Avengers Age of Ultron Review

The Avengers is Marvels biggest event movie of all their big event movies, when all of their superheroes gang together in order to fight an evil foe. The first film managed to more or less pull it off, Age of Ultron now has to follow that. The balancing of the characters is one of the trickiest aspects to pull off about these films, there being so many main characters there always ends up being someone left side lined. The particular characters left side lined in this outing are Thor and Captain America, though Thor gets most of the best comedy both of their arcs seem unimpressive in comparison with the rest of the film. The good news is the arc of the other characters, this sequel is unquestionably darker, Starks nightmarish thoughts of his whole team dying, glimpses into Natasha’s darker younger years and Banner’s continuing battle to control the beast. But with Joss Whedon providing these characters with their dialogue there is so much fun to be had, the greatest aspect of these films are the characters, It would genuinely be worth the price of admission to watch these characters just paint a house or something. The new additions to the film are a success as well, twins Pietro and Wanda are great fun and offer a new dynamic in the action set pieces, but the films best new addition is its villain. Though a completely CGI character the performance given by James Spader is extraordinary, his voice is charming yet still holds so much menace, hes violent, yet hes also quite funny. The weaknesses of the film, as with every other Marvel film, is its reluctance to change its formula and its persistent setting up of future sequels. There is no sense of surprise in the films, and there needs to be a drastic overhaul of their third –act battle sequences which have been the same for the last 5 movies. The universe that Marvel have created with their films is a 5 star collection of what is now 11 movies, but the formula required for those films to share a universe hinders the films in the quality and individuality. It’s a good thing then that for the moment the formula is a lot of fun. (4 Stars)