Age of Ultron: the Spoileriffic Review

This review is gonna be totally spoilery, just a heads-up. Spoilers waaaaaay under the cut:

Because I don't wanna give anything away in case someone inadvertently glances down, have some pictures of dogs:

 

Is everyone gone? Good, let's get on with it:

HAWKEYE HAS A MOTHERFUCKING FARM! ^-^

Now that's out of my system: Age of Ultron is actually a very good movie, and a lot of that is down to the characters. I said before that it has an all-star roster and that's true. But I have to mention now, that roster is there to pass the torch from old to new. AoU is the bridge between the original MCU Avengers and the new team, the ones we've been introduced to over the past several films. Falcon, Warmachine, and now Vision and Scarlet Witch; we've got a new roster of Avengers who are taking over the franchise. Cap and Widow are still there, which is nice to see: it brings a little more balance to the gender split and leaves Widow feeling less like the token female of the group. So, a list of the definite outs:

• First, probably Stark. Sounds like he's retired for good now, this mission has finally done him in. No more Iron Man, folks, although we'll probably see him in a civilian role for Civil War;
• Second, Barton. He has an actual family, I'm so stoked about this. His character gets so much depth in AoU it's unbelievable, this is Whedon's apology to the Hawkeye fans for Avengers Assemble, and as a final farewell to the overachieving archer it's a great send-off;
• Third, I reckon Thor's gone back to Asgard for good. For a start, he's probably gonna have to deal with Loki on the throne, and he's made mention that he has no idea where Jane Foster is; perhaps he'll be finding her again in Ragnarok before things really kick off? This was a real parting-of-the-ways at the end of this movie;
• Fourth, and it kinda breaks my heart to say this, but I don't think Taylor-Johnson's Quicksilver is making a comeback. Yeah, people died in AoU, well I say people. Quicksilver bought it at least, a few others nearly did, but I'm gonna talk about that later;
• Fifth, Hulk. I think we've seen the last of him for a while, although I do hope we get to see more of Ruffalo's Banner before too long, hopefully with something big like Planet Hulk or, if they see their way to clearing contracts and getting names, a huge franchise event like Fear Itself, which would even bring Red Skull back into the fold. Of course, come the time for the Infinity Stones to be brought back into play in a big way, I imagine we'll see the return of the Big Guy with that event.

Actually, there's a lot of "probably" for these definite outs. Whatever, it's close enough. Okay, so the awesome spoilery things:

First off, I really liked the relationship evolving between Bruce and Natasha. Yes, I have problems with it, it's a really awful way to try and justify that "lullaby" thing she does to get Hulk to turn back into Banner and there's really no point for it to be just her who can do that (it would've been really awesome to see Tony bring his science bro back from the land of big and green). But it's kinda cute, Bruce is a total dork and seeing them flirting during the party scene is funny and adorable. And besides, Hulk's had two terrible movies so I think Banner gets to be happy this time, although it does feel like it was used in part so Natasha could play damsel in distress for a bit just to have Banner rescue her. It's kinda swings and roundabouts.

Second, the twins. Pietro and Wanda Maximoff were fun characters, but more importantly, the way they interact with the other characters and especially Clint. They're basically kids - "just punks" as Clint says at one point - and they're only with Ultron because they believe he'll help them kill Stark. Wanda's a good character to have there just to get into the characters a bit more, but I still didn't like that they included another mind-control storyline right after the first Avengers. That to me feels like lazy writing, but props to them for actually fitting it in pretty well with the original, and for giving Clint some witty stuff to say about it.

Actually, I've gotta talk about Clint for a bit. So, he's got a farm; he's also got a family, a wife and two children and a third on the way. They really give him his own story in this one which I think is fantastic, he's a lot different from the Hawkeye of the comics and it really works; we don't really have that grizzled old soldier character anywhere else in the franchise, he feels very military and like a solid part of the team in this one too. And it's great to just give him some depth, rather than the bit-parts he's had in just about every other movie he's been in. And he has a really important role towards the end: when everything's going wrong, he acts as a parent to the twins and it works really well. When Wanda starts panicking he talks her down, he makes her feel like part of the team. The "old soldier" Clint isn't something we've really seen before, and it works really well here. He's fatherly, he's snarky, and he's tough as nails, it's just really good to see a softer side of him. Well, it's nice to see a side to him for once.

And Vision was kinda cool, he has some awesome powers and he's ridiculously strong. I like the way everything interacted around his creation, it's like everybody had a hand in his creation. And the fact that he can lift Thor's hammer was hilarious, especially after the party scene where everyone else fails; Thor looks totally lost when he hands him the hammer, and it's hilarious to watch, the theatre burst out laughing at that. And he's so polite! It's so weird, Vision basically occupies the role Whedon wanted Cap to fill, so hopefully we'll see a more rule-breaker characterisation for Steve in later films.

Now for the bad. There isn't really much to say, except I found Ultron to be a bit too chatty and fun to be a great villain. He didn't feel like such a threat. Maybe that's just me, maybe I've just grown used to Marvel threatening the heroes but never actually offing them, so Ultron never really felt that bad. Except when he killed Jarvis. That was just a dick move, Ultron. I did like that he became more and more unhinged as the movie went on; it felt like he was losing control, he became more and more destructive and reckless, and it worked really well, but as a villain he was a bit ineffectual. I mean, Cap nearly died in Winter Soldier, and Stark almost lost everything in Iron Man 3. Thor, not so much, but he's dealing with a lot in this one. They've all suffered worse than Ultron.

Except Quicksilver. Okay, kudos to Whedon and crew, you did good with that scene. Tears were welling up in my eyes when he died, the look on his face and Clint's, his finally getting approval from the old man of the group, that was a good scene. It was a shock. But it was a bit of a cop-out. I know you're not gonna kill Iron Man, RDJ is too popular for that. But it would've been great seeing one of the originals taking one for the team here. Really give us the impact, have everyone in uproar. Yes, I know they've got movies coming out after this, but Thor's been killed before in the comics and he's come back just fine. They all have. After you nearly killed Star in the prequel you'd best believe this was a poor effort. I never felt like any of them were gonna die.

That's about it really, aside from some clunky exposition in the beginning and the fact that the only tension between the original Avengers that could be drummed up, again, was Tony arguing with Steve (and the doe eyes they were giving each other at the end pretty much cancelled that out). Look, this movie was passing the torch, and for that it was an awesome movie. It's one of Marvel's best, it's so huge and it goes deeper than Avengers did. It's great. But now I'm looking forward to seeing Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Warmachine, and Vision join Cap and Nat for an even more kickass team. We've already seen what Anthony Mackie can do, he's got great chemistry with Johansson and Evans, so we've got three of them with a great track record from literally just one movie, and it'll be great to see Warmachine being an actual Avenger and not just being a damsel in distress for Tony to save. This is a much better Avengers thanks to their introductions than the original team, and I can't wait to see them in action.