Jonathan Garcia
Reporter
Marvel’s famous band of superheroes returns to the big screen in the highly anticipated sequel “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” Joss Whedon returns as both writer and director hoping he can once again create the magic he did with the first movie. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson return for the sequel as well as some new faces such as Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and James Spader as the voice of the villainous Ultron.
A lot of hype was circling around this movie since the last one exceeded expectations and was able to fit all these superheroes into one movie without feeling convoluted. Sequels to huge hits are the hardest thing to pull off because a lot of pressure is put on the cast and crew to live up to the hype. They coped with this pressure well.
Tony Stark (Downey) and Bruce Banner (Ruffalo) come up with an idea to make an artificial intelligence for Stark’s Ultron global defense program. Stark hopes this new program can help save the world so he and the Avengers can take a break. But this goes bad very quickly as Ultron views humans as the threat and his idea of “saving the world” could instead threaten it, so the Avengers band up once again to try to stop Ultron from causing mass destruction.
The visual effects in this movie are once again amazing as you can’t tell which scenes are CGI when they are used. The action is filmed excellently as it’s one of those movies that shows you the action happening on screen without the use of shaky cam to mask bad stunt work. When the action happens on screen you will be on the edge of your seat almost throughout the movie. The acting once again was great with solid performances from the cast but the one who steps it up the most from the last movie is Renner. His character, Hawkeye, gets more lines in this film and a background that was told very well. It was great to see him get more to do in this movie. Spader’s performance as Ultron was great, making him real sinister and kind of sarcastic at times, which moviegoers won’t expect going in.
But it does suffer from flaws, unfortunately, as the movie slows down a bit in the middle. Also, some scenes felt rushed to keep the film two and a half hours long. Whedon has said the original cut was over three hours long, which could mean there could be a Blu-ray extended cut. But those scenes could have helped the movie a bit especially with Ultron’s origin, which felt rushed.
Overall, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is a well-done sequel despite its flaws with great action, characters and dialogue that make this movie worth seeing in theaters for sure. If you’re looking to see this movie please see it on the big screen. Don’t see a leaked copy of the movie; this is a movie that needs to be experienced in the theater.
