Director: Joss Whedon
Written by: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner
Avengers: Age of Ultron is the ultimate comic book movie. It's not the best -- far from it. But it is the ultimate, the quintessential comic book movie. Concerned not only with its own story, but with the stories of several other movies -- past, present, and future -- Ultron brings to the big screen the serialized nature and looping character arcs of comic books. In no way is it a self-contained narrative; instead it's the prism through which the Marvel Cinematic Universe is reflected. It's not really a story; it's connective tissue. And yet, despite this reality, despite the fact that Ultron is over-stuffed and bound by the narrative logic of the larger Marvel cinematic project, the movie is enjoyable. It's inferior to director Joss Whedon's first attempt at the Avengers series, but it's still an efficient and capable entertainment.
Age of Ultron starts kinetically with an Avengers raid on a Hydra base in the eastern European country of Sokovia. The Avengers, led by Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) manage to pummel the bad guys and retrieve Loki's scepter. Back at base, Stark and fellow genius Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) decide to use the artificial intelligence inside the scepter to power "Ultron," Stark's global defense program. Unfortunately for the Avengers, Ultron achieves sentience and decides that the only real way to protect Earth is to eliminate its human population.
Age of Ultron is an entertaining movie, but it would benefit from an extra 30 minutes, or, perhaps, half as many characters. Writer/director Joss Whedon has a penchant for writing groups, but even he, skilled as he is, cannot devote enough time to develop each primary and secondary character. Ultron, voiced mellifluously by James Spader, is unfortunately underdeveloped. Newcomers Pietro and Wanda Maximoff are egregiously underdeveloped. Others are more lucky. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), who spent most of The Avengers possessed, gets his fifteen minutes of fame in Age of Ultron. Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and Banner also get a healthy amount of screen time; it's their story arc, along with Hawkeye's, that help provide a human touch to a movie that's concerned mostly with elaborate fight scenes.
Speaking of the fight scenes: they're interesting enough, although not as visually inventive or daring as those in recent Marvel movies. There's nothing in Age of Ultron that compares with the Heat-esque street shoot-outs from The Winter Soldier or the brawl through dimensional portals in Thor: The Dark World. Still, Ultron's set pieces are serviceable, and Whedon manages to elevate them with a few shots of humor and his trademark group shots. A panoramic slow-motion shot of the heroes fighting in tandem during the movie's climactic battle is especially thrilling.
The movie is at its best, unsurprisingly given Whedon's credentials, when the superheroes are "off the clock." The finest scene in Age of Ultron isn't a knock-down fight between The Hulk and Iron Man, or a clash of superheroes and supervillains. It's a party at Stark's high rise, where the movie (and the audience) can take a breath and learn about its characters. The pacing, sense of humor, and composition on display in this short, intimate scene outpaces everything else in the movie.
It begs the question: what would Ultron be like if Whedon wasn't attached as writer and director? The movie is successful in spite of itself, thanks to Whedon's mastery of the subject matter and his understanding that human emotion is far more compelling than exploding robots. It's just a shame that Ultron had so little room to maneuver. With a dozen heroes, plenty of bad guys, and a platoon of supporting friends, family, and well-wishers -- each with his or her own back story and movie tie-in -- it's nearly impossible to push into new cinematic territory. Age of Ultron is lesser than The Avengers in large part because of The Avengers, and, for that matter, every other Marvel movie that came before it and will come along after it. As the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand, its individual projects will continue to shrink.
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