When the first “Avengers” film was released in theaters, I remember being almost as excited as when the final installment of the “Harry Potter” franchise was released. Seeing that many superheroes, most of which also had their own movie franchises, on one screen was practically unheard of and was a great experience.
Now that it’s been three years, seeing all the avengers in “Age of Ultron” is just not as exciting, leaving me to realize the truth: the film’s explosions hid the a subpar plot. Though the film was a very enjoyable series of well developed fighting scenes, the film’s plot was eerily similar to the first “Avengers,” except for with a new villain and a few new heroes. The film was even centered around the exact same weapon Loki used in the first “Avengers,” his scepter.
In this “Avengers” installment, the ever self-indulgent Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) creates an android named Ultron (James Spader) that seeks to evolve humanity by killing everyone, once again leaving Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man, the Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to stop him.
“Age of Ultron” begins with the avengers attempting to break into a Hydra base to steal back Loki’s scepter. No indication of how the scepter was stolen or why the avengers were called is given, making me disoriented throughout the entire opening battle.
Though some reasons for the avengers being called are given in the show “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” even though I watched the episode that promised to give the audience some hints and connection to film, I still felt as though the reasons were not clear.
Early on, we also see a possible love interest between the Hulk and Black Widow. I consider myself to be a fairly big Marvel fan (to be fair, though, I do just watch the movies), and the portrayal of that budding romance seemed to come out of nowhere. Though Ruffalo and Johansson had a surprising amount of chemistry their love story still seemed forced, although hearing about Black Widow’s backstory was the most well done scene of the film.
The catchy one-liner humor director Joss Wheadon is known for was present in almost every scene in the film. Though that humor can work as evidenced by Wheadon’s spectacular work on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” his humor in “Ultron” was overused to the point that particular scenes fell flat because of how cheesy they were.
Speaking of cheesy, while Spader was able to bring a robot to life, Paul Bettany’s portrayal of Vision left me with the feeling Vision was going to a costume party and not joining Earth’s self-proclaimed mightiest heroes.
Similarly to “Thor 2,” “Age of Ultron” seemed as though it was just a stepping stone to the next film, leaving me with wanting to see the next film with also delivering a subpar plot that couldn’t compare to the best Marvel film so far, “Captain America: Winter Solider.” At least in “Winter Soldier” underneath all the explosions a worthwhile plot remains, which unfortunately is not the case for “Age of Ultron.”