Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - FBC REVIEW (Written)

The big question hovering over Marvel Studios' shared universe continuity was as to whether this whole experiment would actually work - establishing four different super heroes in their own respective movies and franchises and then bringing them together as a team-up. Four years later Marvel's Avengers Assemble came out, and broke box office records in 2012, and here we are, three years later, four movies later and a hell of a lot of anticipation later, we have Avengers: Age of Ultron - the second Avengers film and the eleventh installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The film certainly has a very different tone to the others, becoming much more of a chapter in a saga more than anything, tying lose ends from previous movies and character arcs whilst establishing new arcs for the characters and even setting up new characters and elements for this Universe to build on in future movies.

Age of Ultron has a lot on its plate, and it is truly amazing that the film keeps its focus as well as it does. Alas, many elements get the short straws with such a scope however. Andy Serkis' role amounts to little more than a cameo to set up Black Panther, Don Cheadle gets very little screen time as War Machine even with a fantastic Whedon joke in the first act and Anthony Mackie barely features, despite having good reason not to. Oh, and the Stan Lee cameo is great.

Avengers Assemble did manage to suffer from a lack of story tie-ins to its previous Phase 1 movies, but Age of Ultron manages to clear most stuff up, with Cap leaving Falcon to investigate the Winter Soldier to work with the Avengers on clearing up the remains of Hydra; Tony Stark no longer having the Arc Reactor in his chest and using more robot Iron Man suits (in the form of the Iron Legion, who barely feature as well); Thor staying on Earth (alas Jane Foster is nowhere to be seen); and Hawkeye's non-existence since Avengers Assemble is explained in a great and heart-warming plot twist that I won't spoil, but is a fantastic element to the story and gives Clint Barton much-needed personality growth.

As for the Black Widow/Bruce Banner romance...meh. Whedon pulls it off in his usual style, but the lack of reference to Betty Ross makes me wonder what the hell happened to The Incredible Hulk in the MCU! Otherwise Black Widow has little else to do in the film than be badass, although an excellent and eerie dream sequence created by Scarlet Witch was a definite highlight, and the scene in the farmhouse between her and Bruce was surprisingly dark for a Marvel film, but was pulled off amazingly well. Alas, however, Natasha does become a damsel in distress in the third act. Quite why, I have absolutely no idea. She doesn’t seem completely helpless, there is no reason as to why she has been captured, and it felt incredibly out of character for her.

Tony Stark’s arc for this film was also interesting, and while I did feel that a little bit too much of the film was setting him up to battle the Cap in Civil War next year, there were some interesting ideas, particularly to do with the twins and Ultron’s plan, although these didn’t get as much focus as perhaps I would have liked.

The performances were all excellent, with James Spader proving to be a great Ultron, even with less focus than I had hoped in the overall picture, but Paul Bettany as Vision...was IMPECCABLE. He looked great, sounded great and I cannot wait to see where they go with his character in the future. His final confrontation with Ultron was excellent.

We also had Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver joining the party, as played by Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. The first scene between them and Ultron is excellent, thanks to great performances and an excellent screenplay, but otherwise Quicksilver left little impact on the overall proceedings. Alas, X-Men did a better Quicksilver than Marvel Studios, and he even feels overshadowed by Grant Gustin's TV Flash. The whole super speed thing has been done to death recently, so nothing particularly new was demonstrated with his powers. That being said, he gets a great final scene in the film.

Scarlet Witch, however, stole the show for me. Elizabeth Olsen was great, the effects terrific, writing good and the use of her powers was brilliant. Whatever flaws you may find in the film, Scarlet Witch is not one of them, and I really look forward to seeing her again in future films.

The action sequences were terrific, the writing was typical Whedon wit and brilliance and as I said, the cast were terrific. The Visual FX was near-perfect (the $250,000,000 budget was put to good use) with some state-of-the-art use of motion-capture for Ultron and the Hulk; and the sound design was great. Brian Tyler returns to score the film, and does a great job, with Danny Elfman composing some elements, thankfully not in his typical Elfman style, and Alan Sylvestri's Avengers Assemble theme is incorporated into the score as well, with a great remixed Avengers theme.

Overall, Avengers: Age of Ultron is flawed in some areas, with perhaps too much on its plate, and feeling a little too much like a middle-chapter, but every element pulls together to make a brilliant piece of entertainment. Even if it did fill the Marvel formula with its third act being one big fireworks display of great superhero action, it was still pretty awesome. Perhaps I am being too kind to it, but it made me laugh, cheer and saddened, and at the end of the day I loved every second of the 141 minutes of the film. Oh, and the ending was a fantastic glimpse into a bright and different future for the MCU. Perhaps there is too much in the way of continuity references there, but this is a masterpiece of blockbuster film-making at its heart, and whatever problems it may have, it was always going to have problems and they are so minor that the greatness of Age of Ultron more than outweighs it to the point where I can safely give it full marks.