|
★★½☆☆
22 April 2015
This article is a review of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. |
"You still think you're the only monster in the team?" Natasha Romanoff (Scarlet Johansson) to Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo)
Is it just me, or is AVENGERS 'Age of Ultron' a little too close in places to the bland 'Bayhem' of TRANSFORMERS 'Age of Extinction'? As director Michael Bay has his own brand of noisy chaos, fellow helmer Joss Whedon has entered the same territory: 'Whedaggedon'. From the joyous jaw-dropping set-pieces of THE AVENGERS, this sequel is a disappointment whichever way you look at it. Never too boring thanks to the charisma of the leads, AGE OF ULTRON also never gets the pulse racing. Even acolytes of the director, 'Whedonites', including oneself to a large degree, can't but feel a little bereft at his latest movie and awful TV show, 'Agents of Shield'. Come on Mr. W, you must try harder.
Is it just me, or is AVENGERS 'Age of Ultron' a little too close in places to the bland 'Bayhem' of TRANSFORMERS 'Age of Extinction'? As director Michael Bay has his own brand of noisy chaos, fellow helmer Joss Whedon has entered the same territory: 'Whedaggedon'. From the joyous jaw-dropping set-pieces of THE AVENGERS, this sequel is a disappointment whichever way you look at it. Never too boring thanks to the charisma of the leads, AGE OF ULTRON also never gets the pulse racing. Even acolytes of the director, 'Whedonites', including oneself to a large degree, can't but feel a little bereft at his latest movie and awful TV show, 'Agents of Shield'. Come on Mr. W, you must try harder.
|
|
Thankfully there is no pulling the gang back together rehash of the first movie; straight in they are all working in balletic harmony wiping the floor with some baddie Hydra Eurotrash. (If only their adversaries were as engaging as Hans Gruber and pals in DIE HARD.) Inside an Eastern European chateau is our heroes' target: Loki's sceptre. It had gone A.W.O.L. since government agency S.H.I.E.L.D. disintegration at the end of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER. Pursuing something already owned is a repetition of the opening of the earlier assembling instalment, the reacquiring of the Tesseract. Marvel movies of late do seem too reliant on the possession of a McGuffin. The endgame being a collection of these magical objects crescendoing in AVENGERS: INFINITY WARS arriving over two parts in 2018 and 2019. So perhaps it will be worth the repetition?
Waiting in this chateau-fortress, protected by an energy shield, are two humans experimented upon by its chief inhabitant, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann). These “enhanced” are a match for the protagonists. Twins Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olson) are respectively fast and mind controlling, the latter also telekinetic and able to fire red lightening bolts from her hands. For those scratching their heads, they might further, because the character of Quicksilver also appeared last year in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST - played by a different actor with an entirely different backstory.
Scarlet Witch's role is vengeance, messing with the Avengers' minds, bringing their subconscious fears to the surface and therefore turning on themselves. All while a sentient robot, created by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner, more malevolent than the Terminator, and nearly as focused on humankind's destruction as the artificial intelligence in novel 'Robopocalypse', Ultron (James Spader) of the title, goes about tussling with our wisecracking band. The problem is:
- Loki has already done the messing of minds in the first AVENGERS. Déjà vu is too commonplace in the runtime.
- The film does not go dark enough. AGE OF ULTRON should've been BATMAN RETURNS. Emotional devastation. Instead it's an emotional spraining. (Don't get me started on Hawkeye's (Jeremy Renner) twee family scenes. Ugh.)
|
|
Having your adversaries be cannon fodder automaton servants of Ultron brings back nightmare flashbacks of the banal battle droids in STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE and the yawn-some cacophony climax of IRON MAN 3. Watching personality-less robots continually ripped to bits gets tedious. Where is the peril even as another computer generated Marvel city gets squished?
Moments do elicit a broad smile across the face:
- A superhero party at Stark towers has War Machine (Don Cheadle) try to impress with an anecdote, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) brings out a hip flask of one thousand year aged alcohol.
- The Avengers take turns attempting to lift Thor's hammer, Mjolnir (all tools need a name, right?), to see if they are worthy enough to rule Asgard. Later, Quicksilver tries to catch it mid-air.
- Tony Stark gets a 'Hulk-buster' suit dropped from space, and repeatedly pummels Banner's alter ego in the face with a jackhammer fist.
- The volume of cameos from Marvel universe characters.
These moments though feel like echoes of the glories of a prior superior product.
|
|
