Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

[iaria]

I loved it! I did actually have a lot of issues with it but overall I thought it was fun. It made me laugh a lot and I think the humour worked better than in the first movie. It's probable that with more time to think about it and upon re-watches the problems I had with it will stick out more but I left the theatre happy.

Loved/Liked

• Ultron was wonderful. I loved him. He was a very fun villain.

• Wanda and Pietro were great. I loved their relationship. I liked Vision a lot too.

• I loved how well the Avengers worked as a team. In battle they were working as a well oiled machine, using each other's weapons to take out enemies and being tuned in to what their teammates needed. It was amazing to watch (if a little perplexing on how they got there.) It was like they'd been a team for years and knew each others strengths and weakness and how best to work with both. Plus there were just a lot of really great scenes of them interacting both as a group and in various smaller pairings.

• There were two running jokes throughout the movie that I loved:

1) Steve's "language!" admonishment and immediate regret followed by none of the others letting him live it down. I loved the teasing. It was adorable.

2) Mjolnir and being worthy. The party scene with everyone trying to lift it was as great as it seemed. I loved Vision casually handing Mjolnir to Thor and everyone's reactions. It was hilarious. I liked Vision using it in battle and then him and Thor exchanging a little chit-chat on how well balanced it is. Then at the end with that delightful Steve/Tony(/Thor) discussion about what constitutes worthy. "But if you put it in an elevator", lol.

• The Hulk/Iron Man fight was great. I loved that Tony and Bruce created a fail safe in case Hulk ever got out of control. And then named it Veronica, heh. I liked Tony trying to take the fight out of the city. I liked Tony trying to talk Hulk down. I liked Iron Man repeatedly punching Hulk in the face while repeating "go to sleep" with each punch.

• Clint and the Maximoff siblings. It was completely unexpected that he ended up having the closest connection/relationship with the two of them and I loved it.

- Clint/Wanda: I loved him taking her out with an arrow when she tried to mess with his mind. I loved his pep talk in the city and him basically recruiting her. "None of this makes sense." LOL. It was a great speech. Then she made her choice and came out of that building like a bamf, and had his back. It was great.

- Clint/Pietro. I loved how this whole thing played out. Laura Barton telling Clint to make sure that his teammates had his back + Clint's irritation with Pietro and the gag of Clint jokingly considering shooting him in the back (which -lol) leading to/= Pietro literally having Clint's back and getting shot to death saving Clint's life worked really well for me. At the same time it also made me really sad because I loved Clint and Pietro's banter before that. They were a lot of fun.

• The reveal that Clint has a family worked for me. All the Avengers are so solitary to some extent that it's a nice contrast to have one of them be a family man. I liked how solid and happy Clint's relationship with his wife was. I liked that she was both concerned for him and completely supportive of his job. I loved that Natasha is "Aunt Nat" and really close with his family.

• Tony and Bruce playing mad scientists together. Tony persuading/seducing Bruce to do it with him. Twice. It was great. [Though Bruce clearly needs to take some lessons in saying 'no' to Tony from Pepper.] Also Tony's explanation for why he wanted to create Ultron made sense to me.

• I like that so much time and effort was giving towards saving civilians.

• I loved how Vision's creation scene played out. Tony/Bruce working to bring him to life, Steve and Tony getting into it, Wanda vs Bruce, Clint shooting out the floor and taking down Pietro, Thor ending the fight by finishing saving Vision. All the sides of that made sense to me. I also love Vision's existence being a result of multiple people - Ultron, Helen, Tony, Bruce, JARVIS and Thor.

• Dr. Helen Cho was great. She was all snarky with Tony, has a crush on Thor and was willing to give her life to stop Ultron. I'm so happy that she survived especially since I'd read she was killed. It ended up being a great surprise.

• Maria didn't have a huge role but I loved everything with her. I loved that she just kind of slide into being second-in-command for the Avengers. I really loved that at all times she had her gun ready to use. She was badass.

• Tony and Thor getting into a brag off about Pepper and Jane. ♥

• There were lots of little moments I really liked. I can't even remember them all, I need to go watch it again, but some of them:

+ Sam assuring Steve that he will continuing their search (for Bucky) while Steve is busy with Avengers stuff.

+ Tony's "please be a secret door" refrain at Baron Strucker's castle and his little "yay" when there was.

+ Vision creating a cape after seeing Thor's was adorable.

+ One of the soldiers Tony just shot at Baron Strucker's base saying "No, it wasn't." after Tony says "good talk" (or something similar). It made me giggle.

+ Rhodey's pleased/satisfied expression after everyone laughed at his story. Aww.

+ Natasha using Steve's shield in battle (and her picking it up on the freeway for him.)

+ Steve being understanding about why the Maximoff's would join Baron Strucker.

+ Tony's new AI FRIDAY was neat. [But not JARVIS. I like to think that maybe Tony and JARVIS created her together.]

eta: + Pietro's reaction when one of the cops accidently shot him in the arm.

+ Natasha using old school spyccraft to signal the Avengers to where Ultron's lair was.

+ Thor attempting to cheer Bruce up the Asgardian way.

+ Rhodey's 'wtf' expression when Vision flew by him during the final battle.

+ Pietro trying to grab Mjolnir when it went flying by him and getting dragged after it made me laugh.

• New Avengers team: Captain America, Black Widow, War Machine, Vision, Scarlet Witch and Falcon. I like it.

Torn About

• JARVIS's death. D: D: It makes me so sad. I loved him. Would Tony really not have back-ups of him? I think it was necessary for the story but - sad. [I like to believe there's a hidden backup of him out there somewhere.]

• Bruce/Natasha. I found the idea really interesting but the execution meh. They had several cute moments [I liked the bar scene mostly] and I loved her interactions with Hulk. I think I ship Natasha/Hulk more than Natasha/Bruce, lol. Her kicking him into the pit in order to summon Hulk was great.

However their conversation at Clint's home was a mixed bag, leaning towards negative. The whole infertility issue and specifically how Natasha spoke about it bothered me. It was if that was the most traumatic part of the whole Red Room experience for her which is a huge ugh. Also it really came off as her saying she's a monster in part because she's infertile which wtf?

I didn't like the reoccurring discussion between Bruce and Natasha about them leaving together. Natasha seriously considering abandoning the Avengers didn't work for me at all but especially not in the middle of a fight! If it had been portrayed more as them sharing wistful thoughts about potential futures it might have worked.

- So how did Natasha get chosen as the one to 'lullaby' Hulk back into Bruce? She doesn't seem the obvious choice. Tony, who Hulk saved and who is friends with Bruce, or Steve, who Hulk took orders from and is their leader, both seem more obvious choices. Plus both could take a hit from Hulk much better than Natasha. So how did this come about? Were their growing feelings for each other why she was chosen or did their closeness happen because of her role as his... let's say 'keeper'?

• I loved seeing Peggy in Steve's vision. The mention of their missed dance was great though I wished we'd seen them actually dancing more. But his vision felt a less... solid then Tony and Natasha's, or even Thor's.

• This movie was so full that I have no idea where they would have fit it in but I felt like there was a much needed scene between Tony and the Maximoff siblings missing. He was the entire reason they volunteered for experimentation on by Hydra, he was the centre of their hatred for the Avengers and them working together to save the Earth doesn't change that. They pretty much don't interact at all so I guess that was one way to deal with but I really wanted something. There needed to be a confrontation. It feels like a dangling thread.

• So the Avengers is not so much just a team now but rather the new SHIELD? ... okay. Not sure how I feel about that. I wonder how Agents of SHIELD is going to tie into this?

Issues

• Some of the visuals during the attack on Baron Strucker's castle were really not good. The later battles seemed mostly fine but there were a lot of moments in that first fight that had me going "wow, that was some horrible CGI".

• I wish we'd seen a little more of the aftermath of the finale battle. Specifically, we watch Iron Man swerving between major falling debris and Thor sinking unconscious into the water and then cut into the future. At least take a minute to show Iron Man dodging into the water, picking up Thor and escaping. Perhaps with Steve looking relieved to see them alive. It just felt unfinished.

• I didn't like how pretty much all of Natasha's story was wrapped up in her relationship with Bruce.

• Thor's little side quest with Selvig to a mystical cave pool that gave him lightning visions was kind of random and made me go 'wait, what?' Where the hell did that even come from?

• Tony's whole "peace in our time" reasoning for Ultron. On the one hand, he's still dealing with the trauma from the first Avengers and he's afraid of the unknown dangers the wider universe brings. But on the other, Tony more than any one should realise that with humanity there will never be that sort of peace. I think this could have been approached a bit differently - less peace for Earth, more protection from everything outside Earth.

• Quicksilver's death. I liked how it played out and if someone had to die he was the best choice but I don't think someone had to die. Especially considering that this movie introduced an amazing healing technology at the beginning, that was even used on Clint, and which could have tied back in perfectly at the end. Clint could have rushed Pietro to the nearest a available regeneration pod and saved his life. We'd still get everything I loved about how it played out but without the actual death of a character I liked. I think it would have worked just as well if not better.

• The lack of any real Tony/Vison interactions made me sad. Also the lack of reaction by Tony to JARVIS's death (though there was some). They both really stuck out as wrong.

• Tony not mentioning Bruce at all at the end. Considering how close Tony and Bruce were there should have been some mention from him about Bruce disappearing. A short little scene with Natasha before he leaves reassuring her that Bruce will be okay, or something.

• Falcon not being there during the final battle along with War Machine. That makes no sense to me. Especially considering that the other three new Avengers fought in that final battle. He should have been there.

• There could have been a bit more build up at the beginning explaining how the Avengers came to be working together as a team when in Captain America 3 that didn't seem to be the case.

• The lack of Pepper. I didn't need her to have a big role, not even as big as the first Avengers, but she could still have been there. She could have showed up after the party to hang with everyone, a mention of her after the Avengers failure in South Africa, Tony talking to her before the big finale battle.