Too often, you will hear the term ‘popcorn movie’ thrown around in a negative context. Sometimes you will hear ‘blockbuster’ uttered as if it’s poison, as if the mere idea of a big budget movie with lots of explosions is harmful to the masses when they could be watching some independent film about people with severe emotional problems instead.
Well, the truth is, blockbuster movies can be a lot of fun — and that’s what Avengers: Age of Ultron is. There’s a good chance you could forget what happened in the movie the day after you watch it, but you will be entertained by this fun ride for the over two hour runtime.
The film jumps right into the action with the Avengers fighting some HYDRA base located in Sokovia — the obligatory fake Eastern European nation. Things are going pretty well for the Avengers — nameless henchmen just don’t stand a chance — until two new superpowered bad guys show up: Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).
Quicksilver can run really fast, but it’s Scarlet Witch who is more of an inconvenience as she has telekinesis and hypnosis abilities, and the power to cause people to hallucinate their worst fears. (Did I mention they both have hilarious Eastern European accents that slip in and out throughout the movie and sound like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula voice?)
Naturally, the Avengers get their prize — Loki’s scepter from the first Avengers — but not before Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is blasted with seeing his fear of not doing enough to save the world, and sets out to build a robot, Ultron, to protect it. Unfortunately, Ultron (James Spader) turns out evil and that’s the plot, more or less.
To be fair, while I called this a ‘popcorn movie,’ Avengers: Age of Ultron has remarkably good characters and the relationships between them are certainly more interesting than in the average blockbuster. A good portion of that is probably due to director Joss Whedon (for those of you who aren’t already huge fans) cutting his teeth making TV shows with a foundation of strong characterization, and, of course, witty dialogue.
That wit is certainly in effect here. It does feel a bit more restrained in this than the first Avengers, though I think this works in the film’s favour. The wit certainly hasn’t disappeared, but it isn’t overdone this time around either.
The characterization work because of the actors. There are no weak performances in the film (even Olsen’s and Taylor-Johnson’s laughable accents didn’t really hinder their performances). Mark Ruffalo was probably the best of the bunch, with James Spader’s performance as Ultron as another highlight.
If there was one overt problem, it’s that the ‘wow’ factor from the first Avengers is gone — it’s no longer surprising to see all of these characters at once. But I guess that’s what happens when there’s a new comic book movie coming out every couple of months.
Overall, it’s not the best Marvel film, but it’s an entertaining movie, and that’s all that really matters.
