The Road to Endgame: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Avengers: Age of Ultron is by far the biggest and most varied mixed bag in the MCU. This is the result of a lot of studio interference, so much so that Joss Whedon vowed never to work with Marvel Studios again, and hasn't even directed a movie since, unless you count that time when he finished off Justice League for Zack Snyder.

This film is definitely a flashpoint for the MCU, both on-screen and off. Revisiting these first two movies has really made me appreciate the simplicity of Phases One and Two, back when there were only six main characters to follow. It allowed much deeper understanding of each and, to this day, the original six still feel like the most fully formed and fleshed-out characters in the MCU, in my opinion. This film marks the transition from the original six to a whole horde of new characters, as it introduces Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Quicksilver, and sets the stage for characters like Black Panther.

Off-screen, it also marked a dramatic change in how Marvel treats their directors. Following the very public fallout with Whedon and the firing of Edgar Wright from Ant-Man, Marvel began allowing directors more creative freedom on certain movies. It remains very interfering on its bigger movies, but has allowed directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler to basically do whatever they want on Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther, respectively.
For better or for worse, Age of Ultron changed the MCU. But is it any good?

The romance between Hulk and Black
Widow: probably the best thing about
this movie.

So I guess he isn't the worst
Avenger after all.

Yes and no. Starting with positives, Mark Ruffalo and Joss Whedon continue their great characterisation of the Hulk, Whedon proving once again that he understands the character better than any other Marvel writer. In this instalment, he embarks on a very genuine relationship with Natasha Romanoff, who is another one of the best things about this film. In the first Avengers (plus Iron Man 2 and The Winter Soldier), she's kind of a nothing character, your stereotypical female super-spy that you've seen a million times in James Bond movies. In this film, Whedon really fleshes her out into a believable and much more genuine character. Another Avenger who finally gets his time to shine is Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton, who gets a subplot that significantly deepens his character and makes him a lot more likeable than the bland character from the first film. He's given a family and therefore people to interact with who aren't gods or monsters. This humanises him, and I like how the film addresses the fact that he is basically the least powerful Avenger. I also think that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are good characters, in theory.

But for all the strong character work on display, the film falls flat on a number of other qualities. Where do I even start?

Joss Whedon has a tendency to overload his screenplays with quips and jokes. For an example of a Whedon-scripted film that definitely could have done without this annoyance, see 1997's Alien: Resurrection. However, in the first Avengers, Whedon was able to suppress this urge, letting the story shape the tone and dialogue, to great effect. He appears to have lost that self-control here. If you were to summarise the story on paper, it would be obvious that this film is much darker than its predecessor. However, when you actually watch it, it seems lighter than the first film because every second line is a punchline. It constantly ruins the tone and tension, and many of them are hit-or-miss, though there are a couple of hilarious lines ('But Jane's better.'). It pretty much never lets up.

Ultron: Wasted potential.

A major casualty of this is James Spader's Ultron, who could have easily been one of the most menacing characters in the MCU, a far cry from the somewhat non-formidable Loki of the first film. He certainly has a great design and is one of the most believable CGI characters the MCU has to offer. However, he spends most of the movie joking around and making one-liners. These severely undermine the intimidation of his character and, most damningly, just make him annoying. I should want to kill the antagonist because he poses a threat to the heroes, not because I just can't stand him. Genuinely cool and scary moments, like when he removes Klaue's (Andy Serkis) arm with one hand, are quickly ruined by him coming up with a quip. I know Ultron is meant to have a lot of Tony Stark's personality and that's why he's so talkative, but this villain is not intimidating at all. It's also pushing the limits of believably that this lead Ultron robot  would pose any significant threat to heavy-hitters like Thor or the Hulk.

If I'm going to touch on a nitpick before I get to my next major criticism: Age of Ultron? Really? This movie takes place over a week, at the most. Plus, I've read the comic book miniseries of the same name and it has literally nothing to do with the plot of this film, other than the titular character.

The Maximoff twins: to say their arc is
confusing is putting it lightly.

The movie also tries to cram way too much in; comparing this film's sprawling, unfocused narrative to the sharp, lean plot of the first is the reason why I miss the simplicity of the MCU's earlier films. In the first film, the script chooses to give character arcs to only a few of the protagonists (Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk), because trying to do the same for all six would have seriously been a detriment the film's pacing (and that movie's pacing wasn't fantastic to begin with). This film tries to give a character arc to each of its characters, and there are more this time. Some of them work, as I've already said, but the rest are mostly bad. Thor had most of his subplot cut out of the final cut, so if he did have any sort of character growth, it can't be seen here. Tony and Steve's subplot basically only exists to serve Captain America: Civil War, and feels unnecessary because that film retreads most of this ground, anyway. The Maximoff twins' growth is confusing at best, as they go from wanting to kill Tony to fighting alongside him in the space of a couple of minutes. Plus, I don't think either of their performances were very good. The whole conflict leading to Vision's 'birth' is basically pointless and adds nothing to the movie, other than some semi-interesting moral dispute.

A lot of these character moments are set up in a series of hit-or-miss dream sequences caused by Scarlet Witch. Romanoff's scene is a welcome addition of backstory for her character, and Thor's at least serves some clumsy purpose, but the rest tell us nothing that we don't already know and are (intentionally) edited in a very hard-to-follow way.

Moving away from character stuff, the movie is stylistically a lot less interesting than its predecessor. Remember when I was talking about all the interesting shots and camera movements I found in The Avengers on rewatch? Yeah, none of those are here, and we're left with a movie that does not take any risks with its shot types, though it is better lit than the first, and the colour grading is an improvement. The only visual part of this film that I thought was interesting was when the Hulk goes on his rampage through Africa and we see some of the carnage through the POV of a soldier inside a car. I couldn't find a good quality image of this but you know what I'm talking about.

Ultimately, the movie's still fun and engaging and there are several fun action scenes, including the Hulkbuster and truck chase sequences, but it falls flat on many levels of pacing, character arcs and plot. It is a breezy 140 minutes, though.

Score: ⭐⭐⭐