"I am one with the force, the force is with me." ~ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Friday, 1 May 2015

Whedon Week #7: The Avengers: Age of Ultron movie review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic reviews....
Avengers: Age of Ultron is the oh so long awaited sequel to the highly acclaimed Avengers, and the latest film in the Avengers franchise. Like Avengers, and obviously in keeping with Whedon Week, this film was both written and directed by Joss Whedon. The film follows the avengers as they have to once again save the world from Ultron, an AI created for the purpose of peace and protection, but ended up wanting to kill all humans. The film stars Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, & Chris Hemsworth as the Avengers, and it also stars James Spader as the voice of Ultron.
Now, the first Avengers film was largely popular, and a huge success, due in large part to its use of the Avengers in the action. This film is no exception, giving you a huge action scene within seconds of the film starting. Not a quick one either, it lasts a good ten minutes. The pacing in this movie is really spot on, and where the last Avengers film kind of waited until the end to bring most of the action, this film gives you really good seamless action almost throughout. In that though, I could easily see this movie being a bit too much for some people. It'll go through a lot of action and a lot of fairly important plot details really quick, which could lead to some people missing something important. It's not that big of an issue, but it's worth noting.
When I first saw some of the trailers and read some of the reviews for this movie, everything seemed to point to the word "darker", which really concerned me, because if there was anything I didn't want The Avengers to turn into, it's Man of Steel. However, I'm glad to be able to say this film isn't by any means "dark". Sure, it's a bit more serious, and about halfway through it starts to get real with some of the characters story arcs, but that by no means makes the movie darker. If anything, it shows that this film takes itself a bit more seriously than previous films in the series, and it shows that the franchise is ready to take itself in new directions with its characters and story. In a lot of ways, Age of Ultron is kind of the perfect example of what a sequel should be. It doesn't try to do everything the first film did, while still remaining true to what makes the franchise good. It matures to the levels it needs to without getting to serious and turning into a cliche.
The writing in this movie, as with Joss Whedons fashion of writing, is absolutely spot on. The dialogue in this film, as usual, is witty, it never misses a beat, and it stays consistent. Even better in terms of writing is the way the characters are written. Now, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, we all know these characters will come out of this film being memorable. The two big surprises here are Hawkeye and Ultron. In the last film, Hawkeye never seemed to do much to contribute to the team. Here however, you walk out of the movie and Jeremy Renner ended up one of the most memorable parts of the film.

And then, of course, there's Ultron. Now, Marvel in it's recent years hasn't been great with it's villains. Loki was great, no question there, but we haven't really had a great villain like that since. So, going into Age of Ultron, I certainly had my doubts about the character, even with James Spader playing him. However, James Spader ends up delivering a villain so amazing it might actually give Tom Hiddleston some competition. He's cunning, he delivers his lines in a way that's really unnerving at some points, and he's threatening. Not to mention, he has a really good sense of humor. I feel like I should've expected that, with James Spader being the voice, but it caught me off guard in a really good way.

Final Rating
Avengers: Age of Ultron is an entertaining film, and a really good sequel, and overall a really solid movie. It gets you engaged, it tells a really compelling story with these characters, and it manages to do pretty much everything a good sequel should do, but not many actually do. The writing it solid, the action is great, and this movie has an outstanding villain. I'm glad I got to see Avengers Age of Ultron, I have no doubt it'll be sold out for the next few weeks, but if you can find the time I'd highly recommend seeing this movie.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron
 4.5/5

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