The summer movie season rolled out with the first big blockbuster of the season. The much anticipated Avengers: Age of Ultron is finally out. While not the best in the series, it certainly looks like the most expensive.
The premise is this. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) has created a villain. Ultron was initially designed to protect the planet earth. Of course, because it’s artificial intelligence, it immediately becomes an evil robot bent on world domination.
When will people learn?
The avengers, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) all get together to save the day. As if there weren’t enough main characters to remember, be prepared for a couple more including Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and sister Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).
The humor that made the first few movies good is still there and fans of the comic books series will appreciate some of the tongue in cheek comments, like why Thor is the only one who can lift his hammer. There’s a few side stories going on where the writers try to inject some humanity into their characters, by showing the burgeoning love affair between the Black Widow and Hulk, as well as Hawkeye’s rural life.
Despite that, this movie is nothing you don’t expect. It’s easy, stupid fun with a ridiculously high budget. Everything unfolds as you’d expect and it’s pretty much a paint by numbers big budget action movie. They didn’t climb too far out of the box on this one.
It’s absolutely CGI heavy, with extensive battle scenes filmed from impossible angles, with people doing impossible things. While visually stunning, it feels a bit like the battle scenes were padded out for the purposes of fleshing out a simplistic script.
Everyone reprises their characters with the same enthusiasm as they had in the first few movies. That’s a feat in and of itself, as they’ve all been at this for a while. Iron Man is still charming, the Black Widow is still creepy, and everyone still wonders why Hawkeye is even there.
This is Joss Whedon’s last direction go around with this franchise, and I will say he went out on a high note. The movie is well done, fun to watch and easy to follow. It’s exactly what a big budget blockbuster should be, and Whedon has managed to keep it going for awhile now. Here’s hoping when someone else takes the helm, it will be just as good.
There’s already a new one planned, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, that is expected out in 2018. This is a franchise that has still managed to not lose its steam and will probably be around for a long time to come…as long as they keep making money.
While a bit heavy on battle scenes and CGI, it’s still a commendable effort and was the perfect start for the summer movie season. If you’re looking for fun that won’t make you think so much, this one is worth the watch. .
WE GAVE IT: 4 Stars – Watch the Official Trailer and Official Movie Poster below!
This is the type of news we like to start the week with. This is the season where Marvel fans go completely out of their minds with anticipation. I would have to say this is pretty cool for just movie fans in general.
