"Avengers: Age of Ultron"

Or as I like to call it, We’re Back! An Avengers Story. I thought they disbanded. The movie opens up with the Avengers already assembled and taking down one of HYDRA’s remaining bunkers. Here we meet the twins, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. They play with the Avengers a little bit, showing their worse fears, which plagues them throughout the movie. They steal Loki’s scepter that was somehow stolen, but then Tony discovers something special: a special form of artificial intelligence more complex than anything ever created. Telling only Bruce Banner, Tony brings it home to study with the scepter. But before continuing, he goes to the party to celebrate the success of finding the scepter. Little did he know, the artificial intelligence wakes up to be greeted by Jarvis, who names him Ultron. Ultron seizes the opportunity to swallow Jarvis whole, takes the form of one of Tony’s Iron Man bots, and escapes through the Internet creepily singing “I’ve Got No Strings.” Ultron recruits Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch to do his bidding, including stealing massive amounts of vibranium from the country of Wakanda, which is a manufacturer of the indestructible metal. Defeated, Clint takes the Avengers to hide out on his farm with, surprise, his family. Did you know Hawkeye had a family?

Meanwhile, Ultron heads to Seoul to get Dr. Cho, who helped heal Clint with her advanced technology in skin grafting, to built him the perfect body. This is where Scarlet Witch is able to see into Ultron’s mind to discover what he plans to do. Some how in the midst of the fighting, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver escape to aid the Avengers in stealing Ultron’s perfect body. They take it back to their headquarters where Tony tries to convince Bruce to once again recreate the artificial intelligence that got them into this jam in the first place, but this time, implant, surprise, Jarvis, who apparently went into hiding instead of being eaten by Ultron. At this point isn’t Jarvis more powerful than Ultron? Why did Tony have to build a sophisticated form of artificial intelligence when he’s already built the best form in existence, his trusty butler? His Alfred Pennyworth? Were we supposed to have a loyalty moment between Tony and Jarvis?

I got off track. Thor, who disappears because his nightmarish dream told him something, returns to Frankenstein the f*ck out of Ultron’s perfect body. And like Frankenstein’s monster, it’s kind and gentle, only after a few roars and jumps and stares out the window. He bears a yellow stone on his forehead. The Mind Stone, Thor calls it, one of the mysterious Infinity Stones, which this series has yet to tell us what the F they are for. Vision aids the Avengers in explaining Ultron’s nature since he’s connected to him like Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Ultron returns to Sokovia where he terrorizes the city with his Rise of the Machines robots. The Avengers get there just in time for Ultron to lift a segment of the city in the air to use as a meteor to wipe out all of humanity. Nick Fury saves them by bringing a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier out of retirement to evacuate the lifted portion of the city. Hawkeye aids in getting the people and was almost finished but a child was left in the market. Hawkeye swoops in to save the day, and was nearly shot out by one of Ultron’s bots, but is saved by Quicksilver, who then dies. This is Marvel’s first death in the MCU, since Loki is somehow unkillable, Nick Fury used some poison to slow his heart rate, Bucky Barnes survived the fall from the mountain and was in cryo for years at a time, one of Groot’s roots was planted and he is growing again, and Agent Coulson survived getting stabbed by Loki’s scepter thanks to the T.A.H.I.T.I. project.

Everyone is safe, the “meteor” is blown up in the air, Vision shoots Ultron with his mind stone, and the Avengers disassemble. The movie ends with Hulk going AWOL and Captain America recruiting Falcon, Scarlet Witch, and Vision into the Avengers.

So, the running joke is that Steve accidentally yells “language” after Tony yells “sh*t” from hitting the fortified bunker. This has got to be the laziest joke I’ve seen put to film, and I’ve seen a lot of terrible movies and TV shows with lazy jokes. I think Steve’s age is catching up to him, as he is in fact nearly a hundred, but he’s one to talk. For a juiced up army brat, he swears like a f*cking sailor.

Remember when I pointed out that Steve and Natasha could have been a couple in The Winter Soldier? I guess they’ve forgotten all about that and tried to build a relationship with Natasha and Bruce. They didn’t even try to build a love triangle between the three. Halfway through the film, we discover that Bruce doesn’t want to have kids because of his condition, but we also learn that Natasha is sterile, as a byproduct of the Russian training school she was trained at. Now all we need for this story arc is to have Natasha impossibly pregnant with Bruce’s Hulk baby in the next Avengers, but that’s probably not happening, considering the fact that Bruce bailed after the Battle of Ultron.

I’ve only seen James Spader in the trailers for The Blacklist, but he was born to play this role. Forget what I said about Alexander Pierce/Robert Redford, Ultron is the best villain Marvel brought to the screen, but only up to a point. In one quip, he seems to forget the word “children.” Was he trying to make himself sound more human, or is reading from the same imaginary script Nick was reading in The Winter Soldier? And if Jarvis kicked him out of the Internet, isn’t there still a way for Ultron to get back in? There’s got to be a decommissioned Netscape satellite floating around somewhere that Ultron can reboot and attack Jarvis. And he gets killed the same way Voldemort does: a beam shot from Vision’s “head wound.”

Natasha is Black Widow, right? Has anyone on the concept art team ever seen a black widow spider? Why are the lines on her suit blue? Black widow spiders have a red hourglass on their abdomen. The lines then should be red.

Hawkeye having a secret family is a cheap ploy to get you to like him. He has no backstory, let’s give him one.

Jane and Pepper are strangely absent in this movie, now “too expensive” to attend their little party.

So, Jarvis became sentient, like I jokingly mentioned on Iron Man 3, in the form of Vision, but that also means Jarvis is technically dead. He is replaced by a new weirder butler called Friday, who sounds like she’s on a trip. Oh, and Jarvis/Vision was able to lift Thor’s hammer because he’s worthy. It doesn’t matter if he’s human or not, he’s frickin’ worthy.

Thanos grabs some golden metal glove thingy in this movie’s end credits scene and says he’ll do it himself. Do what himself? Quit playing the pronoun game and tell us what you are doing yourself.
I talked in the X-Men post about humanizing the supers. In a way, it helps us connect with them because we used to believe that they were immortal. They kicked ass, they took names, and they'll be back to fight another day. Seeing them at their low points allows us to see that they are still human. Thor isn't human, but he still shows human emotion. They aren't taking it very well that a robot is having the upper hand. I think this is why a lot of people didn't like this movie. Their heroes don't look so heroic. In the first Avengers, they bickered because their egos clashed but everything turned out all right. This movie takes it further. They failed to stop Ultron the first time, and now they're at each other's throats. Plus the villain is more sinister. Loki just played with people in hopes to gain their loyalty. He was willing to use sorcery if necessary. Ultron was willing to straight up kill people. He even manages to kill one of their own. This was the darkest moment in the MCU at the time. You're just mad it wasn't what you expected. I agree it wasn't that exciting, but it's better than you give it credit for. I'll make this a draw to keep it neutral. 5-4-2

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Released On: May 1, 2015
Rating: PG-13
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, James Spader
Director: Joss Whedon
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 75% Certified Fresh
IMDb Score: 7.4/10

Awards
Saturn Awards

• Best Comic-to-Film Motion Picture - Nominated
• Best Supporting Actor Paul Bettany - Nominated
• Best Film Costume Design Alexandra Byrne - Winner
• Best Film Special/Visual Effects Paul Corbould, Chris Townsend, Ben Snow & Paul Butterworth - Nominated

(Click here to view more awards for "Avengers: Age of Ultron")

Videos
CinemaSins - Everything Wrong With Avengers: Age of Ultron
Screen Junkies - Honest Trailers - Avengers: Age of Ultron
How It Should Have Ended - How The Avengers: Age Of Ultron Should Have Ended - Part One
How It Should Have Ended - How The Avengers: Age of Ultron Should Have Ended - Part Two