Directed by: Joss Whedon
Release date: May 1st, 2015
Rating: 6/10
Avengers: Age of Ultron is the second Avengers film and also the second directed by Joss Whedon. I think the film is solid but lacks writing talent. By that I don’t mean the plot, the plot is fine. Where I think the movie is weakest is in its screenwriting. Some of the dialogue is iffy and character motivations aren’t always clear. It’s a perfectly fine sequel to The Avengers, however I don’t think it’s better.
I think that they tried to make the film bigger and better by giving us the antagonist, Ultron. Who, in the comics, is one of the greatest villains that the Avengers ever faced. In fact, I believe he killed quite a few of them. The mistake was thinking that they could do such a great character justice in a 2 hour movie. Something like that needs time to set up, time to thrive, and time to be taken down. Loki was a great bad guy in The Avengers because we had seen him before in Thor and we understood his motivation from that movie. He is given time to become intimidating while at the same time we see that he is also scared of what Thanos will do to him if he fails. He’s a character with multiple layers that we are given time to understand. Ultron, however, gives us his motivation within the first minute he is “born”, and it’s simply, “end the Avengers”. There’s no emotional reason for him to want that. Now you can argue that he wants them gone because of the destruction, however accidental it may be, that they have caused. Personally I think it’s a cop out. With as advanced a robot as Ultron is, he could definitely have been given an emotional reason for wanting to kill the Avengers. While James Spader does a great job making him seem menacing, some of his dialogue makes him come off as wisecracking. Which I wouldn’t mind if it was used sparingly but it seems that every scene he was in he made at least a few jokes. If it were up to me, I would’ve completely rewritten Ultron as a character.
Avengers: Age of Ultron is a passable sequel to The Avengers and is fine enough that I don’t hate it. However, I have big problems with the villain and some of the side plots the film chooses to include. There’s a lot of missed potential in what could’ve been a film even better than The Avengers.