First, know this: Avengers: Age of Ultron is not quite the firecracker that Marvel's The Avengers was. There's nothing here that quite reaches the apogee of the first film's Battle of New York—that may have been the best action sequence in a Hollywood film since the desert chase in Raiders of the Lost Ark. No, this follow-up doesn't peak quite so high. But, strangely, it may be a more consistently good movie. From the first shot to the last, there's barely a break.
When not engaged in one of the many slugfests, our mighty heroes (an expanding group) are hurling mild diss-bombs at one another or pairing off for quieter emotional moments that don't feel forced. The characters are richer—heck, we know them all better. And the themes, what it means to be a team, what it means to be responsible for your actions, seem more profound. Despite those ridiculous costumes, these actors under Joss Whedon's direction somehow keep the humanity in the foreground. And some of them aren't even human!
We open with the large scale cinematic equivalent of playing with of toys. The whole gang is there and they're zipping around and brawling as they raid the (final?) HYDRA hideout. The chatter comes in nonstop as they nonchalantly smash up the baddies. The Hulk rams into a bunker. Thor whangs Cap's shield with his hammer and the resultant soundwave knocks everyone to their rears. It is pure comic book glee.
Back at Avengers HQ, Tony Stark convinces Bruce Banner that they should use the Infinity Stone inside Loki's scepter, previously tinkered with by HYDRA, to give their Project: Ultron a boost. This will be like JARVIS (the Paul Bettany-voiced Stark computer program) but better. It will be an ultimate defense system against the existential threat they know is out there, but has hitherto remained confined to post-credits stingers.
Well, to make a long story short, it goes wrong. This is visualized by a blue glowy thing (bad) overpowering a gold glowy thing (good.) The essence of Ultron, voiced by James Spader and, at least at first, housed in an "Iron Legion" suit (whose dinged-up face makes it look like a metal jack o'lantern) has got its share of Stark's snark. You don't realize it at first, but Ultron, who can travel via connected networks but mainly manifests as an enormous chrome robot, is basically a move violent version of The Brain (of Pinky and The Brain fame.)
Ultron's unexpected goofiness is Whedon playing to his strengths. This movie is wall to wall gags in the spirit of the previous film's "Galaga" throwaway. Age of Ultron exudes the love of comic books. I'm pretty sure this is the first time Iron Man is ever called "Shellhead" in one of the movies. It comes (from Black Widow) during one of the numerous high-energy action scenes that feels, at first, as though it will solve all the film's problems, but of course just leads to the next adventure. During the onslaught of superhero movies we've seen in the past decade, there hasn't been one that quite nails the feeling of sitting and reading a stack of eight comics in one sitting quite like this one.
To a fan, that's great. To those who never go beyond the movies, Age of Ultron may come off as a bit desultory and bloated. There are some new characters (Quicksilver! Scarlet Witch! The Vision!) and other than Quicksilver running fast, their powers can be a little vague. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, as Maximoff Twins from "Sokovia," are actually quite amusing. He has a bad dye job and wears a track suit, she has black fingernails and drapes herself in shawls, but doesn't overdo it. It's like she's thinking of going to Lilith Fair, but doesn't quite want to commit. Her telepathic/telekenetic powers, visualized by some red mist, emerge when she ghoulishly wiggles her hands like an embarrassing dad pretending he's a ghost. All these high tech special effects and basically it comes down to a twenty-six year-old gal going "boo!"
But let's cut to the chase. Ultron's ultimate scheme is to kill all humans, and the Avengers say hell no, not without a fight. And so they do battle, though much if not most of the final fight is actually spent rescuing civilians. One can't wonder if this is Joss Whedon giving a big middle finger to Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, which seemed not to care much about puny humans becoming collateral damage as interplanetary gods smashed up the place. This movie is all about the draw of relationships and "real life."
I don't want to spoil too much, but a break with known canon pops up, and we get to see how, for one member of the gang, "avenging" is just a day job. (You can probably guess who—it's the one official member of the Avengers who hasn't had much to do thus far.) There's also a love interest between two members of the team (Black Widow and Bruce Banner, there I said it) that, for gamma ray reasons, simply cannot be. These shades put a new spin on the larger than life action.
Call me crazy, but I think the best scene in this movie is a lengthy party that has more in common with Whedon's recent adaptation of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" than Chitauri or portals or Infinity Stones. When you play with your action figures, you can't just have them leap around and bash each other, you've got to take a moment to let them talk. Age of Ultron has struck just about the perfect balance.
