Avengers: Age Of Ultron – Spoiler-Free Thoughts/Spoiler-y Review

Just a heads-up. This is a two-part review. Part A, my feelings on the film, spoiler free. Part B, my feelings complete with spoilers.

It’s been a busy year so far for us geeks….you may have noticed the lack of updates here, heh. We’ve got Arrow, Flash, Gotham, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. taking up our tv weeks (not to mention, for your’s truly at least, adding on Supernatural, Once Upon A Time, Daredevil, Community, and finally getting caught up on Star Wars: Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and Attack on Titan….I’ve been a busy boy).

The last post I made here was my increasing excitement for the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, getting all pumped (as one does) for the release.
Well, it’s here and….it’s just sort of….here.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not, for a second, saying I didn’t enjoy it, it was full of some of the most awesome scenes I’ve yet seen from the MCU. But that’s kind of the problem, that’s all that it was. Popcorn and fluff….I mean, the best tasting popcorn ever and the fluff that will blow you away, but…nonetheless.

I’ll use a food analogy. The first Avengers (and GotG for what it’s worth) were like having an amazing dinner cooked by a master chef. They portion it perfectly, season it just right, and present it to you beautifully. It may seem like a small amount of food, but it’s just so….perfect. You leave feeling like you’ve experienced something amazing.
Age of Ultron is like your favorite buffet. You go in, you know the food is good, you know there’s going to be all this different stuff that you like, and you just grab a bit of everything.
The difference is, you’ll go on telling people about the amazing chef-prepared dinner you had, but you don’t really care too much about the buffet. Sure you enjoyed it, but it is what it is.

This could have, SHOULD have been a well prepared, well delivered experience, but for all it’s hype and shine, it just sort of fell flat. When I walked out, one of the first things I said was, “Man, that was fun, but it was no Guardians.”

Maybe if it had more dancing…I bet Ultron would kill it with “The Robot”…..yeah….I went there.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!! TURN AWAY NOW!!!

Hah! Gotcha! No Loki for you!

Okay, so if you’re still here, either you just don’t care about spoilers or you already saw the movie and want to know if other people felt the same.

First off, WHAT THE HELL WAS WITH “SNARKTRON”? Brotron

I mean, I get it, Ultron was supposed to be the “child” of Tony. But, it just seemed more bratty than menacing. Reading the comics, I’ve always felt that Ultron is this thing that is to be FEARED. Cold, ruthless, daunting….Like the one in the comics who was so strong that the heroes had to time travel backwards to try and stop him from being created at all. Not once did I feel any sense of dread or real loathing. I mean, this is one of the Avenger’s greatest foes and here it is feeling like a filler-arc-villain! I was expecting James Spader’s voicework to be all dripping with sinister intent and it was more like he was channeling one of his 80’s movie douche characters. I felt like Ultron was a the Jock/Prep with blonde hair and a sweater tied around his neck making big plans to destroy the nerd group….oh man, as I’m typing this I realize what this movie is. It was Avenge of the Nerds. <insert ba-dum-tiss>
Bottom line, they over-humanized Ultron.

Baron Von Strucker has been in the background for a long time now. Since the Winter Soldier post-credits stinger. Multiple builds for him in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as well. He was nothing in this. His character could have been any Hydra toadie. There was zero menace to him. I know he’s a c-list villain in the Marvel U at best, but in this? Eh….I suppose they just used him for the name factor?

And linking to Von Strucker….the “Twins”

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were pretty great. Buuuuut…..throwaways. Barely fleshed out.

The only reason I got really excited about Vision was because it was VISION. Alas, for the record, he didn’t cry. Again, another character vastly under-used.

Then there’s the Black Widow/Hulk romance….I felt a bigger spark between Bruce and Tony.

So pretty.

On the plus side. Hawkeye got to shine in this movie. He WAS the Hawkguy that we know and love.

As a whole, this was another Iron Man 3. I can’t believe it was meant to be it’s own movie as much as a staging ground for what’s to come. In the big picture of the MCU, Avengers: Age of Ultron was really just a filler episode. They may have intended it to be better, but I think once they really opened their eyes to the big game, with the massive success of Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Pictures decided that they needed this to be something else. They needed a stepping stone so that the actors that have entertained us for so long can go on to do other things, as well as a set-piece for what’s to come.

I still would have paid more for a post-credits sequence of Spider-Man knocking on the window of Avengers Tower saying, “Hey uhhh….you guys hiring?”. I might have walked out having to change my underwear.