buckle up, and pay attention. It'll be worth it.
Source: Mashable
The film hardly falls short when it comes to ker-blamming, and there are some terrifically exciting city showdowns in South Korea and fictional former-Soviet and East African republics (a nice change from San Francisco and New York). But throughout, there’s a sweetly old-fashioned determination on the Avengers’ part to keep the lowly likes of you and me out of harm’s way, with shots of cars being hoisted back from the edge of precipices and lost children being whisked back to their parents. Could this be the white-gloved hand of Disney at work (the corporation bought Marvel Studios in 2009)? Or a pushing back against the consequence-free carnage of the Transformers films, Man of Steel and so on? Either way it’s highly welcome, and gives Age of Ultron its own distinctive, retro-comfort-food flavour. I could manage another one right now. [4/5]
Avengers: Age of Ultron is not a bad film, it's just a dull and uninspired sequel. The opening is a perfect representation of this, with a massive action sequence involving the whole team in which there's a long take very similar to that of the finale from the first film. The viewers are thrown into this insipid reproduction without any existing issues and as such can't help but feel blazed about the whole thing. Let's hope that Marvel will soon stop aiming at bigger and louder and start developing more carefully its universe - but hey, who am I kidding?
Source: Twitch Film
It may well be that we’ll eventually stop looking at these Marvel films as discrete, individual experiences rather than chapters in an epic binge-watch, but even by those standards, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” feels like a solid but overstuffed episode, one more concerned with being connective tissue than anything else. Future Marvel-movie marathoners will find plenty of sandwich-grabbing opportunities during its running time.
Source: The Wrap
Three years after saving New York from an alien apocalypse, Marvel’s superhero all-stars once again find the weight of the world — or, at least, an airborne chunk of Eastern Europe — thrust upon their mighty shoulders in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” a super-sized spandex soap opera that’s heavy on catastrophic action but surprisingly light on its feet, and rich in the human-scale emotion that can cut even a raging Hulk down to size. Having gotten over the hump of assembling his six main characters in 2012’s “The Avengers,” returning writer-director Joss Whedon brings a looser, more inventive and stylish touch to this skillful follow-up, which finds our now S.H.I.E.L.D.-less defenders facing off against a man-made enemy more dangerous than any alien life form.
Source: Variety