Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (PG-13)

"Got no strings, so whats holding it down?"

The heroically rag-tag team from past Marvel films are once again united against a single enemy, this time one accidentally created by their resident tech genius Tony Stark in Joss Whedon's middling follow-up to 2012's Avengers.

Beyond the changes to the convoluted characters from page to screen, the biggest grievances to be leveled at AAOU is the absolutely hackneyed writing.  Nearly every action moment comes with a quip of some kind, or a re-quip, or a quip about an earlier quip.  It really gets tedious and clunky, Whedon's flippant attitude towards tension really strains the credibility of whether or not anything is in peril.  Meanwhile, like most huge sequels, the CGI has become more prevalent and overloaded, while the color palette has been oddly drained.  Whole moments of action are obviously stitched together in the computer, but somehow still remain unclear, confused and jumpy.  Much is simply unsatisfying to watch.

This is in "stark" (haha) contrast to the original Avengers, where Whedon's writing and structure issues were eventually uplifted by an epic sized brawl in New York where every character had moments of heroicism and bravery, they gelled as a team against a living breathing maniac hell-bent on enslaving humanity.  In Age, Ultron is a smart-ass mega-robot voiced by James Spader (with a rather un-robot like attitude), who's evil motivations behind his evil plot are pretty much a shrug "cuz we said so" kind of thing.  Spader does lend something to the sinister yet somehow ambiguously malign character (perhaps too much), but his robot army are a rather lame foe and his CGI presence just feels weak.  At no time does Ultron seem a threat, and yet the new additions to the team do feel outmatched.  Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are introduced on Ultron's side (being X-Foe's Magneto's children and perpetual fence-sitters makes this an alright choice, even if Marvel can't utilize this part of the lore due to Fox's owning the X-Men licence), and yet are somehow easily able to defeat 90% of the team double-handed!  Then they are offered up as lame-duck sacrifices by movie's end, for the feels that just don't manifest.  Meanwhile Black Widow is irritating fan-boys to even more extremes.  Now her femininity and allure can calm down the Hulk because, shipping!!!, and she is now the Avengers den mother, ugh.  Now her ultimate spy-stealthiness includes a glowing outfit and matching glowsticks she does kung fu with (!?!?!) because... action figures sell?

Okay, so does anything save this film?  Unfortunately this movie is just a baby step for other MCU movies, and is more obvious about it than previous releases.  It is less satisfying within the Universe and on it's own than its predecessors, and we can hope that those films it (again) hints at as coming will actually deliver.  Despite being excited by mentions of Wakanda or the Vision's wasted potential, we already have been teased to death about the Infinity War and now we need Thor taking his shirt off and jumping in a lake to preview his next film (Ragnarock)?  The film is already overlong and underwhelmed with truly great moments, with an anemic amount of amusement and severe lack of immersion, the long runtime for these kind of inclusions could have really been reeled back.  As much as I enjoyed the Hulk's rampage or how insufferable Stark is becoming, those kind of moments are few and far between.

The invisible strings from the Disney Exec's indeed seem long.  The cult figure of Whedon and his fandom aren't immune to them, pulling this way and demanding that, ending up a puppet for mass-market appeal and humdrum committee decisions.  In a world where comic-book movies are now common place and people in capes are socially accepted the MCU has finally shown a chink in it's bright blue armor.

4.5 "The Internet?" "The Internet." out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)