NEWS
EVENTS
Avengers: Age Of Ultron review
Other | Monday 11th May 2015 | Christina
Loki’s out of the picture, but there’s still avenging to be done, so Marvel’s top team are back in action. This time round, the superheroes have to fend off new enemies Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch aka twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff who are enhanced with super speed and mind control (“he’s fast and she’s weird”).
Scarlet Witch messes with Tony Stark’s mind, showing him a not-so-good vision of the future, which leads him to experiment with a peacekeeping artificial intelligence programme. It goes awry to say the least, and spawns new villain Ultron, who, voiced by James Spader, manages to be intense, creepy and sarcastically funny all at the same time.
Age Of Ultron is heavy on the action sequences, coming out all guns (and hammers, shields and Hulk) blazing. The Avengers fight the twins, they fight each other, they fight Ulton, they have to deal with another city under threat – it all kicks off basically. Obviously, the visual effects are spectacular, but it’s the lighter moments, like the one-liners in the midst of these huge fights, that Joss Whedon is especially good at. He’s not afraid of going for comedy – there’s a great scene in which the other Avengers attempt to pick up Thor’s hammer – which allows the relationships between the characters to shine.
With Whedon squeezing in a bunch of new characters and plot points, the film did feel slightly overstuffed. The Hawkeye subplot could have been discarded, and although Black Widow’s flashback sequences gave some interesting insights into her character, they felt a little random. Perhaps these threads will be pulled out more in further Marvel movies.
Age Of Ultron is a supersized movie in every sense – new characters, mammoth action, cameos and science-y bits - so you will need to concentrate a bit, especially if you’re not totally clued-up on all aspects of the Marvel Universe, but you certainly get a lot of bang for your buck.
