Is Avengers: Age of Ultron Any Good?

Avengers Assemble! Again!

Avengers: Age of Ultron - Film Review by Nathan Brooks

And they say English Weather's bad.

Back in the summer of 2012, a little film came out called Avengers Assemble. It wasn't much. It's only the biggest superhero film of all time and it only made $1.518 billion. Everybody loved it, I loved it and clearly moviegoers did as well. Due to its massive success, obviously a sequel was going to be made. In this case, that sequel is Avengers: Age of Ultron, but with all the hype it's received, is it actually any good?

Story
The story in this film is definitely not for first time Marvel viewers, you really need to see most, if not all, of the previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films. It is packed full of references to earlier films and understanding a lot of elements of the story will require you to have seen the others.

But is the story any good? I thinks so. The main story centres around the fact that Tony Stark, or Iron Man, has created Ultron, an Artificial Intelligence that was originally created because of Stark's fear that one day they'll be a threat too big that even the Avengers can't handle it. As you expect, he turns out to be bad. 

Admittedly the basis of the story is a little cliché, but it does work. The Avengers have to go out and stop him etc. and Ultron teams up with two new characters, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver who he uses to mess with the Avengers, trying to break them apart form the inside. There's an interesting focus on Ultron's future for the world and his idea of 'peace' as oppose to the Avenger's.

The strongest point I think is the dialogue, which is the usual Avengers 'banter' you come to expect and it's all very funny and entertaining and stops you form being bored throughout a story that could end up seeming cliché and dull on its own, if it wasn't handled so well.
8.5/10

Characters
Not a lot of people liked Spider-Man 3. Not a lot liked Amazing Spider-Man 2 either, both for the same reason; too many characters. 

Having too many characters isn't, however, necessarily a problem, if you know how to handle them properly. Fortunately, Director/Writer Joss Whedon manages to give most of the characters a chance at being developed in some way, without anything seeming too convoluted. 

Iron Man and Captain America begin to show hints of disagreement in Age of Ultron, as they clearly don't see eye to eye on how the Avengers should protect the world, this setting up for Captain America: Civil War, based on the famous Marvel storyline, when Cap. and Stark end up fighting against each other. Meanwhile Thor is constantly in fear of Loki's staff, which contains an 'Infinity Stone' something that has the ability to destroy entire worlds as well as that worry that he'll be responsible for the death of his fellow Asgardians.

You also get a bit of a love story between Bruce Banner/Hulk and Black Widow, which is very well done, if a little out of nowhere. You also get introduced to Hawkeye's family and their fear of Hawkeye not returning from battle someday. Both of these manage to change Black Widow and Hawkeye from bland characters who are  just there for the action to actual characters that you care about.

[Insert scary Pinocchio reference
here]

New character/villain Ultron is brilliant in my opinion. Some were a little disappointed, as they were expecting a more menacing and serious villain, but instead what we got, I thought, was more interesting. He's more like the 'dark side' of Tony Stark. Ultron wants the same things Stark wants, but he thinks the best way of getting to it is through extinction, whereas Stark realises that's not a good idea. He's also just as quick witted as Stark is as well. All of this is amplified by an excellent performance from James Spader

Other new characters, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were far weaker and quite boring. The closest they got to character development was one conversation between them and Ultron about their parents. That's about it. They also have some painfully fake accents. Obviously then you've got the obligatory comparison to X-Men: Day's of Future Past's Quicksilver who, I must admit, is a far better character, but unfortunately also had a lot less screen time.

Jarvis gets a body for the first time in this films as 'Vision', still played by Paul Bettany, but this time onscreen as a sort of robot thing. He represents the opposite of Ultron. He understands that humans can never truly have peace, but he also understands that destroying all of them wouldn't help much either.

Now I know what you're thinking. Those are way too many characters and sometimes it can feel like that. I've missed out a couple of other characters as well because I'd be writing this section for ages. Fortunately most of the time it's fine, but you do notice a bit of a scramble for centre stage sometimes, meaning a few people get a little left out (*cough* Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch *cough*). 
8/10

Music
Being the kind of movie Age of Ultron is there isn't so much of a focus on the music. Obviously it is there, it's just more in the background. It doesn't stand out as much, therefore it's not particularly memorable. There's nothing wrong with the music, however. It's very lively and fun and fits the tone of Age of Ultron perfectly well, there's just not a lot to say about it.
7.5/10

Looks

I THREW IT ON THE GROUND!

I don't know why, but a lot of times in this film I kept thinking, "What the heck's up with Hulk?" Everything else seemed (mostly) fine to me, Iron Man looked especially well done, but Hulk looked a bit rubbish compared to the rest of the effects. Admittedly these were in every scene other than the Hulk vs Hulkbuster scene, in which they really brought out the big guns, or big effects in this case. 

Speaking of which, the action was excellent. The film opens with an insane action sequence and everything else that follows is just as good, if not better. Combining this with the jokes and stupid one-liners the heroes (and villains) are constantly making, these action scenes are a heck of a lot of fun.
9/10

Final Thoughts
In the end, Avengers: Age of Ultron isn't going to win best picture at the Oscars. It's not going to revolutionise cinema, it's not going to change anybody's lives. However, you will have a wonderful time watching it. The action is over the top, mad and extremely entertaining, the jokes are hilarious and you can't help but love the the heroes. Sometimes the film can seem a little bit overstuffed and complicated, but I was able to overlook this because of the excellent time I was having whilst watching it.

Overall: 8/10

That looks comfortable.