I don’t think I’ve looked forward to a film as much as Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron in quite some time.
I’m fully invested in Marvel’s incredible cinematic universe (MCU) – and after last year’s game-changing Captain America sequel, Age of Ultron seems to have been teasing me for years, rather than a matter of months.
Does it deliver? Hell yes. Is it perfect? Not quite, but I’ll forgive director Joss Whedon and co a few nagging plot holes. That’s because this second “assembling” of the Avengers is ridiculously good fun.
We find Cap (Chris Evans), Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Natasha Romanov/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) leading an assault on the castle of HYDRA leader Baron von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann).
The chief aim is to retrieve Loki’s scepter (if you’ve seen Avengers Assemble, you’ll know about its power) – but they end up squaring off with twin siblings Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (Elisabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson).
Better known as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, the pair are the product of Strucker’s experiments (you may have seen them in the post-credits scene in Captain America: The Winger Soldier).
While Quicksilver wreaks havoc with his warped speed, Scarlet Witch has the ability to mess with minds – and shows Stark a bleak future.
That prompts him, with a little help from Banner, to kick-start their secret peacekeeping programme, codenamed Ultron.
An artificial intelligence, Ultron is designed to be the protector of Earth – and is Stark’s idea to essentially leave the Avengers redundant.
However, Ultron (who is superbly voiced by the excellent James Spader) is born as more of a nightmare than a saviour. Teaming up with the Maximoff twins, they become one of the team’s biggest threats yet – with Ultron out to cleanse the world of the human race.
As well as those I’ve already mentioned, there are also cameos in this sequel for Don Cheadle as War Machine, Anthony Mackie as The Falcon and, of course, Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury.
There’s also a another big character from the Marvel comics introduced, but I’ll not spoil that for you.
As sequels to blockbuster originals go, this second outing for the Avengers pretty much gives you everything that you’d want.
The action is absolutely relentless – with the special effects among the best you’ll see in any film. A fight between a crazed Hulk and Iron Man in his humongous Hulkbuster outfit is truly awesome.
Spader’s Ultron is brilliant, too. Those of you that watch The Blacklist will recognise plenty of Raymond Reddington in Ultron’s demeanour – making his verbal exchanges with Downey Jnr’s charismatic Stark particularly memorable.
There’s plenty more screentime for Renner’s Hawkeye too, which felt much-needed considering he’s by far the least fleshed-out of the Avengers.
The negatives are few and far between, but two stood out. The first is the disappointing lack of ramifications that the events of The Winter Solider seem to have had on Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. I was expecting a lot more from that particular storyline, but it almost seems to have been papered over.
My other bugbear was a romance that felt a little forced, but I can let that slide.
As ever, it was great to see so many great actors come together to continue their iconic roles.
Marvel films remain the ones that I look forward to the most – and I’m already buzzing for the next phase of individual stories to roll out.
Simply put, you won’t see a better action film this year.
Voice Verdict: 9.5/10 (watched at Boston West End Cinema)
+ Awesome action
+ Unparalleled cast
+ Introduces some great new characters
– Nick Fury’s angle
