Avengers: Age of Ultron – Review

The sequel is finally here.  The first Avengers film in 2012 was an amazing display which showed how big of a payoff you can get with years of multiple other movies building up to that point.  The Marvel machine has continued strong since then and the Avengers have come together again to save the world once more.  The film is again directed by Joss Whedon.

Avengers: Age of Ultron on the surface sticks to the tried and true formula for success.  The team gets humbled by a new enemy, they have to work out some issues to come together, and end up triumphant.  However, as always, the devil is in the details.

While there is plenty of exciting action and just things in general happening, there is not a whole lot meaningful that actually happens.  Thinking about where things went wrong, a number of issues become apparent which all revolve around the lack meaningful character development.

There are a lot of main characters in this Age of Ultron.  The same was true with the first Avengers, so what’s the difference.  Well, a major difference is that there are a lot of new characters in Age of Ultron.  All the major players, including the villain of the first Avengers movie were already well established.  We knew who they were and what made them tick, so when they all come together they could hit the floor running with action and excitement.  When Loki shows up, the audience already had a strong sense of who he was.

In Age of Ultron, the new enemy is Ultron.  If you haven’t seen the movie you likely have no idea who he is.  That’s because he doesn’t even exist until approximately 30 minutes or so into this movie.  A good villain needs to be understood, and there is simply too much going on in this movie to get a good sense of what Ultron represents beyond basic generalities.

In addition, there are multiple new members of the Avengers – some of which join up sometime during the film, one of which is simply created out of barely more than thin air during a roughly 5 minute scene – and again, there is simply too much going on to have any sort of grasp on any of these people.

All of this also negatively impacts the known players as well.  Early in the film, the veteran Avengers get some sort of twisted vision related to some internal demon they struggle with.  This is meant to serve as a simple way of giving each person a personal struggle to overcome.  However, this largely fails miserably.  Some of these internal demons rarely even get brought up again and the ones that do seem to get a token 3 minute “Look at me, I’ve now overcome this, just don’t ask how” type of treatment.

Add on top of this the fact that everything about this film just feels substantially less epic compared to its predecessor.  Instead of an alien force invading earth through a giant portal in the sky above New York City, you have some barely created robot threatening supposed world destruction from a fictional small Eastern European town.  Apparently this was even intentional to make sure the international box office understood the Avengers weren’t just about saving America.  Surely there were better international alternatives to achieve this goal.

The Marvel cinematic universe will continue to move forward but there is a growing sense that it is beginning to be pulled in too many disparate directions.  Is Avengers: Age of Ultron entertaining?  Certainly.  Is that enough to keep viewers come back for more?  Yes.  Does some of Marvel’s luster seem to be fading?  Probably.