In Review: "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

To preface this review, I'm a nerd when it comes to superhero stuff. I haven't always been this way, but ever since the first Avengers movie, I have gobbled this stuff right up. And people like me, who have seen all of the Marvel and even X-Men movies made, will feel spasms of fandom bubbling to the surface when they watch this movie. Unlike the previous Avengers film, this movie is really made for true fans of the superhero world that has been created in the last 3 years. Which is quite a lot of people.

The Story

If you are keeping track of this timeline of the Marvel Universe, we left our heroes with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. SHIELD has been disbanded with the goal to rebuild and start over. Loki's staff has been stolen by HYDRA who is using it to experiment (enter Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) (This is all a post credits scene).

So naturally, the Avengers are looking for Loki's staff and raiding various HYDRA bases to stamp it all out for good. Tony Stark seems to be free of his panic attacks (seen in Iron Man 3) but not his fear of not being able to protect the world and his friends. So once they find the staff, Tony convinces Banner to tap into the power of the mystical object to find out its secrets, namely how it was able to create the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. And they end up creating a monster- Ultron. A robot who thinks the only way to save the world is to destroy it (you'd think they would all learn by now!)

The Stars

Everybody's back- Iron Man (RDJ), The Cap'n (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Agent Hill (Cobie Smulders)(aka my Halloween costume next year ;) ), War Machine/Iron Patriot (Don Cheadle), and Falcon (Anthony Mackie). Unfortunately Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Jane (Natalie Portman) are missing.

The characters get a chance to develop a little bit, at least the ones who haven't had their own individual series - Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Hulk. We discover a whole new side of Hawkeye who is much more likable than we had previously thought, and the idea of HawkWidow fades away and we are not sad about it. Which is really quite shocking.

The Message

Tony has been the most fun character to play with in these movies so far. He is almost our antihero because he gets to be the hero with all of the flaws- making us love him even more.

But this interesting concept comes out of this movie that really stuck with me- the idea that we become the thing we fear the most and that in turn we can't tell the difference between saving and damning. The more we try to prevent bad things from happening we are actually making them happen even quicker than they would have. The idea that fear has so much power and control over us that it can destroy us.

I don't know if the film completely solved this dilemma (possibly to use it as material for the next film), but it did say one thing- you can't defeat this fear by yourself. It's not something you can hide away from and hope it goes away. You need to ask your friends and family for the support and be brave enough to open up about it. And I think this speaks to all people who suffer from debilitating fears such as depression and anxiety to name a few. We need to reach out to others for help because we can't defeat the fear on our own.

Overall

In my opinion, this was the lesser of the two Avenger films so far. It was not a funny (though there was a fun scene with an intoxicant party of superheroes). The action was not as exciting or inventive. There were no cool alien designs or costumes to look at, which may have been to redirect the focus of the film on the internal struggle of the characters.

It's not one I'd want to pop in for a feel-good superhero movie, but it is one I would want to watch in succession with all of the other Marvel films to connect all of the dots and marvel at the brilliance of this complex and epic example of storytelling.

2.5 out of 4 Mind Stones (watch the movie, you'll know what it is)