Avengers: Age of Ultron

UK Release Date: 23 April 2015
Certification: 12A
Director: Joss Whedon
Cast: Paul Bettany, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Robert Downey Jr, Elizabeth Olsen, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, James Spader
Rating: 69%

"Is that the best you can do?"

Review:
At the time of release I believed Avengers: Age of Ultron was another Iron Man 2. What I mean by this, is that the sequels are more convoluted than the originals (Avengers Assemble and Iron Man respectively). The sequels give you more of what you loved about the original movies but both have way too many subplots. Iron Man 2 attempts to set up Avengers Assemble and Avengers: Age of Ultron attempts to set up Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War.

However, in my opinion, the biggest disappointment of Avengers: Age of Ultron, is Ultron himself. After seeing the trailers for this movie I thought Ultron would be deadly serious, a formidable adversary for The Avengers and would potentially rival Loki as the best villain in the MCU. But no, after expecting him to be serious, he was funny, lightweight and in truth wasn't that interesting. Some of the jokes were ok, but the Ultron in the trailers looked far better than the Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron.  

The additions of Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron definitely is one of the plus points. Scarlet Witch isn't as good as she is in other MCU appearances - during the course of the movie Elizabeth Olsen grows into the role. She had a weird accent that she doesn't have in any other movies, wasn't as powerful and quite frankly wasn't very likeable.

[Spoiler] In Avengers: Age of Ultron, I felt Joss Whedon was under pressure  to kill off a character to establish Ultron's credentials. The character of Quicksilver is obviously better in the X-Men Universe ["You didn't see that coming?] but I thought Aaron Taylor-Johnson played the character well. There was no need to kill him off - Quicksilver could have easily pushed Hawkeye out of the way instead of taking the bullets. 

This is without doubt Vision's best appearance in the MCU. He provides one of the funniest moments in the movie in the scene when all of The Avengers are doubting his character. Vision picks up Mjölnir, which of course means he must be worthy. 

The addition of these new heroes makes me excited about the Disney Plus TV Series, WandaVision, even if it does have a stupid title.  

The reason that all of The Avengers movies work is the chemistry between the team. The main characters are basically a family - so they bicker, they argue, they laugh, but most importantly they work together. Even if the stakes are high, The Avengers motivate each other and laugh with each other. 

Avengers: Age of Ultron has the best joke in the entire MCU. After Tony Stark swears, Steve Rogers chastises him and "Language" becomes a running joke in the movie, referenced by other characters such as Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, Maria Hill and Nick Fury. 

We also get a post-credit scene of Thanos picking up the Infinity Gauntlet that I'm not sure makes sense after Eitri's appearance in Avengers: Infinity War. But it was fun and made me excited about what was still to come. 

Overall, I think this movie suffers from trying to set up other movies, a disappointing villain and a stronger predecessor in The Avengers. But Avengers: Age of Ultron still had a lot of elements that I liked.