Dan's Review
It's that money-making, mind-blowing, blockbuster time everyone and with the simply unbelievable performance of Furious 7 over the course of the past few weeks, where I believe it is now into the top ten of highest-grossing films EVER (Seriously?), it is time for Avengers: Age of Ultron to firmly push it, and many others in the top ten, out of its place. In terms of the money-making side of movies this year, one of the conundrums of 2015 is what will take more; Avengers or Star Wars? After watching the latest addition to the MCU however, I think the one true question is whether they will match each other in terms of quality. After returning from the midnight showing on Thursday morning, slightly knackered but still rolling on, I think it's fair to say that Star Wars has a lot to live up to. Avengers: Age of Ultron is pretty fab.
The real winning formula of the first Avengers movie was that each and every character got their own decent share of screen time, and although Downey Jr. and Hiddleston as Iron Man and Loki respectively, were the stand out performers, not one of the actors and actresses in such a huge ensemble cast felt left out in any way. Fortunately for Age of Ultron, this formula is pretty much adhered to, even with the inclusion of a bunch of new characters, where, sloppy Russian accents aside, Olson and Taylor-Johnson as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are a fantastic addition to the MCU, whilst Bettany's portrayal of The Vision was a wonder to behold, although there should have been a rain-check on that cape. No capes. Top marks for best newcomer however has to go to big baddie Ultron, magnificently voiced by James Spader, who walks away with the award for best CGI robot-thing in a MCU film so far, not only due to the stark realism of the characters' presence on screen, but because Ultron felt like a proper character, someone who you could believe in, and someone you felt afraid to the bone of, something of which is rare in a lot of CGI characters.
With the first Avengers being one of the standout pictures in the MCU, Age of Ultron kind of needed to change direction, if only slightly, in order to sway away from the dreadful curse of being only "more of the same", and the way in which Whedon and co. have decided to do this is to make Age of Ultron a much darker film than the first. Yes, the banter between the team is still rife as ever, but the darkness stemmed from Ultron himself, who came off as a much more cold and malevolent presence than I ever thought Loki was, as brilliant as he is as the bad guy of Asgard, to the whole sterialisation story of Black Widow, which was pretty damn depressing to say the least. In the case of Age of Ultron, the step into the dark-side worked and the threat of impending doom was always there, particularly in the final battle, cemented with the death of one of the supposed key characters of the Avengers, which although was teased throughout the film, had a sickening, yet cleverly finessed, twist to cap it all off.
Yes the film does have faults. The whole MCU cross-ins and cross-overs, mixed with interwoven stories and plot points would obviously be confusing to the lay movie watcher who just happens to have not seen any of the previous installments and decides to watch Age of Ultron, but my question to that person would be, why watch it without seeing at least the first Avengers previously anyhow? Even as a keen follower of the MCU (not the comics however), even I at times tend to get lost and confused regarding what Infinity Stone is what, who is where etc. etc. so the level of confusion for someone oblivious to the stories previous is going to pretty high. The film also had an awful knack or rushing certain plot points, with it sometimes just resorting to another jumping, action, blowing up scene, which is always good fun, but seemed a bit too much at certain points. I mean, don't even get me started on what Thor did at the pond thing. I have no clue whatsoever. My usual moan of runtime however, cannot be adhered to this time, with the film's 140 minute runtime surprisingly flying past, something of which hasn't happened since last years' Interstellar.
So in conclusion, yes, the film does have flaws, but the positives overwhelmingly outweigh the negatives, with a stellar cast being put to great use to continue the fun of the MCU which doesn't seem to be in danger of crippling anytime soon. Is it better than the first? On first watch, probably not, but the beauty of a blockbuster is that there are a ridiculous amounts of chances to watch it again (I think it is showing 30 times a day in my local multiplex) and a second watch is something of which I am looking forward to already. Age of Ultron is a solid and spectacular farewell to the directorial duties of Joss Whedon too, who has supplied the Marvel fans with two of the finest superhero films of all time. Farewell Mr. Whedon. Its' been emotional,
Overall Score: 8/10
Josh's Review
Once again I’m
back to feeling half my age, hyped up for the new Marvels’ Avengers: Age of Ultron movie where the cinema staff obviously did not
want to calm me down when handing me a free action figure with my coke! But I
digress, the film was amazing and was all I could want from an Avengers film, but
that’s not to say there wasn't a few disappointments. (SPOILER WARNING)
Let’s start with
the first scene with the Avengers going against a Hydra base. I would have liked
a bit of context on how all of the Avengers assembled (LOL), for example, at
the end of Iron Man 3, correct me if I’m wrong but didn't Tony Stark blow up
all of his Iron Suits? Yet here he is flying around! Don’t get me wrong, I love
Iron Man but just a bit of context would have been nice, unless I missed
something.
Now, I don’t know
if any of my fellow reviewers here on Black Ribbon watch Marvels Agents Of
Shield, but it was awesome seeing Dr List and Strucker, the Hydra Villains at
the beginning, which have been seen in the TV show and now appear on the big
screen. Having Dr List introduce Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch fitted well with
the back story of Agents of Shield, with Hydra kidnapping people with powers.
The interactions,
mainly the wit, between the characters were in my opinion top class. The cinema
audience laughed at the characters’ banter and gasped at the shock of the Vision
handing Thor his hammer which made the film all that more enjoyable to watch. I
did enjoy seeing some back story into Hawkeye and Black Widow which was well
deserved and did lead me to anticipate one of their deaths but was gladly
mistaken. I would have liked some more scenes with Quicksilver and Scarlet
Witch where although you get a brief description of them telling Ultron about
their past, it felt like there was very limited dialogue between them and the Avengers
which I would have much preferred to
see.
In terms of the fighting
choreography, being an Avengers film I think we all expected some amazing
action and I was not the slightest bit disappointed. All of the fights seemed original,
well- paced and made full advantage of the surroundings. The combos between the
characters were clever, however I would have liked if they mixed up the
combination of characters. I lost count the number of times Thor did a combo
attack with Captain America.
To me what makes a
good action film is a good villain. In the case of Ultron, he is good and has
character, despite being a robot. With an understandable motive and evil plan
however I was slightly let down. In the trailers he seemed more malicious,
giving off an evil Pinocchio vibe giving that awesome line “There are no
strings on me” where just thinking about it gets me hyped up! However, in the
movie he just felt less impressive but this could be due to him being
out-shined by the Vision. I would have liked to see Ultron kill an Avenger with
his hands or at least a bit more close quarters rather than random shootings
with a helicopter. Sure he cuts off Klaw’s arm but who cares about Klaw? Hardly
jaw dropping stuff!
Like every Marvel
film there is always a teaser at the end of the credits and this time we see
Thanos pulling out the Infinity Gauntlet saying “I will just do it myself”; F*!&
yeah! This small clip has got me psyched up like a bat out of hell! I can’t
even imagine the amount of carnage which is going to occur, however I am slightly
worried about the new Avengers they showed at the end (War Machine, Scarlet Witch,
Falcon) as they hardly seem like replacements for their predecessors but maybe
I read that entire scene wrong.
I know I have
listed many negative points throughout the review but believe me when I say
this; I loved it and I’m very much tempted to go watch the film again which for
me never happens. I loved seeing the character interaction between the huge
roster of heroes with all of them getting a fair amount of screen time whilst the
action scenes were creative and fast paced whilst showing constant humour, and
all of this is setting up for another huge film in the future with Thanos. I’m
sure most of you will go see this film regardless, however for those on the
fence, go see this film!
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