‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ movie review
By Jony Roy, Social Media Coordinator
4/5
Avengers: Age of Ultron, the newest addition to Marvel’s ever-growing cinematic universe, takes place a few years after the events of The Avengers, with the superhero team facing off against Ultron, a robot bent on destroying humanity in an attempt to achieve world peace. The sequel boasts more action, crazier visuals, and more characters, but it retains a lot of the humour of the original.
Director Joss Whedon explores the relationships between the characters in a much deeper way than before. In particular, two characters who haven’t been as fleshed out in past movies, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), both get a lot more screen time and development in this film. While the trailers suggest a much darker tone, the sequel actually feels a lot like the original, for the most part. Whedon once again works his magic with plenty of humour and witty dialogue for both the heroes and villains.
James Spader is brilliant as the voice of Ultron, and definitely presents a very interesting take on the homicidal robot character. Although the funny dialogue Ultron delivers sometimes takes you out of the movie, it usually works and makes him much more unique than your typical robotic antagonist.
Other additions to the cast include Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and Vision (Paul Bettany). Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver don’t feel as vital to the movie as they could have been, with this interpretation of Quicksilver definitely being more grounded but weaker than the version we saw in X-Men: Days of Future Past. That being said, they’re still welcome additions to the cast, and don’t take anything away from the movie. Vision is great and definitely shines the most as a new character.
The main thing that falls short about Age of Ultron is the fact that it lacks some of the magic of the original. When The Avengers was released three years ago, superhero team-up movies in a shared universe had never been done before. Combined with Whedon’s great chemistry and writing, the original film was a very novel experience. While this movie takes the concept of The Avengers further by introducing new characters and being more visually cinematic than ever, it fails to capture that novel feeling of the previous film.
Another issue with this film is that there is a certain romantic subplot that feels corny and a bit forced. While not too much screen time was given to this subplot, it definitely had some issues.
That said, I would highly recommend this movie to anyone who enjoyed the first Avengers film, or to anyone who loves comic book movies in general. It is entertaining, hilarious, and visually stunning. This movie is best-suited to a larger theatre or IMAX.
Two movies you should definitely watch before this one are The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. A lot of this film’splot will make more sense if you’ve seen those films first.
