AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON - Damaged Armor

NOTE: Sorry I've been gone for so long, what with school, work and other arrangements. I can't promise that I will go back to weekly reviews or news articles, but I will post here when I am "burdened with glorious purpose". 

"Isn't that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?"

- Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Avengers: Age of Ultron

Like it or not, Marvel Studios has changed the way modern blockbusters are made. In the wake of Marvel's The Avengers, movie studios have tripped over themselves trying to follow in the footsteps of the shared movie universe that was set up for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. From Ghostbusters to Universal Monsters and even DC, Marvel's distinguished competition all want a piece of the billions Marvel Studios has been collecting for their parent company, Walt Disney Pictures.  But there's something major that the studios just aren't getting: the Marvel Cinematic Universe was built out of the structure of comic books. You start with a teaser, go into the story panel-by-panel, splash pages occasionally, and you wrap it all up with the last panel predicating the next story to read. Ghostbusters won't have that. Universal Monsters won't have that. DC could, but they're in it for the wrong reasons. It takes a leader (whether it be a talented director, a dedicated writer or a patient producer) to come in and take the reigns and stop the madness. However, with his newest summer opus Avengers: Age of Ultron, it is clear that writer/director Joss Whedon doesn't want this responsibility anymore.

When we last left the Avengers, they had all gone their separate ways. Tony Stark found himself stranded in Tennessee and had to track down the terrorist Mandarin and the mysterious tech company A.I.M. (Iron Man 3). Thor returned to Earth for Jane Foster who had accidentally come into contact with a mystical force that threatened to destroy her (Thor: The Dark World). And Captain America had the biggest issue of all when he discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D. was actually evil '40s organization HYDRA in disguise - not to mention that they had revived his best friend since childhood and turned him into an international assassin - and had to take it down from the inside (Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Oh, and there was a wise-cracking '80s kid,  a green girl, a tattooed maniac who took things too literally, a talking raccoon and a giant walking tree but it was all in space, so cool, hilarious and awesome as it was, doesn't really make much of a dent in our story. No, because right from the start of Age of Ultron, we have no idea what is going on. Sure there was a set-up scene from the mid-credits of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but we have no idea how the Avengers got back together. We're just supposed to buy immediately that they all are peechy-keen with each other and are just ready and raring to go. That's not good enough for me. It was such a big deal in the first five MCU movies to get the Avengers all set up that it just seems like nothing here. Sure, most sequels can get away with immediately launching into another adventure without any set-up, like say, the opening to Lethal Weapon 2 where it's in the middle of a car chase. It just seems like a main credits sequence ala The Incredible Hulk, quickly explaining what's happened in the past three movies, how they got back together, maybe brief glimpses of crime-fighting and what their new mission is leading into the movie. Also, the pacing in the first 30 minutes of the movie is way too fast and I'm more than a passing reader of the comics. Whedon writes lightning-fast dialogue while the audience struggles to get their bearings; admittedly, there is a funny running gag regarding Captain America and curse words that I have no doubt was written in response to Loki calling Black Widow a "mewling quim" from the first movie. We have no idea what their mission is until Tony tracks down Loki's sceptor. (Which makes no ounce of sense considering why did Thor not take it back with him when he left Earth at the end of Avengers?)

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen had previously been co-stars in Godzilla,
where they were husband and wife. Here, they're brother and sister.

Two new characters in the film, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeht Olsen; a way to get around using their superhero names - Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch - because those names are owned by Fox), attack the Avengers and Wanda's psychic powers causes Tony to have a vision of the Avengers, defeated and dying, blaming him for their demise. After returning home, Tony is convinced that enough is enough and a more permanent solution is required. A "suit of armor around the world", as he calls it. So he and Bruce immediately get to working on building a peacekeeping android entity named Ultron, and by the film's depiction, we're supposed to already know who he is and what it means. I know these movies really, really well and there has been no mention or allusions to Ultron until now, so folks who haven't read the comics are going to be desperately lost. And there's no way that Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier were made without the knowledge that Ultron was the endgame for Phase 2. A little more set-up would've been nice.

And so, we get to the titular villain of the movie, Ultron (played via performance capture by James Spader of "The Blacklist"). While the Avengers throw themselves a party (which is a really funny scene), Ultron gains conciousness and quickly deciding that the only way humans can achieve peace is by their extinction, he seemingly murders Tony's A.I. JARVIS (voiced by Paul Bettany) and puts together a makeshift body for himself. He attacks the Avengers and escapes with Loki's scepter. Naturally, the Avengers are not too pleased with Tony trying to replace them without telling them; the trailer shot of Thor choking Tony is nothing but a trailer shot and might as well have been cut out. The Maximoffs team with Ultron to take out the Avengers. One point of contention I have is the characterization of Ultron. To be fair, I don't know much of James Spader's work. I'm kind of confused as to why "The Blacklist" is sometimes marketed as a comedy when it's supposed to be a drama (if I'm wrong, please let me know), but here he plays Ultron as somewhat aloof. He's a 9-foot-tall killer robot who sometimes forgets what children are, accidentally cuts off a character's arm and then actually apologizes for it. It works for Loki because he's the God of Mischief. Jokes and one-liners would come natually to him. But this is supposed to be the Marvel equivalent of Skynet, something cold and calculating, operating only on ones and zeroes. Quips shouldn't be a factor in his decision making.

From this point forward, Avengers: Age of Ultron becomes a global chase to stop Ultron from affecting a plan to cause worldwide extinction. One positive note I can give is that Jeremy Renner is given so much character development in this film than in the previous one. He gets a couple of funny lines and even a short heroic monologue about what it takes to be an Avenger, which is nice. Some of his development I can't mention here but it's well-worth seeing more human stakes for a character. Pepper Potts and Jane Foster are written away in lines of dialogue (in Jane's case, AGAIN). Nick Fury shows up out of nowhere with his eyepatch back (he burnt it at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier). And, as Whedon has promised, Agent Phil Coulson's resurrection will never be mentioned in the MCU films. This would be one heck of a breaking point for the Avengers, realizing that the Battle of New York was fought out of misguided guilt! Maybe even leading into Civil War, which is not even hinted at!

I don't want to come off sounding too negative about this movie; there are certainly things I like about it and good moments of cool action to be sure, but it just doesn't have the same spirit that the first film did. And as I said in the beginning, it is apparent Joss Whedon just wants to go home. Years ago, he was excited to take on a big summer superhero movie, but I think Marvel began to lean heavily on him - he made a ABC TV series for them "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." that he soon had to reliqunish command of; he gave his opinion on the final edit of Iron Man 3; and he even had to be flown into England for an hour to fix the script on Thor: The Dark World (which didn't help much). Clearly, Whedon has been worn out and this film shows. The above quote (from an article on Buzzfeed) says it all. I truly think Whedon wanted a quick way out of the MCU. He even screws fans out of the famous battle-cry "Avengers Assemble!" at the last possible second. Could the director of Bring It On and the directors of You, Me and Dupree set the Marvel Cinematic Universe back to the high standards it's known for? Only time will tell.