Avengers: Age of Ultron

Without a doubt the latest Avengers movie is one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year. With the success of the last movie it is just the Hollywood way to make a sequel out of it. Joss Whedon is back at the helm of the sequel and with his success both story and production wise in the first outing the stake is pretty high for him. He even mentioned the sequel nearly killed him. So with that much blood and sweat put into the production, how did the final product stack up?

Sequels are hard, especially for sequels of successful franchises. Avengers: Age of Ultron has a lot to deliver: continued progression of characters established in the previous and other movies, the continuation of the Marvel Universe storyline, the introduction of new characters and the balance of the all the star acts with both existing and new cast members. From this point of view I think Joss Whedon delivered. It is no easy task but he managed. All characters have their own storylines developed further but what I appreciate in this movie is that characters that do not have their own franchises actually get more air time. The storylines related to Hawkeye, Black Widow and Hulk provided a much needed glimpse to their characters. Yes Hulk had two previous movies already but come on who would consider them as successful character building for Hulk? Joss Whedon managed to explore the dilemmas and yearnings for Bruce Banner and “The Big Guy” and the storyline between Bruce and Natasha was a nice one. And without a doubt Mark Ruffalo and Scarlet Johansson shined in this storyline. We also had a glimpse of Hawkeye this time whom in the last movie was nothing but a total support character tagging along with the group.

Age of Ultron introduced two new members Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Putting aside that Quicksilver is played by a different actor this time round (due to license restrictions with the existing Fox rights to the X-men universe) the Maximoff twins were quite a standout due to their completely different powers as mutants. As Maria Hill put it, “He is fast and she is weird” pretty much sums them up and put them on different radar as compared to the rest of the group. The fact that they could outwit most of the established superheroes was an indication how their power was on a different level. Also for the first time, after many films in the Marvel Universe, Paul Bettany moved from voice acting to character acting and he did not disappoint. I don’t know whether casting him early on in the franchise was a vision for his development in this film or not but that was a perfect casting choice in my opinion.

Since it is still a Joss Whedon movie, you could expect all the wit and funny lines weaved in between all the over the top actions. Sometimes I do feel how could Earth ever recover from all the havoc wrecked over the course of the last few Marvel movies? I mean there were like tons of damage to Earth. Unless there is a superhero among them to recover and rebuild with its super power, I don’t know how much of Earth is left for them to chip away in every single movie or whether there would actually be an Earth to save. Maybe it is not that much of any issue for Thor as he lives somewhere else and Earth seems like a summer house for some actions from time to time, but I feel bad for those who have nowhere to go. Having said that, Age of Ultron has some of the most spectacular action sequences you could see in recent years. The fact that Joss Whedon could cramp in all the super powers of all the super heroes and super villains while addressing the super technologies of S.H.I.E.L.D without compromising any aspect of them is just amazing. I think this shows the director really understands the franchise and the comics. There are lots of adjustments in terms of storylines and relationships in the movie as compared to the comics but none of them compromised the integrity of the world established by the comics, which I think shows the strengths of the director and producer a lot.

Age of Ultron is not without issues. It is after all a Hollywood movie so you could see clear traces of Hollywood formula in story building, which in my opinion is a bit too predictable now. Also certain developments seemed to be restricted by or affected by IP and contractual agreements thus taxing the movie’s ability to deliver its full potential, which in my opinion is a pity. Because of this, it put a road block on the movie to achieve greater success as a piece of artwork. However, none of this should discredit the work Joss Whedon had incredibly achieved. Age of Ultron is a movie that you could go in and watch it again and could still enjoy it all over again even though you know what is coming. I enjoyed every single scene of this tightly knitted story delivered by a superb cast completed with some extraordinary special effects and action sequences.

The next two movies will not be helmed by Joss Whedon so I do not envy the person who took up the rein but for the time being just enjoy what is on offer and don’t think about it too much. After all overthinking is not what super heroes do.