Movie Review: 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'

The world is 10 films deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the span of seven years, starting in 2008 with “Iron Man,” Marvel has introduced Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, the Incredible Hulk, a multitude of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the guardians of this and every galaxy to the movie-going public.

If nothing else, the speed at which Marvel and Disney have produced and distributed these ten films, all existing within a shared universe, and all exuding a sheen of high production values and special effects, must be respected and admired.

By the numbers, all comparable film franchises pale in comparison in worldwide gross and number of films to the Marvel juggernaut. “Harry Potter:” eight films in 10 years; The “Lord of the Rings” saga: six films in 13 years; “Star Wars:” seven films (and counting) in 38 years; and the “James Bond” films, the grandfather of the modern film franchise: 25 films in 53 years.

With the release of this summer’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the eleventh movie has reached audiences, and thanks to its worldwide gross accrued over opening weekend, it's made the Marvel saga the highest-grossing film series of all time. And with “Ant-Man” slated to open later in July and nine more films (including two more “Avengers” movies on Marvel/Disney’s production schedule for the next five years), it’s a record that's likely to never be broken and will grow in perpetuity.

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The road to “Avengers: Age of Ultron” has been paved with genuinely enjoyable films that balance the humor, action and pathos that made generations of fans fall in love with this world of super-powered heroes, misfits and geniuses in the color-packed and imaginative pages of comic books. Films such as the first “Iron Man,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Avengers" fit that mold.

However, four out of 10 is hardly a stellar shooting percentage, and with the box office still clamoring for more superheroes, that percentage isn’t going to rise anytime fast. Like Mr. Fantastic of the “Fantastic Four” (which is getting a reboot this August), the Marvel Cinematic Universe is stretching itself thin. And in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the creative cracks of the universe can be seen in full light for the first time.

The film starts out with the gang back together again. Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are fighting back and scaling the castle of the nefarious Baron Strucker, who has been using the scepter previously wielded by Loki in “The Avengers” to power new weapon designs and other experiments.

The team, in high-action fashion, defeats Strucker and best his two most powerful weapons, the mutant twins Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). The duo was orphaned by weapons created by Stark Industries (Tony Stark’s day job before he became Iron Man) and holds a grudge against the destructive Avengers. The former can move at lightning speed; the latter has psychic and mind-invading powers, which challenge the Avengers and mine through their darkest fears.

But after this twin speedbump, the Avengers retrieve the scepter and return to home base to celebrate the final foe left over after the official dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. in “Captain America: Winter Soldier.”

With this vacuum of power created and wanting to step away from the world-saving business, Stark, with the assistance of Banner, do their own experiments on the scepter and discover a massive artificial intelligence. In hopes to find an ultimate solution, Stark and Banner, unbeknownst to the other Avengers, try to fuse the AI from the scepter’s crystal to Stark’s computer mainframe program, Jarvis (Paul Bettany).

This poking, prodding and secrecy among the Avengers is the Pandora’s box that creates the conflict for the rest of the film. The alien AI from the scepter becomes sentient and takes over Stark’s mainframe and spreads through the internet. Ultron (voiced by a delightfully slimy James Spader) was ordered in his programming to create world peace. However, his plan to create peace on Earth is to kill all of humanity. No humans equals no war.

After this building conflict with Ultron arises, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” devolves into a glorified trailer. The remaining film, save for a few great moments that provide much needed layers to the characters’ backstories, is just an unending sequence of winks, nods and set ups for the  films coming down the pipeline. Audiences get a glimpse of future conflicts and story lines, such as Captain America and Iron Man’s ideological clash over the future of the Avengers and the inevitable finding of and war over the mystic Infinity Stones and the coming of Thanos.

Though this may salivate the mouths of the most die-heard Marvel fans, it hinders “Avengers: Age of Ultron” from having a satisfying emotional and logical conclusion. And as the core and tent pole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Avengers films should serve as the action-packed resolution to the majority of the story lines presented previously, not raise more questions and offer very few answers.

Though the film is as conflicted about its own direction as the Avengers team is, director and writer Joss Whedon offers several great and often tender moments. The budding romance between the Hulk and Black Widow, Hawkeye’s hidden family background, and Iron Man’s crippling fear of the Earth’s potential alien destruction offer rare moments of personal and psychological fragility. In addition, the feeling of the movie is a relaxed one. Even though the world and their team are crumbling around them, the entire cast seems at ease with each other and offers great chemistry and humor. A prime example of this is the running inside joke in relation to Captain America’s strict views on “crude language.”

However, this constellation of bright moments can't outshine the film's lack of narrative focus or dramatic stakes. There's only so much visual splendor, explosions and villain battles one can see in a film series before losing interest. Marvel, in its comic books and its film adaptations, excelled because comic creators, film directors and screenwriters respected the characters as people first and superheroes second.

The superhero that just wants to be normal is what has always separated Marvel from its arch rival DC and their collection of indestructible demigods. It's why Marvel  has always found an audience young and old. Anyone who has ever felt small, misaligned or like an outsider has empathized and traveled with these heroes for decades on the page and now on the screen. But now that Marvel is in the mainstream and is the box office king of Hollywood, it should not and cannot lose sight of what's at the heart of great storytelling: character comes first.

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” is an example of these great heroes being used as pawns of plot development instead of kings of character and story. Hopefully Marvel and the respective directors of the next five years of films can remember that maxim. If not, we’ll truly be in an age of Ultron. Computerized and cold special effects powered by artificial characters.