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| Walt Disney Studios |
One thing that cannot be argued
when it comes to Avengers: Age of Ultron
is the tremendous amount of pressure it has riding on it. It’s the All Star
Game-like event of Marvels cinematic universe, a format that has taken over cinema,
not just financially but has also influenced studios to take the same approach.
Because of all this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it Age of Ultron comes off as a movie under
a lot pressure.
Needless to say, there are a lot
people to please and a lot of expectations, so director Joss Whedon goes for
broke. Of course the action is extended but a story is attempted that has the
ability to satisfy the usual fans but also those that may not be so fond of
what Marvel has been doing. While Whedon’s attempt is valid, the result is that
the film as a whole is just too big to sustain any type of focus.
Age of
Ultron waste no time getting into the action as the Avengers are found in
Sokovia attempting to secure a familiar item to the Marvel Cinematic Universe
(MCU), the scepter that Loki has used to wreak havoc in the past. Featuring
very similar big scale action from previous entries, this rather long sequence
has all the previous players but it is also here that a couple of new faces
make their way to the franchise in the form of Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and
Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) Maximoff, twins that have been used to Hyrdra’s
advantage, against the Avengers in this intro, because of their special
abilities.
Of course though, the Avengers come
up victories, safely securing (other than at the expense of several Hydra faithful’s)
the scepter. It is when they arrive back to the states that the team really
runs into trouble and have only their selves to blame. Attempting to create
artificial intelligence for some time, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce
Banner (Mark Ruffalo) discover that the technology that the scepter possess is
likely the missing piece to the puzzle. Things don’t go as planned though when
this A.I., known as Ultron (voiced by James Spader), not only becomes immensely
powerful but quickly turns against them.
The reason Ultron is immediately a
villain so to speak, is where Whedon attempts to add some weight to the story.
Following an entertaining, Oceans 11-like
moment that features the Avengers celebrating after their triumph in Sokovia is
when the team first meets Ultron who is quick to point out their arrogance.
Other than brief references in the Iron
Man series and Thor, this is
really the first time that this group of heroes have been directly accused of
arrogance and this thought of being too big to fail. Ultron, a product of A.I.
created by members of the Avengers, may even be proof that he is right,
relating to the idea that you can’t expect to play God and not be greeted with consequences.
Going along with this concept and
Ultron’s questioning of what the Avengers stand for is the idea of change and
how it relates to making the world a better place. What are we willing to
change or sacrifice to make things better? Ultron touches on this when posing a
similar question that accuses the Avengers of not being willing to change or
sacrifice to change the world. This motivation of Ultron’s is also connected to
the idea of humans not evolving and being a race that is only harming itself,
reaching a Transformer-ish feel.
These interesting beliefs of Ultron become somewhat under developed though as
it doesn’t appear to emotionally rattle the Avengers all that much.
Another
storyline that hasn’t been explored before in the MCU is a romance between to
members of the Avengers. In the Age of
Ultron it is revealed that Bruce Banner, or the Hulk, and Natasha Romanoff
(Scarlett Johansson) have been involved in a romantic relationship but due to
Banners condition, something he is struggling to control in this entry, a
committed relationship isn’t realistic. Banner doesn’t let Romanoff in, so to
speak, because he sees himself as the Hulk not as a man who becomes the Hulk.
The dialogue between the two never
reaches the emotional level it could and therefore the chemistry between Ruffalo
and Johansson leaves some to be desired but this doesn’t pertain to how
satisfying it is to see Romanoff turn the Hulk back to Bruce with a simple
lullaby. We all have that person(s) in are life that just fits us, is capable
of bring us back down to earth and reminds us that we are human for the good
and the bad which is what this lullaby fittingly represents as it pertains to the
relationship between Banner and Romanoff.
All of
these storylines and interesting ideas, while underplayed slightly, are also
hindered by the heavy, plentiful action sequences. Age of Ultron is never able to establish any kind of flow or
identity when it comes to plot or the themes within as it constantly switches
back to long sequences of lack luster, sometimes pointless action that’s main
concern is including everyone and being extremely large in scale. And when I
say everyone I mean everyone. For this, credit is due to Whedon for achieving
this balancing act of including all the different pieces but even so, because
of everything happening it is still easy to quickly lose focus when witnessing
these moments and the film in general.
So when the credits begin to role
and the mid-credit scene happens and the credits start up again and as you
finally walk out of the theater, feelings of admiration for the ambition
involved are unfortunately accompanied by pity. While Age of Ultron is as big as it was billed, it’s hard not to feel a
little bad for the people involved (Whedon mainly) as it doesn’t feel like a
movie that was never given a chance to have its own personality.
What made Marvels last two entries,
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
and Guardians of the Galaxy, not just
good in their own realm but entertaining cinema in general is that they were
able to establish some kind heartbeat, some kind of rhythm that made them hard
not to like. It’s hard to believe that this Avengers
franchise, with its massive foundation and roots, is able to stray too far away
from being much more than a movie that is as much a brand. And while the
interesting ideas are in small doses, Age
of Ultron’s restrictions are the main take away.
Grade: C
