LogFAQs > #970265168

Avengers: Age of Ultron
Release Date: May 1, 2015
Stand-Out Character: Hawkeye aka Clint Barton (played by Jeremy Renner)
Best Scene: Avengers vs. Ultron & Bots on Floating Sokovia

You know how a movie isn't really good? When I struggle to think of who the stand-out character is because everyone is just middling to bad in this movie.

Despite any complaints I had about the length before I watched this, I went into this movie telling myself I think I'll end up liking this a lot more. Even in movies like Thor: Dark World that I knew had a bad rep and ended up liking more on a revisit, I thought Age of Ultron would be solid on a re-watch. I was wrong.

I normally start with the good, but I seriously struggle to say what I thought was good in this movie. This movie is a slog that starts the moment that Ultron leaves the Avengers Tower and only picks back up when we get to the floating Sokovia stuff at the climax of the film. Everything in between is just rough.

The biggest credit I can give is that the action works... in few of the action scenes. It works in the chase for the Vision body while Cap fights Ultron and everything from floating Sokovia. Everything else just flat out sucks, is confusing to follow, or has some rough looking CGI. Everything on floating Sokovia is some of the best action the MCU and I actually really enjoyed it.

But I'm just going to come out and say my biggest issue with this movie is that it's not funny. There was an attempt made to make it as funny and quippy as the first movie but it's just not. Very rarely did I get any laughs from this film from Tony, Ultron's stand-up routine, or anything else. Oddly enough, the only laughs I ended up getting were from anything involving Mjolnir and the worthiness of it and Quicksilver.

So I guess we can start off with Quicksilver. Why was Quicksilver killed off? For what reason? I know Joss likes to just have a character die for whatever reason, but Quicksilver dies with literally zero stakes involved to save one child and Hawkeye. This isn't to build up Ultron as a big bad boy or anything, it's just... Quicksilver dies because they wanted to kill off someone and check a box. Which sucks because what little we get from Quicksilver's personality is great. His effects are extremely cool and feel very different than the one in the X-Men movies. But this is the only time we get it, which sucks.

Scarlet Witch is fine, but kind of a nothing character in this movie that only does mind voodoo. She has a couple other cool scenes, but I just really don't care at this point? Hilariously, I forgot she had an accent in this movie. That is GONE in the other films. Elizabeth Olsen was just not having anything with that accent after this one.

Banner and Natasha just drag this film down when they give them any focus on their frankly pathetic love plot. It doesn't work, doesn't feel natural at all, has cringe dialogue in every scene with it, and they kiss once and that's it. Why waste time on this? Also "I'm a monster too because of my barren womb." I'm not even getting into it past that.

Tony felt a little more annoying than anything in this movie, and I didn't really like any of his bickering with Cap in this one. It was just kind of grating and done a lot better in the following films. His humor is just more miss than hit in this as well.

Thor is just distracted with his own visions and bullshit that are frankly god damn irrelevant, especially with how they completely flipped gears in Ragnarok. What a weird, weird distraction all of that was. But he was a highlight with his humor. Probably the most consistently funny dude in this movie.

I liked Vision though. There's something delightful and comforting with how Paul Bettany plays him. I just enjoy his general vibe, and it's nice to see him in this movie get some good dialogues.

Maria Hill and Nick Fury are whatevers. Fury got a couple chuckles out of me with some good lines though. Rhodey is probably the only other significant role, and I really enjoyed him in this movie aside from the weird attempt at comedy at the party in the beginning. OH! And Andy Serkis is a delightful distraction with Ulysses Klaue.

And then there's Hawkeye, who I chose to have as the stand-out mostly by elimination. He gets to feel a lot more useful and insightful in this movie. He has some funny lines as well, and his feud with Quicksilver is cool. Him being a boss and just using that shock arrow on Wanda's head was a great moment too. One of the best parts of this movie was him rescuing Wanda in the final battle and giving her the pep talk about how crazy shit is and how he's not going to babysit her, but that if she steps out of this building then she's an Avenger and she has to fight. That's great, quality stuff. The scenes with his family were great too. It felt like a lot of making up for his lacking presence in the first Avengers movie, but I enjoyed him a lot in this one.

But then we need to talk about Ultron. I've always loved Ultron in the comics because he is a vicious, cold, heartless metal monster who cannot be spoken to with emotion. He's the epitome of a machine. He only understands facts, and nothing else. And then you get... this one. He's an emotional, simpering, robot comedian trying to do stand up. And yes, you can explain to me how "Well, he was made as a vision of Tony so of course he has goofy comedy" and I say that fucking sucks who cares don't do that. In a movie where everyone is trying to quip each other to death, Ultron being a no nonsense monster works much better. I don't need him whining about how Klaue is calling him a puppet. I don't need him talking about how he's alone and trying to keep the Maximoffs from running away. I don't need him going "Aw, come on man!" or singing Pinocchio songs. Just give me the cold, heartless creation who wants to end humanity because it's imperfect. We get there, kind of. But it takes us a long time and you still need to sit through bad comedy for it too. It's just a complete waste of a character who is far more fascinating in how calculating of a machine he is.

And that's kind of where this whole thing falls apart, is that Ultron isn't a compelling villain and they take entirely too long to get to his damn meteor plan. Just frustrating to spend all of this wasted time to get to something legitimately good. And everything in between feels like a mess and nothing feels cohesive.

I don't know that I was bored during it, but I was keenly aware of a lot of things I was watching that just weren't good, and that very well might be worse. So much wasted potential, and I'm glad this was ripped from Joss Whedon's perverted fingers. I do not care for Avengers: Age of Ultron, and I think I disliked it a lot more on a revisit.