Like its predecessor, Age of Ultron excels in its humor and character dynamics. Joss Whedon did more than just do a good job directing this film, but he also helped in writing it, and he really makes these characters enjoyable to watch. Where I think this sequel benefits over the original is that the main cast of characters now knows each other, has a bit of history, and can now bring out more from each other than when they first collided and formed a kinda-sorta team. Apparently, they remembered their encounter in 2012 and decided that regularly getting together would be a good idea for certain missions. I'm glad that the team chemistry is there, and that now we're beginning to touch on deeper aspects of their personality. Even Stark is affected and partially defined now by his relationship with his team members, and it's interesting to see that development.
Those are mere matters of preference, of course. There's something charming about origin stories, and most of my favorite Superhero films are the first ones, because the those character arcs stand out so well on their own. However, The Avengers didn't quite have that quality, where there was an "A ha!" moment where they identified themselves as a team. As far as the narrative of that film was concerned, Loki created a problem and the world's biggest personalities independently showed up to beat him. They cooperated with each other, made a join effort out of necessity, but save for a post-credits scene where they got together to eat Shawarma, there was nothing to suggest that they discovered a new identity.
Somewhere in-between the first film and this one, they decided that this was who they were, and while I feel robbed of that sense of discovery, at least it's reached the point where the characters can now be themselves, and their interactions no longer feel like plot tools. This time, there's room to see them develop and change, and it's very engaging.
One of the greatest pleasures in all of this character development was the proliferation of Barton, Banner, and Romanoff. These characters don't get their own solo films, so Marvel made a smart move by giving these characters some extra screen time. Stark, Rogers, and Thor have some minor developments, too, but those are mainly preparations for the upcoming movies Civil War and Ragnarok. Banner, though, really held the screen, and I feel like between him and the two normal humans of the cast, they could most likely be described as the main characters in this particular round.
In that way, this film is a great improvement over the first.
However, that isn't to say that it's a better film. After Guardians of the Galaxy came out and I had seen the lineup of films leading up to this one, I knew that Age of Ultron wouldn't be as successful as the first one. Many talking heads on the internet, including those folks over at AMC Movie Talk, pointed to Marvel's box office history, where each sequel always earns more then the movie before it, but I didn't see it working this time. Save for The Winter Soldier, none of the films in Phase 2 really build up to Age of Ultron, or at least nowhere near as strongly as the first five movies in this expanded universe did with The Avengers. Marvel knew that they could rely on this film to sell itself, which actually isn't all that bad, and it probably benefited the standalone films a bit. However, Age of Ultron had other weaknesses going against it. What brought the first film together was the uncertainty and the curiosity, since no one was sure if such a large crossover movie would work. Now that the precedent's been set, a sequel such as this doesn't have the benefit of being a benchmark.
Yet most importantly, people didn't know who Ultron was. Story-wise, that was okay, I figured, because I had enough faith that Marvel could make a robot interesting and multi-layered as Loki was in just one film. Marketing-wise, it just didn't give people as much of a reason to be excited over this one.
Interestingly, Ultron is the biggest problem that the movie has, and he's the main reason why I didn't quite enjoy it as much as I thought I was. The first trailers hinted that this film would be "darker" than the first, a term which I use nominally. Subsequent trailers began, more and more, to clarify any misconceptions, that indeed, Age of Ultron would have all of the same humor that made the original work. Then the movie came out, and I saw it on the opening weekend. The movie is tonally almost the exact same as the first, with its only dark moments in the second act when the Avengers get some bad publicity, but it was never that dark because not one of them truly had any broken spirits. All of them still had as much energy as they needed and more in order to save the day, and I don't think that any of them, save for Banner, doubted themselves in this film. Not only is the tone the same, but I feel that Age of Ultron has almost the exact same formula as the first film, which actually creates another side issue.
Therefore, Age of Ultron never really gets dark enough to suggest that Ultron is a genuine menace. He isn't. I called up my sister after seeing it, who had no interest in seeing a conflict about a robot, and told her the good points of the film may or may not be balanced out by its greatest failure: Ultron was a wuss. He never intimidated me, especially when Steve Rogers held his own against him in a high-octane chase sequence. If Captain America can take on this robot, then every moment that Ultron went up against the whole assembled Avengers team underwhelmed me. Not once did I think that any of the characters were in danger, even Hawkeye and Black Widow. They were all so impossibly competent that they could simply get out of any situation, just by looking competent. If they weren't competent enough, than that wasn't a problem; Ultron would simply become less competent in order to accommodate. Save for Ultron's ability to disappear through the internet, there was no conflict, and even that only required the inevitable plot twist that either Stark or Vision would prove to be a superior hacker who could hack him out of the web.
Ultron's plans also made no sense, much like Loki's. Just like Loki, he wishes make the world's mightiest heroes angry at him, and ultimately thinks that he can defeat the with an army of redshirts, to which the only appropriate response is: "Bad plan." There was much that he could do if he was less conspicuous, but throughout the film I actually felt more intimidated for him because the Avengers were on his tail the whole time. I kept on wondering how he was possibly going to get anything done! The movie has a ton of minor little flaws that its tone perfectly covers, so this is the only one that really stands out to me, but unfortunately it's a big one. This is a flaw that's so big that it stands out just as much as the movie's humor. The I summarize my impression of this film, this is one of the two main things that I have to say. This is a major flaw.
Ultron's supposed to be a supergenius, but he's outwitted by these mere humans. His evil plan, while unpredictable and an interesting plot twist, can be thwarted too easily (I will actually forgive it for making no sense, though, since there's enough meta-humor that pokes fun and literally says "None of this makes any sense!"). Where are his contingencies? The way he talks in this film, it's as if he has only one plan, that there was only one way to cause mass destruction like the kind he was going after. Where's his imagination? Furthermore, I was expecting him to envision something more secure, something more long-term, and that for a while he would terrorize the entire globe. The title, after all, promises an age of Ultron. I thought he would harass the Avengures and suppress their every attempt to foil him for a while, but he was no such mastermind.
At least he was funny, and the concept behind his creation gone wrong actually made enough sense.
Still, the film has other flaws that one could classify as minor, or they could be major. Most people won't be bothered by such things as how this film really doesn't stand as well on its own as the first, or the occasional ball the editors drop in order to find the right pacing, or the lack of genuine depth or development in the robotic characters. These will really bother some people, but people underestimate how difficult it is to make a film, let alone one of this magnitude. Imperfections come with the territory, and Joss Whedon's talent is still evident. It is, however, perfectly fine to take issue with these flaws, and I don't hold it against anyone. This is one of those rare films where I think that, really, almost any opinion on the negative/positive scale is pretty understandable.
Most people will enjoy it, especially since it consists of many, many popcorn moments that are simply fun and memorable. Some will exactly what they want, so much so that they will even claim that it's the best comic book movie ever. Others, who are looking for something else, particularly if they're looking for an intimidating villain, won't get what they're looking for. Others, even though the film pokes fun of itself for its plot holes, simply won't forgive it for its problems, and others will hate it for certain creative decisions because, let's face it, some of us do tend to get invested in these stories. If anyone feels particularly philosophical about films, Age of Ultron doesn't buy itself a free pass from being analyzed and, potentially, subject to the rants of these thinkers. This movie has a very broad a appeal, but it isn't universal. At the very least, it's the summer blockbuster that many of us asked for, so it's what we got.
Where do I see Age of Ultron ending up in the grand scheme of things? People will probably remember it affectionately until Infinity War comes out and we're given a real conflict to hold our breathes for, and hopefully becomes another benchmark like The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. I watched it twice, which is how many times I watched the first one, so a decade down the road I think that people are going to view it as the sequel that was about as good as the iconic first one, and it will be a valid conversation starter at parties: Which did you like better?
Go ahead and answer that one for yourself.
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