Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joe)

by. Joe Moss
★★½

Well, one thing is for certain...when you watch Avengers: Age of Ultron, if you desired to see a kick-ass, slam-bang, action montage after action montage--YOU HAVE FOUND IT!! Joss Whedon's latest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe hits all of those 'labels' and more. But my question is, "Did he hit too much more?" Was this movie forced to become too much to ready the Universe for all of the future film sequels and spin-offs that have been announced. Just a warning...Prepare yourself for INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!

The Avengers needing to regroup after a defeat in South Africa.

I will be the first to admit that this was one of my most anticipated movies of 2015, and I have been one of those fan-geeks who over-analyzed the theatrical trailers to the point of driving myself mad with plot speculation. Joss Whedon (touché, sir) did a masterful job of misdirection in the trailers--that much I will allow to slip in this review. Almost 50% of the speculations floating around the internet regarding what 'must happen' are wrong. Now, that being said, I found myself lost in what the POINT of this movie was supposed to be. There was too much information presented, plot twisting, new characters and back-story intertwining that the movie became lost in itself--for about 1/3 of the film run time.

The film opens where we last saw the Avengers, hunting down the scepter wielded by Loki in "The Avengers." They have finally traced it to a remote location in Eastern Europe (Sokovia) to Baron Strucker's castle where hold-overs of Hydra are at work unleashing the power within the scepter. Enter the Avengers doing their usual wherein they recover what they were after, but there is a twist--Hydra has been performing human manipulations once again. Unleashed are Maximoff Twins, Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

The Maximoff Twins

Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), Dr. Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and the crew return to Avengers Tower in New York to regroup, heal [with the aid of Dr. Cho (Claudia Kim)], and relax until Thor returns to Asgard with the scepter to be locked away safely. Except we all know that when Tony Stark is involved, nothing every quite goes as planned when there is an 'untapped power supply' in the picture. Suffice to say that from this point on is where the movie gets TRULY INTERESTING.

After the farewell party gone awry, we see the introduction of Ultron (James Spader), Laura Barton (Linda Cardellini), Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), Vision (Paul Bettany), F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Kerry Condon), and Thanos (Josh Brolin) for the 3rd time.

OK....the visuals were stunning. The cinematography was spot on; the editing was amazing as usual. What really bothered me about this movie was that I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a revenge story, a love story, a revenge story about love, a love story intermingled with revenge...well, you get the picture here. With the introduction of the Maximoff's, we are handed a whole NEW story line regarding their background that is all new to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And their initial story centered around revenge against a member of the Avengers team. This is the entire reason they teamed up with Ultron. BUT...then there is one of about 25 plot twists that tweaks that plot line and morphs it into something else entirely.

Beauty and the Beast?

Also circumspect is the relationship between a few members of the Avengers team. There is love in the air that is alluded to MULTIPLE times throughout the film, but it seems to be as confusing to the characters as it is to the audience. AND we are privy to Hawkeye's background (Jeremy Renner) which nobody in the theater saw coming. That added an entire new plot twist and allowed a whole new emotional side of Hawkeye to be addressed by Renner as the film progresses. One that doesn't necessarily add to the plot as a whole.

Lastly, there is a lot of testosterone induced posturing throughout the film between Thor (Chris Hemsworht), Captain America (Chris Evans), and Tony Stark. This seemed overly ridiculous and wholly looked to be a forced add-in to introduce the plot for the next Captain America/Avengers/Thor set of films, wherein information has already been leaked about a "war" coming, and the death of an Avenger.

Overall, I liked the film. Would I watch it again? Sure thing. Was it as spectacular as I had hoped it would be. No. Maybe in a few years after I have watched the culmination of this purveyance of the Marvel Cinematic Universe I will be able to look back on "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and say, "ohhhhhhhh, so that's why that happened." But for now, I was unsatisfied with most of the plot/information overload.