Category: Entertainment & Media

This week, over 300 fans dressed as their favorite Avengers visited Disneyland and met Captain America, Thor and Hawkeye before attending a special advance screening of Marvel’ “Avengers: Age Of Ultron.”

Marvel Studios presents “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure.

Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk and Chris Evans as Captain America. Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine, Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, the team must reassemble to defeat James Spader as Ultron, a terrifying technological villain hell-bent on human extinction. Along the way, they confront two mysterious and powerful newcomers, Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen and meet an old friend in a new form when Paul Bettany becomes Vision.

Written and directed by Joss Whedon and produced by Kevin Feige, p.g.a., Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963. Get set for an action-packed thrill ride when The Avengers return in Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” on May 1, 2015.

“Avengers: Age Of Ultron” is finally out and it’s another really good movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but it’s far from the best. I will get into SPOILERS towards the end, but for now will remain as SPOILER free as possible.

The movie starts off where the Avengers are now officially a team and they are working together to fight some remnants of HYDRA. Although Tony Stark has good intentions, he creates Ultron and the Avengers must work together to defeat Ultron and his army before they take over the world.

For me, the movie was good, but it wasn’t great. Although I enjoyed it, the original Avengers movie was better. Maybe it’s because the original Avengers movie was such a big event having four characters coming together from four different movies and we had never seen anything like that before. Now we are used to seeing them all together and I was hoping that Ultron was going to be The Godfather: Part II of Avengers sequels, but it wasn’t.

I will say that for the most part, I really enjoyed the story and especially how they incorporated the Ultron story into the movie. Most of these actors have been playing these roles for several years and it shows that they get and understand their characters. The end battle was great! I was originally worried that having 10 Avengers fighting together would be to much but they did a fantastic job.

Without a doubt, Ultron is a fun action packed movie but it does kind of drag in certain areas and I think that is what most people are having issues with.

I think that a big issues is that the run time for Ultron is 2 hours and 20 minutes. This movie could have done with a better editing team because I could have easily cut out 20 minutes of this movie and it would have been a better movie, well, to me anyway. Another big problem is that this film relied way too much on one liners. And they were basically hit or miss and there were a lot more misses this time around.

Character development in a movie is important. A lack of character development can ruin a movie. But too much character development, especially in a movie that should be action orientated, is not good either. There is way too much romance going on in this movie. When it works, like in Empire Strikes Back, it makes the movie a better movie. When it doesn’t, like in Attack Of The Clones, it makes a bad movie even less tolerable.

Overall I enjoyed it, but like I said, it could have been better. I would rank “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” a 3.5 out of 5.

Just a reminder to everyone who hasn’t seen the film yet, there is only one post credit scene when the movie is over and it occurs within a few minutes once the end credits role. Don’t stay till the very end because you will be disappointed.

SPOILERS:

• The one thing that I could not stand and felt dragged down the movie the most was the dumb Beauty And The Beast like scenario between Black Widow and The Hulk. I hated that. The “Lullaby”…. yuck. Anytime these two characters were in a room together, I knew we were going to get this lame lovey dovey forced romance story where Scarlet Johansson spoke for 90% of the time and Mark Ruffalo looked confused or didn’t have much to say. I would have cut all of those scenes out of the film and then lit them on fire. LOL I gave this movie a 3 out of 5 and if they cut this part out of the movie, I would have easily given it a 4 out of 5. That is how badly this part ruined the movie for me.
• As I had mentioned, Ultron was a great villain. I will give Whedon a lot of credit on this one, he pulled off a difficult task. I think most directors would have made him the “Kill! Destroy!” Robbie The Robot type of Ultron or more of a Terminator but he gave Ultron a real snarky arrogant personality. Ultron kind of reminded me Patrick Warburton (Kronk) from The Emperor’s New Groove. Not the goofiness, just his booming voice and his confidence in his words. But I loved his arrogance and it just blew my mind when he finally got the vibranium and he quoted from the Bible saying, “This will be the rock that I will build my church on.” That just left me with such a big smile on his face because I could not believe he just said that.
• Speaking of religious overtones, there were a lot of them in this movie. Ultron was basically Satan and he no longer wanted to serve but rule. When Vision is asked, who’s side Vision is on, he says, “I am, I am.” And that was right out of the Bible when Moses first met God. Ultron says to Vision at the end, Stark wanted a savior, not a slave. To me that was very similar to how the people accepted Jesus. Most wanted a warrior and instead they got something totally different that was willing to sacrifice Himself for humanity’s sake.
• That they had the Mind Stone hidden in Loki’s scepter was brilliant. It made me think that maybe Ultron was right about humanity blowing their chance, if he was able to discover that hidden Infinity Stone in a few minutes and no one else was.
• The Vision was this movie’s break out character, like The Hulk was in the Avengers. To me, Vision was always a huge part of The Avengers and to finally see him on screen was just an amazing moment for me. And having the Vision being able to lift Mjolnir was the holy crap moment of the film. You did see Captain America budge Mjolnir a few spaces during the party scene and I still think that Cap was able to lift it but didn’t want to freak everyone out by doing it. But loved the expression on Thor’s face when he saw Cap move it. That Vision is able to wield Mjolnir shows that he is completely worthy and has a good soul. That is why Thor had so much confidence in Vision at the end. It was no trick that Vision did, there is something inside of him that shows a pure heart.
• Vision rescuing Scarlet Witch was a nod to comic book fans. In the comic book, Vision and The Scarlet Witch eventually get married and to see him rescuing her at the end and both looking into each others eyes was a pretty big moment for me.
• I loved the Hulk and Hulkbuster battle in Wakanda. It went on much longer than I expected, and that was a good thing. I liked that Iron Man specifically went out of his way to scan for life forms before destroying a building he was planning on throwing the Hulk into during the Hulk/Hulkbuster fight. That seems like a response to all of the controversy that was raised during Man Of Steel where Superman was responsible for a lot of collateral damage. In Ultron, Iron Man tries to get the Hulk away from the people to continue their fight where no one will be harmed.
• From some of the images I had seen of the Hulk before I had seen the movie, I thought there might be a Grey Hulk, but I was wrong. He just had dust from debris all over him. Although recently I learned it was Whedon’s intention to make the Hulk turn grey while being mind controlled by Scarlet Witch, but Marvel told him to keep him green in order not to confuse people.
• The Twins, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olson, were OK but their whole role in the film was a bit baffling and a bit unbelievable. Elizabeth Olson looks to much like her sisters and think they should have gone with someone else that didn’t look like an Olsen Twin. I liked this Quicksilver better than X-Men: Days Of Future Past version because he was at least vulnerable. X-Men’s Quicksilver was way to fast.
• Once Jarvis is gone and Tony can no longer assist him internally within his Iron Man armor, who is that female voice that replaces Jarvis? I have seen the movie twice and she definitely has an Irish accent. Something must have been cut out explaining who the new AI was that was helping Tony in the Iron man suit.
• No more Iron Patriot! It was good to see War Machine, but would have loved if he had a few minutes more of fighting side by side with Iron Man. Don Cheadale’s time on screen was so small as War Machine, that they should have just left him out.
• Loved seeing Steve (Captain America) and Sam (The Falcon) having a talk at the party in Avengers tower. You can tell that they have become good friends and that Sam is someone that Steve really trusts and it just reminded me so much of the comics.
• In the comics, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s father is Magneto (X-Men). This movie totally changed that and made them receive their powers after being experimented on with Loki’s scepter and their father died during a bombing attack. Definitely more Marvel and Fox issues.
• I liked the idea of the satellite that stored Iron Man’s Hulkbuster armor was called Veronica. Whedon said it came about because in the Hulk comic, Bruce’s girlfriend was Betty. In the Archie Comics, the two girls always after Archie were Betty and Veronica.
• That Maria Hill “testosterone joke” fell flat and there were a few jokes that they should have left on the cutting room floor.
• Black Widow riding a motorcycle and yelling “beep beep” reminded me of Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace yelling “Yippee!” Shouldn’t have been in there.
• Ultron singing Pinocchio’s “Ive Got No Strings On Me.” I am pretty sure they cut out a lot of the story behind that. From what I read in the past, Tony would use his automated Iron Man Army, which he called the Iron Legion, as disposable and expendable AI robots. Ultron’s original form was one of the Iron Legion and he did not like the idea that Tony was treating his AI robots as slaves and if they couldn’t be fixed, Tony would just recycle them. Thus the strings reference was Ultron revolting against the puppet master.
• I like how Wakanda was brought into the story and it does pave the way for Black Panther to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• They added a whole load of character development to Hawkeye’s character by introducing his wife and kids. Yes it was nice, but a lot of that was not needed and should have been cut from the film. We definitely didn’t need to hear Hawkeye’s wife say that there was something between Natasha and Bruce. No way could she have spotted that in a few seconds unless she has powers too.
• When the Hulk flew off in the Quinjet at the end, it could have laid the perfect foundation for a Hulk solo movie and that would have been Planet Hulk. They kind of ruined it by having Nick Fury telling the Black Widow that his people found something near an ocean. But after seeing it a second time he does say that there was a stealth mode on the jet and he wasn’t certain if it was the jet. So who knows. Maybe he did take the Quinjet into space, went into a wormhole and ended up on the other side of the galaxy or universe.
• I thought Samuel L Jackson was great in this and this was my favorite Nick Fury movie.
• During the point where the Avengers are preparing to go after Ultron, there is a scene where you can see Thor and Vision talking in private. Wonder if that will be shown in another movie about what was being talked about?
• Even though Quicksilver died in the movie, I don’t think he will remain dead for good. That Hawkeye took his dead body with him means it was taken for a reason. Plus his cells are very fast and they could, maybe, heal themselves. Also The Infinity Gauntlet can bring people back from the dead. He’ll be back.
• I’m kind of surprised that the Hulk didn’t say any words in this movie. You also can tell that The Hulk has some of Banner’s intelligence if he was able to get on the Quinjet and know that he had to leave the team behind for their own good.
• Was kind of surprised that Captain America and Iron Man left on good terms. Thought that with them having problems was going to lead to even larger issues in Civil War. Scarlet Witch did have a good line comparing Ultron to Tony and that Tony sometimes thinks he is doing what is right for everyone that he doesn’t see that he may be doing wrong.
• The new Avengers that Cap forms really is a motley crew. Captain America, Black Widow, Vision, War Machine, Falcon and Scarlet Witch. Wouldn’t be my first choice. That’s what happened when Marvel properties are scattered among different studios. Would have been nice to have seen Captain America, Spider-Man, Vision, Scarlet Witch and Wolverine. But that aint happening….yet.
• Cutting out Caps last line of “Avengers Assemble” in the movie was kind of cruel to comic book fans by Joss Whedon. The first time I saw it, I thought it was funny, but the second time I saw it, I was kind of annoyed that he did that. He definitely did that to mess with the fans. Mission accomplished, Joss.