Okay,
so I’ve been salivating for this movie for so long, it was never going to live
up to my geeky, sky-high hopes. Despite generally
juggling its huge ensemble capably, it feels crammed at times, and important
things can get glossed over. It’s also
my least favorite Black Widow outing since Iron
Man 2, which isn’t cool (quite a ways above Iron Man 2, but still.)
However, failing to be the Best Comic Book Movie Ever! doesn’t mean it’s
not pretty great, which is why my biggest complaints are in the opening
paragraph – I need the rest of the space to geek out.
Team
Avenger has been together for a while now, rooting out pockets of Hydra members
and searching for Loki’s mystical mind-whammy scepter from The Avengers. When they
finally track down the scepter, Tony sees its unlocked potential to facilitate
the creation of legit artificial intelligence; he envisions an army of
intelligent robots to protect the earth from supersized threats. Because the creation of intelligent robots
usually goes so smoothly, he winds up with Ultron, a crazy-powerful, genius
megalomaniac who think humans have wasted their chance at existence. In Ultron (and his accomplices, a damaged
pair of powered twins,) the Avengers have a formidable foe who tests every inch
of their limits.
First
things first: this movie has characters
coming out of its ears, and I’m amazed at how well, by and large, it spreads
the love between them. All six Avengers
get multiple moments to shine, action-wise and
character-based (Hawkeye, who’s been underused in the franchise so far, gets a
lot of focus in particular,) and the new characters are introduced
thoughtfully. The twins, speedster Quicksilver
and queen of creepy mind-mojo the Scarlet Witch, are especially great – this
Quicksilver is totally different from
X-Men’s but equally awesome, and I
love seeing the Scarlet Witch come into her own. In addition, there are numerous smaller
appearances and cameos from other characters in the Marvel pantheon, none of
which really feel shoehorned in.
Far and
away, my favorite thing about the movie is the camaraderie between the
Avengers. As a team, they’ve grown by
leaps and bounds since the first movie, and Avenger-teamwork gives me life. They do a lot of partnered fighting,
assisting one another in the field and playing off each other’s strengths (Cap
and Thor for the win!) and it’s clear
that they’ve done a lot to make the team inclusive for the Hulk. They also just feel so much like a family,
leaning on one another when they need it, talking through their issues, and
ragging on each other like you can only do with people you love – there’s a
running joke with Cap that I adore, and I could’ve watched an entire movie of
them all hanging around trying to lift Thor’s hammer.
The
action is mostly terrific. I’m a sucker
for creative combat, especially when it involves the clever use of superpowers,
and we get that in spades here. Cap
flipping forward over the handlebars of his motorcycle and then throwing it at someone is just hardcore
incredible, and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch do an excellent tag-team job
on a train. And because this is Marvel, all
the cool fights and explosions are nicely balanced with humor, sweet tech, and
grounding character moments. No, it’s
not everything I hoped it’d be, but it’s still quite the ride.
Warnings
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