Avengers: Age of Ultron: A Review

Escalation has been the name of the game at Marvel since The Avengers burst onto screens back in 2012. Each subsequent movie set in their inter-connected cinematic universe has gotten bigger with higher stakes and cosmic repercussions. And with a civil war between heroes and an enormous radical sci-fi conflagration on the horizon, Age of Ultron has some pretty huge obligations to set the deck for that along with just measuring up to its instantly iconic predecessor. A daunting task for any sequel, about superheroes or no. So does it succeed? Yes, and beautifully so.

Let's catch up on where things are. While we were off on a fun space adventure with Star-Lord and crew, The Avengers have been busting up the resurgent Hydra organization (revealed to have survived WW2 in Winter Soldier) who have been meddling with Loki's Spear from the first film to grant people superpowers. Age of Ultron opens at the tail-end of the Avengers' work as they storm Hydra's last stronghold and seize the dangerous Asgardian weapon, but not before encountering the superpowered Maximoff twins (Aaron-Taylor Johnson & Elizabeth Olsen). Wanda Maximoff (Olsen) has the power of mental manipulation and surreptitiously brings Tony Stark/Iron Man's paranoia to the forefront. This is what inspires him to use Loki's staff to revive Project Ultron, an Artificial Intelligence defense program designed to replace the Avengers. But as often happens, Ultron (James Spader) is more than Iron Man bargained for and rebels against his creator, creating a powerful robot body for himself and attacking the Avengers. He has other ideas about how to defend the human race and so recruits the Maximoff twins to bring about his idea of peace not just without the Avengers, but by destroying the Avengers.

This is Paul Bettany, but I'm not telling you who
he's playing. That would be telling.

All of what I just lined out happens in probably the first fifteen minutes of the movie by the way. Age of Ultron is a super-packed rollercoaster of a film, starting in media res during the Avengers' raid on Hydra and just ramping the action up & down over the two and a half hour runtime while feeling very natural. It's a marvel (sorry) of pacing, knowing exactly when to pause and let the audience take a breath and when to kick back into high gear and pull them to the edge of their seats. It's even more impressive considering how many characters and plot points are crammed into this thing, so much is going on that you need to keep track of but it never feels bogged down or confusing. This can attributed to the fact that Age of Ultron is both a sequel and a film set in this larger cinematic universe. Where the first film felt the need to slowly build, remind the audience who these characters were, and give them all a coherent reason to team up, this sequel can just hit the gas and go because it trusts that anybody watching already knows who everybody is and what their deal is because anybody watching already saw all the other movies. That's a double-edged sword though, but we'll come back to  that.

The other thing remarkable about how packed Age of Ultron feels is that despite how much is going on and how fast it's all moving, this is very much a character-driven film. Really. Even with all the comic-book craziness and supervillain plot, what drives Age of Ultron more than anything is the characters and their relationships. Each of the different Avengers and our trio of villains have unique relationships to one another and each of those relationships gets touched upon in the film, and because of the wonderfully controlled pacing and writing what could have come across as convoluted in a lesser film makes this one richer. Adding to the richness of the characters is the acting, all these performers have had the time and direction to work on these characters so that now they feel like actual people on screen. You're not watching Scarlett Johansson dressed up as Natasha Romanoff, you're watching Natasha Romanoff. Or Steve Rogers, or Tony Stark, or whoever. Yet another advantage of the shared universe. But even the minor characters who are mostly just there to serve plot purposes are given enough shades of humanity that they don't feel like plot devices.

Ultron (James Spader) untangling his strings

But if there is a standout, it must be James Spader as the titular Ultron. Even hidden behind a CG robot body Spader embues the character with arrogance, vision, and oddly enough humanity. Ultron may be a genocidal robot, but the performance has more layers than that cliche description would lead you to believe. He really believes that he could make the Earth a better place if he could just get rid of the Avengers, if they weren't standing in his way. The Avengers are the problem, not him. He even cares about the Maximoff Twins and feels betrayed when they defect to the Avengers, where a more generic supervillain probably would have been the one betraying them. But what really makes Ultron great is Spader's signature smarmy voice which makes his wisecracks all the funnier and his threats all the creepier.

What I think really makes Age of Ultron a worthy successor though, and a fascinating superhero movie in its own right, is its willingness to take criticisms and observations about The Avengers and incorporate them into the narrative and subtext. For example, one of the running jokes since the first film came out is why a team that has Iron Man and Thor on it needs Hawkeye who's just a dude with a bow & arrow. Well, Age of Ultron takes that criticism and makes Hawkeye's entire character arc in the movie about showing why the Avengers do need him, but not in a tacky on-the-nose way where Hawkeye feels underappreciated and tries to "prove" himself to the team. No, the filmmakers do it in a smart way that shows through subtext and character interactions why Hawkeye's value to the team has nothing to do with his archery skills. But it extends beyond that to superhero movies as a whole. Hell, the entire climax of this film feels like a response to Man of Steel and its wanton city destruction. In contrast to Superman, Age of Ultron takes great pains to show the Avengers rescuing people from danger and trying to keep their mayhem contained. To show that keeping people safe is just as important, almost more so, than fighting killer robot drones. Because that's what Superheroes do. This is something that runs through the whole film and actually plays into Ultron's motivations. Put simply, if the first film was about bringing the Avengers together then this sequel is about showing why we still need the Avengers.

Iron Man's Hulkbuster Armor

There are a few things that are keeping it down though. The worm has definitely turned on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, any trace of new-viewer friendliness is gone. Age of Ultron assumes from the start that you've been onboard with the previous films and has too much going on to slow down and explain to you the nuts & bolts. If you're going in cold, you're going to be lost. Now that's not a problem for those of us who keep track of these things, but it's still an observation that had to be made. That also accounts for other oddities we've come to expect from Marvel films, like characters being built up and then kind of disappearing from the movie or certain plotlines seeming like they'll be important then not paying off because they're just being set up for future movies. Strangely enough, the action feels lacking as well. There are some highlights, like a wonderful long take of the whole Avengers team fighting their way through a forest at the beginning and the second act Iron Man vs. Hulk battle, but many of the other sequences rely on the same lazy rapid-fire editing many films use to hide sloppy fight choreography. And the climax drags, feeling overly long, possibly owing to the focus on rescue over fighting I mentioned above. I might be able to forgive this, but when the character interactions are so good you should make the action involving those characters just as engaging. As is, there are several points where I just wanted to shout, "Stop fighting and go back to arguing! That was more interesting!"

Still, Age of Ultron is the best kind of summer blockbuster and a testament to how successful Marvel has been at translating their comics to film. It's a thrill ride with great, wonderfully acted characters you know and love. Exciting, funny, and rich. Though it all comes with the caveat that if you aren't already onboard the Marvel train it's not going to stop for you to get on. Not this time anyway. And while the pacing is overall excellent, there are spots and moments that slow the film down in a bad way or just go on for too long.

Bottom line, if Age of Ultron was anymore classic Marvel you could buy for it for 35 cents on cheap newspaper stock.

Final Score: 5/5