Synopsis: When the artificial intelligence known as Ultron threatens to destroy the planet, the Avengers must work together and team up with new characters to save the world.
Initial Response- In my opinion, it’s not as good as the first and is much more predictable. However, it was still great and fulfills the Marvel Cinematic Universe standard, but not much beyond that.
Pros- It’s a Marvel Cinematic movie, which pretty much guarantees the action scenes, character angst, and witty one-liners we’ve all come to know and love. It’s entertaining and fun for the whole family if you have older kids, and is definitely worth the ticket.
Cons- Because Marvel’s been making Avengers type movie for a while now, it’s starting to get a bit stale. It felt a bit like they were just rehashing some things from the last movie. I’ll go into more detail on that in the spoilers section later.
P.S. To save you some time, I’ll tell you there is a mid-credits scene, but unlike the last movie there is no end credits scene. So you don’t have to worry about waiting through the whole credits to see a scene. There isn’t one.
Thus ends the spoiler-free part of the review. Spoilers ahead!
Graphic/Sexual Content- There is some swearing, nothing too horrendous though. They have a running joke through the movie where Captain America gets on to the other Avengers (specifically Tony) about language only to curse later himself. And Tony’s first line of the whole movie is literally, “Sh*t!!!” As for sexual content, the closest thing is an almost kiss between Natasha and Bruce. (Yes, they’re a thing now apparently.)
Major Annoyances- As I mentioned earlier, it felt like they were rehashing some of the elements of the last movie for a while. They start with a battle scene, they move on to angst between the members for the filler in between battle scenes, and then there’s a big battle at the end that lasts almost an hour. Maybe I’m just being picky, but it really feels like superhero movies in general are becoming more of a bland paste they crank out full of references to sate comic fans and goofy characters to sate others.
This is more of a personal thing, but I was sad that they revealed Clint had a family. I’ve shipped Clint and Natasha since the first Avengers movie and I was kinda sad to see that ship sink. #ripclintasha But, it was nice to see that at least one of the Avengers has a family because it shows the sacrifice the character has to go through to help save the world.
My next point ties to the last one, but I do NOT like the new romance between Natasha and Bruce. They are such polar opposites. I know the phrase “opposites attract” but they are opposite each other in interests and personality that I don’t think it could really work.
I’m just going to go out and say it…all of their problems could have been solved if Magneto was there. He could have destroyed the army of Ultrons with one hand and then used the metals in the rock to lower the floating land back down safely. I mean sure, his character is more tied with the X-Men, but it’s the same universe and his kids were there fighting anyways. (In case you are unaware, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are the children of Magneto.)
Ultron didn’t really cut it for me as the antagonist. He just fell flat and wasn’t as interesting as say, Loki. I mean come on, Ultron even used Loki’s scepter to mind control a doctor. Does this sound familiar? (Hint- It’s what happened in the last movie.)
Things I Did Like- Marvel had the guts to kill off a major character in their Cinematic Universe. This is pretty huge for any comic company because they are usually reluctant to completely kill off major characters. They usually resurrect them somehow, (i.e. Phil Coulson in Marvel Cinematic Universe, Jean Grey in Marvel Comics, Jason Todd in DC Comics… the list is almost endless), but it was actually surprising to me when they killed off Quicksilver. They were kinda hinting the whole movie that Clint was going to be the one to die, but Piedro saved him at the last minute at the expense of his own life. I actually liked that Marvel was bold enough to do so, but I still think it’s possible they’ll resurrect him because Marvel has a history of resurrecting characters. Or maybe they won’t because they’ll consider him a minor character and he’ll join Freya (Thor’s mom) in obscurity. Either way, I liked that part of the plot even if my reasoning is flawed.
I always like the witty one-liners. There weren’t as many good ones as the last movie, but they were still there and as entertaining as always.
Just the feel of the movie. I always like a good superhero movie, even if they are all similar in plot. Its still entertaining and worth the ticket.
Final Thoughts- Go for it. It was entertaining, and another generic Marvel movie that we all love. What I would personally like to see in the future is something new and unique, but for what we’ve got now, it was a great movie.
Rating- 8 out of 10
Stay cool and keep dreaming,
ThePhilosophicalFangirl
thephilosophicalfangirl 