Setting Expectations
Like a lot of people I went to see Age of Ultron opening weekend. I'm not going to be blasting the film, but I will put out there point blank that one of the best movies I've ever seen was Iron Man and I only gave it four out of five stars. I'm a notoriously harsh critic, just ask my friends. And this post is probably not going to earn me any cred with most people because I'm going to bash icons in it, and I won't give away spoilers while doing so.
The Villain Problem
First off, from a fangirl perspective Ultron was the wrong choice to have for a 2nd movie villain. I wish that in the marvel movies they'd sat down and planned and made better use of their villains. A few devious lines of dialogue some nearly off camera shots of Kang the Conqueror would have been a true treat for those fans who know about the avengers and set us up for Avengers 3.
Now that said Ultron is a big villain in the Avengers continuity and has been fought multiple times. The image I'm using for this is part of the Annihilation Conquest, it's a cool picture. But he's certainly not the baddest villain they could be fighting. On an aside I'm honestly going to be disappointed when Thanos gets taken apart by the Guardians of the Galaxy, which I have issues with the portrayal of those characters in the movie to begin with. I honestly don't know who I would have picked for a follow up villain and I'm glad it wasn't Loki. I don't want them going back to the well too often with him.
Ultron's Character Misstep
The reason I don't believe Ultron should have been the second villain is simple, build up. He comes out of left field in this and just sorta acts like a wrecking ball with a snarky attitude. I instantly began to dislike Ultron in the movie when he started to be jokey. You pull me out of the movie when a character who is normally pretty straight laced becomes a jokester.
What has happened to Hollywood where the smooth sophisticated villain is now seen as being unworthy of their time? My only complaint about Daredevil is Kingpin and how he stutters through his lines and generally acts like he doesn't want to be there. Just my opinion but the only thing the Kingpin teaches me as he is now is dude has an impressive temper and he's somewhat capable of planning.
Ultron who should be this force to be reckoned with comes off as half cocked and perhaps a little bit insane. Which kudos for making him seem insane, insanity is a very hard thing to hit for bad guys. You either get lame attempts like Heath Ledger's Joker, deal with it he was a terrible Joker and only got vaulted into super stardom because he died, or you get jokes like when Gollum had his heart to heart.
Plot Predictability
All in all the movie isn't terrible. It's perhaps pretty tight, except that it suffers from the fact that because Marvel has announced which sequels are coming out you know whose not dying. Oh no they killed someone within five minutes of the movie and over the top foreshadowed that someone's going to die, but it's not that person!, that it's sort of laughable.
RDJ and Evans are coming back for respective movies, Thor's going to have a new movie. The only characters not mentioned in having direct movies are Widow, Hawkeye and Hulk. And thank god we're not getting another hulk movie. It's the friggin' Hulk. He's a boring character with little to no character growth nine times out of ten. Let him sit on the back of the bus like he did in this movie and lets give more time to… I don't… the guy who was playing Galaga. In my heart I'm calling that guy Eric O'Grady for he shall always be an irredeemable ant-man to me.
So why should we care that Ultron's going to destroy everything we've built in the previous movies? Good question, I can't answer that because I know even before going to the movie that Ultron is going to be defeated. I don't have to give you spoilers. If you're paying attention to the marvel release schedule you already know Ultron is a stop gap. The best you can hope for is that he's a good villain.
Style Over Substance?
And AoU doesn't really let most people down on that. His styling is cool, his voice is awesome but for me he's not as menacing as he could be. He's like Cobra Commander. You know he's trying, but you're just not expecting much out of him. I mean he is a world class buffoon, Destro told me so and how do you argue with a man whose face is metal?
Without giving any spoilers away the Age of Ultron is a good popcorn movie, and for the casual marvel fan it's good. But for the fangirl in me it's not quite there yet. Now don't get me wrong. I loved Loki in the first Avengers. But Loki has always been a character about mischief and I expect a certain amount of levity. Whedon's terrible on the whole for story development, but credit where credit is due, man is great at snappy one liners. I could be wrong, it's been known to happen. But I keep expecting the Marvel Cinematic Universe to unravel.
The Comic Book Movie Challenge
Comic books can make great movies but they have to be done just right. And I suspect we're about to watch DC try this and flop because they're not approaching it as what you need to do to make these series work. Same with Sony and spider-man. When you've got a comic book you have to walk that fine balancing line of movie and comic book story.
For instance everyone was clamoring for Venom in the 3rd spider-man movie. Less is more. Dropout Sandman, tease the black Venom suit. Make James Franco, so good, into the movie villain. Have him use the power of media, his money and his supervillain go get'em attitude to really put the screws to Petey. Pete kills Harry in his new emo suit and then in the 4th movie… and only then when this new black suited spider-man has gone too far do you reveal that Pete's no longer in control. You make the entire fourth movie about Venom.
Final Verdict
Now back to AoU. It's a good movie, you should see it. But it's only a good movie. It's not great its story doesn't really do anything but move from point A to point B. Heck there's a number of fights I couldn't watch because it was just left right left right drop the mike, of course that could have been because I had some idiot teens trying and failing to MST3k the movie, and it's off to the next scene.
On the whole I don't believe you'll be disappointed. As for me, I'll probably see it again if my friends ask to go see it again but I won't go out of my way to rewatch it. So at best it's a solid 3. At worst it's a 2.5 out of five.
Incorrigibly yours,
J.E. Flint