Every week, a group of friends and I are rewatching a Marvel movie in preparation for the Avengers: Endgame. Might as well talk about them on the way, right?
I didn’t dislike Ultron as much as everyone else did. It’s definitely not a cinematic masterpiece, and it suffers from the same “Joss Whedon is an asshole” as the first Avengers does, but, like the first Avengers, it’s perfectly entertaining spectacle.
In last week’s review,* I briefly touched on Marvel’s use of bathos, and that Guardians balanced its jokes with its drama pretty well. Age of Ultron does not do that. Most of the jokes were pretty funny, but there was just so many that it completely stripped away the stakes of the situation. Like most funny movies, I turn back and say “Yeah yeah, Ultron was okay… that’s the one with like the thing where the stuff happened, right?” I know I was entertained, but it’s ultimately pretty unmemorable.
All that said, some pretty cool shit happens here. One of the first shots of the movie is a long, extended shot of all the Avengers doing their various avenging, and it’s great. It’s like, 95% cgi, so not a wonder of filmmaking, but it’s still great, especially considering how movies like Winter Soldier cut so often the audience can’t discern the action. It mirrors a long take from the battle of New York from the first movie that… wow, I didn’t comment on? Damn, that’s a shame. That was a cool shot too.
Some of those early shots of Scarlet Witch are incredible. She’s creepy as hell. Until she opens her mouth and that… I guess you can technically call it an accent? Comes out. Once that pseudo-Eastern-European stuff comes out, she and Aaron Taylor-Johnson just lose all credibility. Whedon, hire your cast some voice coaches!
So much of the superhero genre- especially cartoons aimed at kids and YA- is about “ohhh no! Why can’t I lead a normal life?” and for that reason, I love that Hawkeye has a secret family. That sequence was brilliant.
Ultron’s design was cool as shit. I’ve only seen AI like him done well a couple times- Battlestar Galactica and Mass Effect are the ones that come to mind. The mind that exists without the body? There’s this one scene in particular where a new Ultron body destroys an old one and the dialogue is totally uninterrupted, and it’s awesome.
I do like that the first mission ends mostly-well for the Avengers. It’s necessary to show that the Avengers start out the movie as a well-oiled machine. It makes Civil War and Infinity War all that much more devastating in the future, and boy do I love to be devastated. The party scene where they all try to lift Thor’s hammer? The camaraderie is incredible.
Aaaaand that’s a great spot to point out how problematic Whedon is as a writer. In that party scene, Tony asserts that if he can lift Thor’s hammer and rule Asgard, he will reinstate Prima Nocta. According to this one historian on Reddit, not only was Prima Nocta never called Prima Nocta, it also wasn’t very much of a thing at all. But it is Joss Whedon thinking that he’s very clever for hiding a rape joke in a Disney movie. Also a bunch of bad boner jokes. I’m fine with boner jokes but there’s such a thing as too much. There are also a bunch of scenes of girlfriend-comparing, a “funny” scene where Bruce Banner dives behind a counter and lands with his face buried in Scarlet Johansson’s tits right in the middle of frame- and then that whole speech about why she’s a monster because she had a hysterectomy? I seriously hate Joss Whedon.
Ultron’s motivations are dumb. He’s a robot that’s going to destroy the world. He spouts pseudo-philosophy about why, but it doesn’t matter because he’s another robot going to destroy the world. He says he’s here to save it, but he fails to justify it. Even with that, and some surprisingly subtle hints at the ever-approaching Thanos, it’s a dumb goal. Speaking of dumb, Natasha’s relationship with Bruce was way out of left field. There was no setup for that at all, and it’s forced and awful.
The original score for the Avengers was one of my favorite things about it, and Danny Elfman ruined it. I normally like Elfman, but he rarely uses the iconic Avengers theme, and when he does it’s altered so much that you can barely recognize it. The lack of that iconic music is really felt during the runtime. There are hints of the original Captain America: The First Avenger theme and the theme from Iron Man 3, but the score here is mostly forgettable.
Age of Ultron spends a lot of time paying lip service to preventing civilian casualties, but it’s really tacked-on. I’d rant about it, but 2 movies from now is Captain America: Civil War, which directly addresses that complaint.
All-in-all, Avengers 2 is similar in its enjoyability to Avengers 1, minus the novelty and Tom Hiddleston’s charisma, and that’s why it feels like pop culture has forgotten about it. I’m glad Quicksilver’s death was permanent, though!
So where does that leave the MCU? It’s the 11th entry into the franchise, and with it being so… so-so, the series isn’t looking awesome. We’ve had 4 great movies, some “meh” movies, and 4 god-awful ones. 2015 was not an uplifting year for Marvel.
*So it turns out I forgot I had written a whole paragraph about this in the Avengers review, so I’m gonna tone it down here. Y’all get the point.