Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansen and Jeremy Renner are teaming it up again and looking for things from the first film. They smash and crash and arrow people in order to recover the mind control staff thing Tom Hiddlestone used to cause a little havoc. They find it and RDJ decides the crystal thing THAT WAS USED FOR UNSPEAKABLE EVIL would make a great building block for artificial intelligence. Said artificial intellingence turns out to be a homicidal James Spader and RDJ and the gang need to get the non twin Olsen, Kick Ass and a whole bucket load of SHIELD people to help beat James before death and stuff goes down. Oh yeah and there's a colourful Paul Bettany in there aswell.

I have said it before and I will say it again, I am a supergeek who loves all things Marvel. I mean I even own the dreadful Hulk that starred Eric Bana and I've watched it all the way through and everything. Excitement levels were at an all time high walking into the theatre to watch this latest Marvel offering and it pains me to say that I was ever so slightly disappointed. The story is very good and the slight shifts in the superhero lore flow very well and are very cleverly handled. The acting is top notch from all parties and the new additions to the cast, Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, are pretty spot on. There is a lot of humour involved as always and overall it fits nicely into the narrative if a little forced in places. The action is ramped up and is nothing short of spectacular with Hulk vs Ironman a particular highlight. Joss Whedon is a man who knows how to make one hell of a spectacular film without alienating the die hard comic fans like myself. Now onto the problems.

As I said before the humour sometimes felt a little forced and this is no more evident than when Ultron himself is in the spotlight. Now he is not exactly a stand up but he does make the odd quip which feels very much out of place. When we first meet Ultron he is newly formed, in a broken, mangled body with a broken, mangled voice and is genuinely terrifying as a prospect. The shame of it all is that once Ultron gets a shiny new body he loses a little of his presence and just isn't as scary. I'm not saying I didn't like the new Ultron I just preferred the tone of the first encounter with him and wish they had stuck with that. There are also a couple of romantic story arcs in the film which feel a little out of place and honestly I could have done without them, particularly with Scarlett Johansen who has possibly the most irritating sexy voice in the film industry. This in and of itself is annoying as she is a brilliant actress and not light on sex appeal anyway so why she feels the need to overact it god only knows. Finally I have to mention Paul Bettanys Vision character, sorry if this is a spoiler for you, who is done very well but I wasn't fully sold on him. Yes this is mainly because I don't really like The Vision as a character, or a name for that matter, but it just didn't gel for me and the disappointment started to eek back in.

Overall this is a cracking watch and very well done it's just not as good as the previous film or a lot of the individual character films. Admittedly that doesn't mean much as the standard of Marvel films is remarkably high and consistently so. Great job all round.

Verdict: 4.5/5