This is an official HEAVY SPOILER WARNING for Avengers: Age of Ultron. If you have not seen the film, then please do not read any further. If you have, then please feel free to continue. Let's talk Age of Ultron, in as much spoilery detail as possible!
If you've read my original review you'll know that I was a huge fan of Joss Whedon's second Avengers film, and you'll note I said that there were a few things I liked about the film which I couldn't say in that review for the sake of not spoiling it.
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No more warnings, let's do this. So Age of Ultron begins with an extravagant action sequence where the "original 6" heroes are storming a Sokovian HYRDA base, the home of Baron von Strucker, Loki's scepter and Maximoff twins Wanda and Pietro. It's a fun scene, and hysterically funny as well. Its amazing to me how you can really feel the high stakes during the high-octane action sequences and at the same time laugh at the fact the Avengers are making fun of Cap for telling Stark to "mind his language". The team dynamic is one of the best things about this film, and a lot of the earlier exchanges during the film are some of the funniest.
Tony Stark successfully storms the HYDRA base and makes his way to the scepter. Under the spell of Scartlet Witch's mind-bending hallucinations, we really get a sense as to where Tony Stark is as a character during the film. They don't address the fact that he is suddenly Iron Man again (completely ignoring the ending of Iron Man 3), but they do address the fear which is encompassing him. We see visions of the Avengers lying dead and Cap's shield split in 2, with images of the Chitauri fleet in the background.
Driven by this fear, he takes the sceptre and finds the final piece in the puzzle he needs to kick start the "Ultron" programme, an intended AI peace keeping force, designed to alleviate pressure off the Avengers and provide inter-planetary security from the various threats from the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe (he has absolutely no idea!).
The party scene is hilarious; Joss Whedon not missing the chance to give these characters witty dialogue to spout between each other. The entire scene centres around Thor's hammer, with each Avenger representative having a go at seeing if they are worthy enough like the God of Thunder. The humour is short lived, and Ultron crashes the party. Using the power of the Mind Stone within Loki's scepter, Ultron gains consciousness. The way they set up the back and forth between Ultron and JARVIS (soon to be Vision) using 2 voices and two different coloured sets of computer-generated cubes, was for me one of the smartest scenes in the entire film. And from that things go badly, and because Ultron is not confined to one robot body, we next see him in the Sokovian HYDRA base, with 2 new friends, after he gives the Avengers a good kick in the teeth.
I was interested to see how Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were going to be introduced in this film, and they start off as siding with Ultron. They're both the results of Baron von Strucker's experiments with Loki's scepter, and are very important characters. They do a good job at making you understand their motivation for doing so. Ultron was designed with the intention of world peace, but because he is basically a manifestation of the darker recesses of Tony Stark, he decides that the Avengers are the problem. You can't blame the Twins for agreeing with him, after all it was weapons designed by Stark Industries which claimed the lives of their parents.
When Joss Whedon promised a more global Avengers, he delivered on his word, as the film bounces from Sokovia (Eastern Europe), New York, Southern Africa and Korea. Its a trip to Africa made by both the Avenger's and Ultron's party which introduces us to another connection from Tony Stark's weapons dealing days and a promise of what we may see with the introduction of Black Panther, Ulysses Klaue, played by the legend that is Andy Serkis. He isn't in the film for long, he gets his arm chopped off, but its his connections to the vibranium metal that make him so important.
The Avengers confront Ultron and the Twins, which culminates in the rest of the crew coming under the spell of Scarlet Witch's mind bending powers. The visions are great scenes, all providing an interesting angle of the condition of Earth's mightiest heroes, and bringing them down to humanity. We don't know what the Hulk's visions were, but he goes off on a rampage, leading to a colossal fight between the "giant green rage monster" and Tony Stark's armour VERONICA, the Hulkbuster suit that was heavily marketed in the trailers.
Cap's vision is of Peggy Carter and the life he could have led had he not been frozen in ice for 70 years. Thor's vision is of Asgard and an "impending doom", which also involves another fan favourite character make a brief appeance in Heimdall, a vision which is very important for Phase 3. Black Widow's vision is of her past, her training within the Black Widow programme which made her the ruthless assassin she is today. Widow is further fleshed out as a character when we find out that she was sterilised during her training. It's the romance between her and Banner which is one of the more sombre plot points of the film; the 2 are clearly meant for each other, but they can't that settled life they both desire.
It's this theme of Avengers having normal lives which is intriguing, and they use this to bring the previously under-developed character Hawkeye, and make him a good character. Renner is also given more comedic lines in the film, plus I like the fact that he makes jokes about him being a "guy with a bow and arrow" fighting alongside such extraordinary beings. After the mess in Africa, the Avengers go into hiding. This is when we find out that Hawkeye has a family, and they use his farm as a refuge. It was at this moment, when everyone in the theatre thought that Hawkeye was destined to die, including me.
The clunkiest plotline of the entire film was Thor's vision. He seeks Erik Selvig and goes off to find a "pool of visions" so he can revisit the vision he experienced during Scarlet Witch's mind manipulation. We see the four infinity stones that have been revealed in the MCU so far. That's pretty much the only reason that scene exists, and its relevant for what it is trying to set up for the future. For me, there were 2 or 3 scenes relating to this plot point that shouldn't have been edited out, as it feels completely rushed and out of place.
Meanwhile, Ultron is on a mission to create an ultimate version of himself. He uses the assistance of Helen Cho, combining bio organic molecules with the vibranium he acquired from Klaue and his own consciousness. The Twins, after Scarlet Witch discovers Ultron's goal, turn against him. After some more crazy action sequences, Ultron's creation ends up in the hands of the Avengers. It was at this moment where the Avengers are nearly pressing the self destruct button. But then Thor jumps in, and the Vision is born.
Paul Bettany's Vision is one of the films standout qualities. It is also revealed that the Mind Stone in Loki's scepter (responsible for Ultron's creation) is the Vision's power source, the yellow gem found in the centre of his forehead. Vision is basically bio organic matter, vibranium, the power of the Mind Stone combined with JARVIS. I think they have very big plans for this character, which I'm stoked about. If a certain Mad Titan is to obtain the full power of the Infinity Gauntlet, he'll need that Stone. Very interesting indeed. Also, when he picks up Thor's hammer, genius.
Ultron himself feels like a pure villain, one who doesn't feel like he is the evil one. He's constantly quoting things from the Bible, talking of purifying the world by wiping out humanity using a meteor for example. The final confrontation of the film is simple in its premise and is executed with all of the fanboy moments you could ever dream of. Its simple, Ultron is raising the Sokovian city with the intent of using it as a meteor, and the Avengers have to stop him. The film didn't raise the stakes from the first one, but they rose it to a very similar level which is not easy to do.
Remembering what I said about Hawkeye, it's really him, Hulk and Black Widow that give this film it's emotional core, and it was nice to see Avengers who haven't had the luxury of a solo film develop as characters. That's why I thought he was dead. But it was not him that bit the dust, but poor Quicksilver. Aaron Taylor Johnson did a fine job with the character, but Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch had more potential to grow as a character in future films, and they can use his death as motivation for what she does in future instalments.
Ultron meets his demise, and Vision is the one to take him out. They set up the conflict between these 2 characters right at the start during Ultron's inception, and the dynamic they have between them is so interesting. They're both AI and both realise that the human race is in fact doomed to its own fate, they just carry out their beliefs in different ways. There's also an interesting creator vs. creation dynamic to their relationship. Ultron says to Stark in the film's first act "you always fear what you create", or at least something along those lines. This comes to be true.
I shall talk about the fate of all of the Avengers in part 2 of my spoiler discussion, as well as the end credits scene and how it will all tie in to future MCU films. At this point, the only thing worth saying is that the original team of Avengers is broken up and a new team of 6 takes its place.
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I hope you enjoyed reading part 1 of my spoiler filled discussion, and more importantly I hope you enjoyed the film. I don't think its as magical as the first film, but it gets a lot of things right with the humour, the action and character development and interaction, which wasn't an easy feat considering the enormous cast and the enormity of plot points they needed to plant for Phase 3 films.
Thanks for reading,
Matt
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