Avengers: Age of Ultron is more movie for your buck, or at least that's how Marvel is selling it. It contains more characters, more action sequences, and more plot threads than its predecessor. Yet it underwhelms because of an overwhelming sense of "been there, done that." There's nothing radically bad or cringe-worthy throughout this latest installment's 141 minutes, but neither does it offer anything wow-worthy from a visceral or emotional standpoint. Part of the thrill of The Avengers was seeing the development of each main character from solo movie hero to part of a team; they clashed with each other before eventually coming together to save the world. One would expect a sequel, to take these characters in new and exciting directions. Sadly, Age of Ultron does not take that leap, instead simply repeating the same structure. Our heroes fought aliens bent on Earth's takeover last time, so let's pit them against robots bent on Earth's destruction this time.
In James Bond-like fashion, this movie opens in the midst of a high-octane battle where the Avengers raid a Hydra compound in order to steal back Loki's scepter. They succeed, allowing Tony Stark to finally put the finishing touches on his greatest project, a massively intelligent A.I. that can protect the world from alien invasions. Ultron (voice of James Spader) gains consciousness remarkably quickly and deduces that the Avengers, for all the destruction they've caused in the name of peace, are no real heroes and must be eliminated. But that's only the first step in his master plan. Like Noah, he wants to purge the world of humanity and "start over."
Artificial intelligence is a hot topic in science fiction, but Age of Ultron suffers from a case of bad timing, arriving in theaters one week after the exquisite Ex Machina covered similar territory. While this movie is more action-packed and will draw more crowds, it barely even pays lip service to the fascinating ideas lurking beneath the surface. Ultron's introduction is rushed like a bat out of hell, and he's developed into little more than a standard-order megalomaniac. Give actor James Spader credit for imbuing this character with the appropriate level of charisma and menace (as well as some of the best one-liners, my favorite being the one involving a frisbee), and give the FX team just as much for giving Ultron impressively-realize facial expressions and movements, but both are wasted efforts.
Too many characters proves a hindrance as well. If The Avengers introduced a new age where single-hero movies don't satisfy the way team-based ones do, then Age of Ultron shows what happens when filmmakers spread this concept too thin. The need to keep track of so many means too few opportunities for each to delight. Sure, Stark and Thor toss out some amusing one-liners here and there, but everyone else is going through the motions. A love story develops seemingly out of nowhere between Black Widow and Hulk, but it doesn't work on any level. And the new characters, including lightning-fast Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and mind manipulator Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), get in on the action plenty of times but don't linger in the mind. Their arc, like just about everything else in Age of Ultron, is underdeveloped.
On the action front, Age of Ultron gets the job done with battles of impressive scope and energy. But even then, repetition occasionally sets in. Just like in the first movie, we have a sequence where Hulk goes crazy and the rest of the team has to subdue him (this time, it's Iron Man fighting back with a Hulk-sized suit of armor). The main villain gets his licks in before eventually being defeated in an all-out, city-wide orgy of destruction. At the very least, Age of Ultron corrects the most glaring problem of Man of Steel by having its heroes address the safety of ordinary citizens even during battle (something Superman did not do in that movie). These are super-heroes, after all.
Before this movie even reached screens, Marvel began hyping the biggest adventure yet for the Avengers, a two-part adaptation of Infinity War, which will spread across 2018 and 2019. The fact that they've done so already reveals what they think of Age of Ultron; it's simply a placeholder to give fans something to do before the culmination of all hype finally arrives. The audience I saw this with on opening weekend seemed to agree, as no one clapped when the credits rolled. Hell, the appearance of Thanos mid-way through the credits is more likely to make viewers impatient (just hurry up and bring him on, already!) instead of giddy with anticipation.
With the exception of Captain America: The Winter Solider, all of Marvel's Phase 2 movies have taken a step back creatively from Phase 1. If Age of Ultron is any indication, the concept of a team of heroes defending Earth from hordes of aliens and/or robots has been taken about as far as it can go. Pick your favorite moment from the first film, whether it be a line of dialogue or an action sequence, and this one offers a lesser version of it. Marvel needs to take lessons from other popular franchises like Star Wars, the Dark Knight trilogy, X-Men, and Hunger Games, whose second installments served up game-changing events from a character/story perspective. That's what good blockbuster franchises do. Mediocre ones are content to repeat the same formula, sporadically entertaining but never truly letting us feel the excitement. Time will tell whether Earth's mightiest heroes represent the former or the latter.
Rating: **1/2 (out of ****)
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