To celebrate Age of Ultron being released on Blu Ray and DVD
(and amazon accidentally sending mine a day early), I’ve decided to talk about
it. (Yes I’m aware it’s 6 months too late for anybody to care, and no, I don’t
care), since it’s out on Blu Ray I’m going to talk about the plot and character
in detail so consider this a spoiler warning.
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| This is your spoiler alert. Spoilers for Age of Ultron and some other MCU films. |
We start the movie off with the
Avengers avenging as they storm a base of some kind looking for Loki’s Sceptre
because Hydra have gotten their hands on it somewhere between the end of
Avengers and whatever film that end of credits scene with Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and
Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are in (according to Google this would be Winter Soldier). Now the
first sequence of this movie I thought was a little disappointing, I thought the
opening action scene was a little disjointed and was basically used to set up
the movie. . It shows that Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) as the leader, they use Scarlet Witch to
bring Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Junior) fears to the forefront of his mind (and helps us to understand why he wants to build Ultron), it shows the relationships have developed, it shows that they've been doing this sort of thing for a while and it introduces two new charterers. While it wasn't bad per say, I just think they could have done it better. The lullaby was a good way to see that Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) have become
close between films and sets the basis for their relationship.
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| *Picture also demonstrates Quicksilver being quick |
That opening scene is basically
the only major problem I have with the film. Honestly, I just loved the film, I
was half-expecting a rehash of the original Avengers film (after all it did
make a butt load of money, and who doesn’t like money). But I was pleasantly
surprised, although some parts were the same (Ultron bots vs Chitauri
soldiers, who wins the generic army off?) there was much more heart in this
film than the first. I know a lot of people had a problem with the Black
Widow-Banner relationship, but I really didn’t (go team Brutasha! Or team…Bulk?).
They established that they’ve grown closer with the lullaby and in the Quinjet
after, so it didn’t come out of nowhere for me. I loved the scene at the bar and the scene between them at the safe house, unfortunately we all knew this particular arc was doomed to be a sad ending
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| What's a guy like you doing reading a blog like this? #TeamBrutasha |
Also, despite Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) being the
butt of everybody’s jokes (you’re less useful than a guy with a bow and arrow
in a space war! Haha, good one Aziz) I thought he was the best (and most relatable)
character in this thing. The story arc with him and his secret family is good
and I’m really glad they didn’t go the Hawkeye-Black Widow relationship route, they
make really good friends and I like their relationship as it is. Tony Stark and
Captain America are basically what you would expect from them. Tony Stark is a
sarcastic genius constantly making witty remarks, Captain American is the boy
scout of them team (the Leonardo of the team if you will) and they constantly
bicker like an old married couple. (There is A LOT of set up for Civil War in
this film). Even though Tony Stark is the focal point of the plot (creating
both Vision and Ultron), he’s honestly fairly understated. Thor (Chris Helmsworth) also does not
do much more than what we’d expect him to, he kicks arse, he gets involved in
the more mystical element of it all and he makes me feel inadequate as a man. The
scene where he and Selvig go to the pool has an extended version in the deleted
scenes and honestly I wish they’d included it because it goes into more detail
about where they are and what they are looking for. Honestly it just seems like
he disappears for a large chunk of the movie and adding the full scene could
have helped, but I suppose they were trying the let some of the smaller characters
shine.
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| Chris Helmsworth making me feel like less of a man. You're welcome ladies |
Another thing I liked (this is
quickly turning into me rambling on about the stuff I liked about this movie… ah
well) is the new cast. I’ve already touched on Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver,
but I really like their dynamic, you by them as twins and you buy their
closeness, when Quicksilver dies you see the pain in Scarlet Witch, her powers
just explode with pure emotion, the Ultron bots around her just disintegrate
and she rips out the main Ultron’s robot heart out. You really feel for this
woman. Quicksilver is just annoying-charming enough to not grate on you, especially
when it comes to Hawkeye. James Spader
as Ultron is brilliant as well. He is much more of a threat than Loki ever was
but he still has his funny moments (especially when he’s just frustrated with
puny humans). My favourite of the new cast is definitely Vision (Paul Bettany). Vision being “born”
was a really quiet and quite a beautiful scene with the tension the Avengers
are felling plus him essentially coming into existence. When a baby is born
they don’t have the capacity to fathom what’s happening around them, but with
Vision he’s super intelligent and can go through a ridiculous amount of data
instantly, it’s a lot to process and the scene does convey this (I think the reason
Ultron is bad and Vision is good is because Ultron made the mistake of visiting
4chan but Vision stayed clear). When Vision lifted Mjolnir you could hear the
entire screenings shock when I watched it in the cinema (at this point I was
like “I hope he hits something with the hammer” and he totally hit Ultron with
the hammer, it was awesome). Vision really showed that he’s in a different
league than the Avengers (when Cap said “let’s whip them into shape” and Vision
was one of them it was kind of ridiculous, Vision would kill Captain America in
5 seconds if he wanted to). The only worry have is if he’s doomed to die, we
know they’re doing Infinity Gauntlet so Thanos gets the Mind gem, so is
basically going to rip it from Vision’s head?
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| She's sexy, she kick arse. What more can you ask for? |
The story is solid as well, it’s
not the best part of the film but it doesn’t get in the way of the film. The characters
carry the film and elevate it in my opinion. The story is pretty much what you’d
expect from a Marvel film and centres around another of the infinity stones
(not explaining them here, Google it), but this doesn’t take away from the
experience in the slightest. This film is really a bigger film than the
Avengers. The stakes seem so much higher. He seemed like a greater threat and
it was a case of “if the avengers mess up billions would die” but in the first
movie I didn’t really feel that way (I’d also like to point out they focused on
keeping civilians safe despite the end of world being a threat, unlike one particular
DC film).
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| *cough*ManOfSteel*cough* |
I honestly don’t know if I
enjoyed this film more than the first Avengers, I was surprised by being less
interested in Stark and Rogers than the rest of them, they were more
understated and the most predictable that the rest of the case. And I’m honestly
surprised how little I’ve mentioned them in this review (less a review and more
of a fangasm if I’m honest). I pre-ordered it on Blu Ray and paid to see it
twice in the cinema. I can’t really give it a bigger endorsement as that.
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