Friday, May 1, 2015

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Late last night (early this morning?) I went to see the first screening of Avengers: Age of Ultron.  The movie opens with the Avengers, Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), in the fictional Eastern European country of Sokovia battling von Strucker, of Hydra, to retrieve Loki's scepter.  They soon encounter the twins Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, respectively), upon whom Strucker has been experimenting, giving them super-human powers.  The Avengers obtain the scepter, elude the twins, and return to their headquarters where Tony Stark and Bruce Banner use the artificial intelligence found in the scepter to activate Ultron, a global defense program created by Stark.  When Ultron (voiced by James Spader) becomes self-aware, it decides the only way to save Earth is to eradicate all humans and it travels to Sokovia to recruit the Maximoff twins.  Multiple battles ensue!  By the end of the movie, I had only the vaguest notion of what was happening!  There are many characters (each dealing with their own inner demons through the use of flashbacks which are often confusing), multiple subplots, a myriad of locations (there were many times where I wondered where the Avengers were and how they got there), and very little exposition.  But all of that hardly matters because the movie is just so much fun!  (It was especially fun with the late night crowd, many of whom were dressed in character!)  The dialogue is so funny with all of the great acerbic quips we've come to expect from Tony Stark.  I particularly loved his throwaway line about being in a Eugene O'Neill play and his banter with Steve Rogers about the use of bad language is hilarious.  The battle scenes are awesome and Ultron (James Spader is a great villain, in my opinion) is a worthy foe for the assembled Avengers!  I loved it!  Fans of the franchise will definitely enjoy this movie but people not familiar with the other movies might find it hard to follow.

Note:  Don't be like me (and almost everyone in my audience) and stay through all of the credits.  There is one mid-credits scene involving Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet (setting up the next Avengers movies) but that is all.

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