Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron Movie Review

This past week I (Parkhopper John) was invited to a special press screening of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, so Tony from Disney By The Numbers and I headed over to Winter Park, FL to see the latest installment of Marvel’s juggernaut franchise.

I will state right off the bat, this entire movie was bigger in scope and scale from its predecessor.  It’s massive.  Where the original kept us centered near New York, Age of Ultron takes us across the globe and back again.

As the movie opens we join our heroes, Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) already engaged in battle.  But this is no haphazard exchange, the Avengers have become a well-oiled machine.  They work together, they communicate.  They have a plan. Each character has a moment and those moments overlap in a dizzying display of storytelling.  Written and directed by Joss Whedon, here he is at his best.  This movie is one of the greatest love letters to these characters I have ever seen.

After the battle ends, Iron Man/Tony Stark discovers something that takes him down a path that will force him to come face to face with his greatest fear and sparks the creation of Ultron.

James Spader is the not only the voice of Ultron, Spader brings his entire essence into this character.  Ultron is terrifying, cold, infinitely brilliant.  He taps into the entire world via the Internet.  Ultron is everywhere and he is unstoppable.  He mercilessly works to achieve his ultimate plan: the extinction of the Avengers.  I am a huge James Spader fan and to see Ultron deliver lines with the quirks and mannerisms of the actor was incredible.  The malevolence was often mixed with charm and slight humor.  Ultron was a real character with great weight throughout this film.

Along the way we also meet Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen.  We caught a short glimpse of the twins and their powers at the end of Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Ulton enlists their help to fight common enemies, namely Tony Stark.  The Maximoff twins story is tragic and you can understand their hatred of Stark, the are broken and lost.  But when confronted with the truth, heroes rise from the ashes of their former lives.

What I loved most about this film is that every Avenger gets their moment.  I was also very happy to see Ruffalow’s Bruce Banner and Renner’s Clint Barton have larger roles both within the team and on screen.  They both no longer felt like “ad on” superheroes, but full fledged Avengers, part of a larger ensemble with their own specific parts to play.  Each Avenger also comes face to face with what scares them most and for each person, the results differ, but they are all shaken to their core and the team must come back to survive as a unit.

I walked out of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron  the same way I walked out of the Marvels Avengers, desperately wanting to see more of these characters and their stories. This movie, with a run time of 2 and a half hours, is a magnum opus where Marvel set more pieces up in preparation of their next phase of movies.  Make sure you stay through the credits, because the teaser is short, but the ramifications to the Marvel Cinematic Universe are tremendous.

MOVIE REVIEW IN A NUTSHELL

Did I like the movie?  No, I loved it.  Do all of our beloved characters survive?  Mostly.  Does this set up Avengers 3?   Absolutely!  Is there an end credits scene?  Yes.  Is the Hulkbuster armor scene amazing?  That, and then some! What is one extra you can share?  Project Theta (fans of Marvel’s Agents of Shield will get it).

All I can say is that this movie does not disappoint.  It is worth your money to go see and I will be seeing it again and buying it as soon as the Blu-ray comes out!

Get set for an action-packed thrill ride when The Avengers return in Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” in theaters.

Those are my thought, what did you think? Leave a comment below!