|
 Would
it be possible? How could even the superpower known as the mind of Joss
Whedon top the superpower known as the mind of Joss Whedon? The first
Avengers movie in 2012 was a dynamo; a near-perfect blend of action,
excellent performances and the whipsmart humour that’s been Whedon’s
signature since his creation of modern pop culture classics, Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The wry,
witty script elevated the film beyond standard superhero fare, made the
characters indelible and raised the bar on the expectations of Marvel
Universe movies to come. We saw that effect with Thor: The Dark World
and Captain America: The Winter Soldier both surpassing their sires, and
Guardians of the Galaxy, which brilliantly used humour to draw audiences
into a world of lesser-known heroes. In the midst of these other worthy
entries, where would Avengers: Age of Ultron place in the pantheon set
by its own predecessor?
To
Infinity Stone and beyond…. Well, it is a Disney property, ne? These
fragments of power floating around the universe are all slowly coming
together and making their way - on their own or assisted - toward
earth. The former Cosmic Cube - currently called the Tessaract - is
one, and presently in the hands of stealthy nemesis of freedom, Hydra,
who have all sorts of plans for it, before a handful of heroes ambushes
the villains’ Sokovian fortress to get it back. The Avengers have been
training; their fighting teamwork is near-seamless as they take on
hundreds of enemy troops. What they don’t count on is the debut of some
new faces. Sadly, they can’t see those faces very well, because one
moves so fast as to be a blur, if not completely invisible, and the
other can do funny things to the mind to make her victims forget they
ever saw her. “The Twins” had been under wraps; deemed not quite ready
for action, but the siblings champ at the bit to show what they can do.
Pietro neutralises Hawkeye’s whizzing arrows, while Wanda allows Iron
Man, Tony Stark, to get just close enough to the Tessaract before
scrambling his brains a bit, allowing the pair to flee while giving the
girl insight to Stark’s next move. “Peace in our time” has become
Tony’s new mantra. He is determined to secure the globe against the
invaders he knows firsthand are out there, and his examination of the
artificial intelligence possibilities endowed by the blue orb gives him
the motivation to go about it. By taking his virtual butler,
J.A.R.V.I.S.’ programming, juicing it up with the Tessaract and
inserting it into an Iron Man shell, Tony hopes to create a sort of
über- J.A.R.V.I.S. with security potential. A droid that can take on
the space invaders that have put the earth so on edge. The catch is
that Tony - with the help of his fellow genius, the reluctant but
fascinated Bruce Banner - doesn’t want to tell the rest of his crew,
thereby pretty much chucking that whole “team” thing out the window.
After
repeated failures, the Ultron program suddenly jolts to life (kinda
like Frankenstein) as the team are celebrating their Sokovian
victory. The program only takes moments to absorb all the information
about humanity and all of our less-than-humane moments via the
internet. Ultron’s security programming quite rightly decides we are a
threat to ourselves, and as he is able to upgrade himself into a bigger,
better Ultron, the sentient droid has decreed that we, too, shall evolve
or die. Using Daddy Stark’s tech and equipment against him, Ultron
recruits the super siblings, heads back to that Eastern European
fortress and begins the end of the world. A shattered and tattered good
guy team fed up with Ultron and fed up with each other must come to
terms with how to get past their differences and mistrust to outthink
the misguided android son of Tony Stark.
My
faith was shaken. After the initial giddiness of watching the Marvel
comic logo speed across the screen, my mood dropped during an opening
sequence that was surely meant to start audiences cheering. We watch
The Avengers, in total sync with each other, use their combat talents to
plow through a forest full of Hydra agents. Thor’s hammer’s a-flying.
Iron Man’s rays are repulsing. Zing goes the string of Hawkeye’s bow.
Captain America has found a solution to that whole having to stop and
fetch his vibranium shield after hurling it issue. Black Widow’s
stinging away. Hulk is hulking out, seemingly with some intelligence
and control, as opposed to the wild, rage-filled attacks on his nearest
target. Times are good. However, the CGI is awful. I could swear I
saw strings during the wirework. The opening is one of the most
awkwardly CGI-looking things I’ve seen in a recent Marvel film. There
are moments that look jarringly fake, and not because they are only
superhumanly possible; there’s something off about the camerawork, SFX
and editing of that scene, which even includes a slow-motion group hero
portrait in case you weren’t sure you should be cheering. It’s sloppy.
My high began to turn into a narrowed side-eye as I began to suspect
that all would not go as well for this chapter as I’d hoped.
The
bad news, first. There’s just something lesser overall about this movie
compared to the first film. It can’t get away from a comparison,
either, because by now and through the insistence on weaving plotlines
together, there’s way too much residual stuff in the other films of the
recent Universe that needs to be seen in order for Age of Ultron to be
fully understood. The freshness and exuberance of the original is gone,
and in its place is way too much of the humour, which is laced into
practically every line of dialog, but unlike the 2012 movie, sometimes
those lines fall flat. Flowing effortlessly in the original, it feels
forced and conspicuous here. Another obvious bit of fanservice is the
ton of cast cameos, which I will not spoil, but begins to feel
gratuitous after the fourth nonessential, but amusing character turns
up.
The
pacing is unfortunate. I don’t know what was going in Whedon’s writing
process, but he strains to pack in all the threads. Besides the big
action set pieces, there’s all the background elements; introducing The
Twins and Ultron, recovering the remnants of good guy base, S.H.I.E.L.D.
after its destruction in The Winter Soldier, working out Wanda’s
hypnotic hallucination sequences, and then supplying an emotional
element with Hawkeye’s family and the most ill-fitting love story ever
written, between Black Widow and Hulk. This is one convoluted script.
The latter of these is especially painful because Whedon spends so much
time trying to convince us how made for each other Bruce and Natasha
are, and really, despite Mark Ruffalo’s indisputable charms, this film’s
Bruce Banner is even more hesitant and mousy than the 2012 guy, who
could at least get in a good one-liner from time to time. The King
Kong/Beauty and the Beast comparisons are obvious and the romance
overall is clunky, tedious and momentum-killing. Making up for
Hawkeye’s overall lack of screen time in his two previous appearances (Thor
and The Avengers) by giving him some cringe-inducing family time on
the safehouse farm, was not fair compensation. (Though discovering
that Captain America doesn’t need an axe to chop firewood was pretty
neat). By that same token, the moral ambiguities and existential
doubts plaguing Captain America in the first Avengers and The Winter
Soldier, are almost magically whisked away in order to get him up and
fighting. Ultron’s origins seem strangely rushed and a lot of the
explanations about the various gems, stones, orbs, and other magical or
extragalactic elements zoom by.
And
then there is Ultron. His comic book parentage has been given over to
Tony Stark, instead of the yet-to-be-introduced, scientist Hank Pym {Ant
Man}. Ultron is a (micro) chip off the old block; sharing
unexpected, and often megalomaniacal personality traits with his maker,
and quoting Stark as needed to justify his mission. Visually, when we
first see him as a recycled member of Stark’s Iron Legion of J.A.R.V.I.S.-driven
metal foot soldiers, it’s difficult for the audience to make out his
details. That does get much better until we see the final version of
his evolution, and even then, his design isn’t all that impressive. I
was excited when James Spader, who I’ve long adored for his dry wit and
backhanded delivery, was signed to voice Ultron. What I didn’t expect
was that I would not be able to stop remembering that this was James
Spader voicing Ultron. I never lost the actor in the character. lt
never truly becomes Ultron with any memorable inflection or signature,
and that took me out of the moment several times, as it just felt like
James Spader was reading the script, while the CGI android was moving
onscreen. Very unsettling.
Unsettling is also the word I’d use for the arrival of another
character, whose identity I won’t spoil, but who is one of my favourites
in the Marvel pantheon. However, when the character is brought to life
and embodied, instead of having the imposing, somber but cool appearance
in the comics, the actor under the all-over body makeup and costume
looks and sounds disconcertingly like The Great Gazoo from the
Flintstones cartoon.
The
good stuff, and there’s a bunch: For all that I mentioned the cameos,
they are fun until they pile up. I won’t spoil, but there was such an
obvious character that should have been seen, one felt a little like
Pavlov’s dog waiting for the moment to come and it doesn’t. The
presence of Don Cheadle in anything just makes things better, so it goes
with his appearance at The Avengers’ party and his inability to impress
his colleagues with his own stories as War Machine, which knock the
socks off mortal men. Thor’s freaking hilarious this time around, full
of Asgardian mirth and hubris. His reaction to his teammates’
increasingly serious attempts to lift Mjolnir, the hammer destined only
for Thor’s hand, are a hoot. And to be a girl-type for a second; the
moments when Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans – still owning all as
Captain America – are side by side in the same frame should come with a
warning.
The
battle between a Hulk driven mad by Wanda’s mental suggestion and Iron
Man in a squat, but mighty mecha suit is fierce and furious, and once
again the Hulk is really scary. Screaming with rage, destroying
everything in his path in the African nation of Wakanda (foreshadowing,
here we come) and nothing even the most brilliant man in the world
can think of will stop him.
The
big car chase after Ultron in Korea is CGI-tastic, but still fun.
There’s the great use of Seoul’s cinema-ready highways and bridges,
woefully absent in western films, and when the race takes to the air,
the bright landscape of the city frames the action excellently.
“The
Twins” are great, particularly Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Pietro, AKA
Quicksilver, whose cheeky confidence in speed over everything and
fetching silver hair make him a memorable addition. Elizabeth Olsen is
tremulous and fragile as Wanda, and one wonders why exactly Hydra didn’t
want them in the field, yet? The bond between the two is very sweet,
despite a somewhat hokey backstory. Pity some behind-the-scenes movie
company nonsense keeps the screenplay from referring to them properly as
“Mutants,” making us instead hear them called “Enhanced” over and over.
I also side-eyed that she is never actually referred to as Scarlet
Witch, nor are her powers called hexes. Maybe in the next one?
Better
than your average sequel, yet less sharp, fresh and energetic than I’d
hoped, there’s still plenty to enjoy about Avengers: Age of Ultron that
makes it well worth the tons of dosh it is certain to pull in this
weekend and probably several more to come.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
May 1st,
2015
© 2006-2022 The Diva Review.com
|
