Directed by:
Joss WhedonScreenplay:
Joss WhedonCinematography:
Ben DavisCast:
Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, James Spader (more)VOD (4)
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When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and it is up to The Avengers to stop the villainous Ultron from enacting his terrible plans. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (16)
Grandiose, with clear resonance, characters filled to the brim – and yet I want more. Especially since this director's oversight was likely the last. Those who followed Joss Whedon's most complex work, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, under circumstances other than coming home from school at the age of thirteen, know that some of the narrative archetypes were already being tossed out by the king of geeks almost two decades ago. And even though this time the story about how Beauty had to save the Beast (Black Widow and Hulk) and the one about the man who has no supernatural or technologically driven abilities and yet must be enough for the local gods (Hawkeye) is limited in this way, it does not yield any worse storytelling. Just tell it faster. That's also the only downside to the peak of the entire Phase Two. It has to hint at events from all the solo films and lay the groundwork for Avengers: Infinity War, so it's no wonder that there's not enough time for everyone involved. It doesn't matter for Iron Man, Thor, or Cap, because even though we adore them, we'll soon see them in separate adventures and their roles, cut down to a flawed genius, a courageous warrior, and an honorable leader, which will be more than enough. The bigger problem is with the twins, who have a lot of potential, which Ultron – functioning as their origin – has no chance of fulfilling. So there's no point in kidding ourselves, those two and a half hours are desperately short for a bunch of plotlines and two bunches of characters. If it's true that the original Whedon's cut was over three hours, I'm not surprised at all, and secondly, I request a private screening because the world would not have seen a better comic book shop.
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So after watching this movie, I wondered if I were crazy, thinking that all these comic book adaptations are all very much the same in the last few years, so I decided to give The Guardians of the Galaxy another try after the second Avengers. And it really had it. It had what I really missed in this instalment of the Avengers. And this essential thing is nothing but the humor that the first instalment still somehow kept going. And that’s too bad, because Age of Ultron would have had the characters for it. Iron Man and Thor are clearly a pair of top catchphrase makers and here it’s as if someone deflated their ego. I have a feeling that it is humor and catchphrases that make comic books into movies that will create an extraordinary experience for the viewer, to which they will be happily returning. And now I know that I will definitely not return to this film. It is not just about humor, but also about the villain, who not only does not have the charisma (which is difficult to have by default in robots) but mainly one is not afraid of him, let alone respect him. Technically, it’s handled well, including action scenes that are exquisite. But everything else just doesn’t work here. In fact, this film accurately describes the type of comic book adaptations that I would prefer not to be repeated, but of which there are more than enough in recent years. As far as content repetition goes, I hope that the next episode will be called Avengers vs. X-Men to experience a complete Marvel recycling.
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I am an old and conservative man who is no longer fast enough for the pace of Michael Bay's hypnagogue sessions, and I am increasingly enjoying wooden characters who constantly need to feed their egos. I can laugh at all that and forget about the absolutely tragic love cooing of a rookie and Russian, which I would without hesitation call one of the biggest directing failures in the history of Marvel. Again, the Avengers are not getting anywhere and are working with the same (and not completely fresh) model of action, and I do not see any exorbitant escalation in them. I enjoyed it, for example, because for the first time in the history of Marvel films, I was afraid for the life of one of the characters, and also because it is the first solo for Hawkeye, who knocked me on my ass from the back lines. I got what I came for. A slow, lightly leather and conservative costume event, which is starting to be particularly intimate in its grandeur, because it is basically a party of friends who long for rest.
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“I’ve had a long day. Eugene O'Neill long.” Unsurprisingly, Whedon is wagering on the tried and true. Also, the second Avengers is a sharp ensemble action movie that entertains more with clever dialogue than with massive, stylistically intoxicating action sequences, which this time are at least a tiny bit clearer thanks to the long “relay” shots (whereas the first film culminated with this technique as an illustration of the team’s cohesion, it serves as a visual leitmotif in the second one). ___ The interaction between the characters is no longer only about the necessity of finding their way to each other, maintaining their individuality and learning to cooperate. They begin to get to know both each other and their own dark sides better, which leads us to see them also as people (or rather characters with human problems) and not just as superhuman and essentially courageous saviours of civilisation (not for nothing do the heroes address each other mostly by their civilian names). Despite that, the film doesn’t cross the line into mutual teasing at the relationship level and it lacks serious conflict that would pose a threat to the team’s unity. Whedon remains too obliging toward his heroes and their somewhat pubescent thought processes, and despite being slightly more serious, Age of Ultron is still far from the bleakness and seriousness of Guardians of the Galaxy or at least The Dark Knight. From the beginning, the tone of the film makes it clear that it’s not going to get heavy, no adult problems will be resolved (“corny” is the best description of the relationship between Natasha and Bruce, as well as Clint’s family life), no serious crisis will occur and the allusions to American foreign policy will remain at a general level (Ultron as the result of the advancing mechanisation of warfare, violence perpetrated in the interest of protecting democratic values, the tension between the transparent and the concealed war on terror, with the former approach represented by the idealistic Captain America and the latter by Stark). ___ Unlike the elitist first film, the primary interest in the human element is not limited to the superheroes – the final action sequence is based on trying to save as many civilians as possible. The absorption in their own tragic story, the mutual flirtation and the amusing measuring of egos against one another are thus balanced by concern for ordinary human lives, though that concern serves mainly to underscore the mythological dimension of the narrative. It would not have been necessary to depict the heroes in the form of classical statuary in the closing credits in order for us to realise that they have the same role in the modern (fictional) world as the Greek gods did in antiquity. ___ The second Avengers is a more masterful, albeit somewhat mechanical, manifestation of what made the first Avengers movie surprising – the combination of a loud blockbuster with an informal and imaginative conversational relationship flick. If it represents the final development phase of Marvel adaptations, that won’t make me angry. In relation to genre conventions, however, the subversive Iron Man 3 and the narratively sophisticated Captain America: The Winter Soldier showed us that it can be done more imaginatively. ___ In the end, Age of Ultron is the most audacious in terms of the demands that it places on viewers who want to flawlessly find their way around in the story and among the large number of characters throughout the film’s entire 140-minute runtime. It begins without any in media res exposition and it doesn’t linger on explaining who is who and what they are after during the next two hours. The many hints, signs and allusions assume that you are as familiar with the fictional encyclopaedia as the characters are. Though I have mostly kept up to speed so far, I cannot imagine how I will manage to sort through the tremendous amount of facts ten movies and a hundred series episodes later. 80%
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The sequel to the first film, stripped of the element of surprise and enriched with a more capable villain. The action is less bloated, fits into the plot better, and expands the universe with new characters. Anyway, the predictability is even more tiring than the rest of the Marvel movies. Unless there's a major shift in Civil War, there's no point in looking at it any other way than in standby mode.
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