Joss Whedon, writer-director-producer at Marvel serves us, yet again, more witty quips, banter and this time at least a tighter script but is this the Empire Strikes Back of the Marvel Cinematic Universe aka MCU or are Marvel's one trick pony skills starting to show?
Depending on your answer, you will either enjoy the movie (like the fan boys in Rosebank who were jumping around like they were watching a movie at Carlton Centre) or you will watch it and feel it was fun but…
Let's start with what works: the tag teams and team combos are super during the fight sequences - when you can see what's happening (ja nee CGI sometimes is a bit dodgy especially the first 20 minutes). There are some great fights here including one with Tony Stark and the Hulk in the middle of the Jozi CBD, which is done very well.
The humour is brilliant just like in the first Avengers movie - there are lots of one liners, comebacks that are laugh-out-loud moments and some clever pay-offs too. Paul Bettany’s The Vision is a marvel, so is a certain cameo appearance of one
Ulysses Klaw - Black Panther's nemesis… actually the script is way better than the first movie. It’s like the guys at Marvel where watching Man Of Steel and tried to tweak all the stuff that fandom had an issues with.
The themes are more cohesive: how far should one go to save the world? How do our fears create situations we're scared of? There’s more character "journey-ish" for the different heroes, even poor Hawkeye is given more screen time this time round.
Yet plot wise the characters are stuck at the same points they were in in the previous movies before this. Tony Stark, who's basically our “starring” is still dealing with the same issues from Iron Man 3, so is Captain America who's still at the same point as in Winter Soldier etc. Don’t be surprised if they still have the same issues come Civil War and The Infinity Gauntlet. So Ultron is deep in place holder status.
Then there’s the comedy... sheesh Ultron's quips take away from him being menacing and it's bad enough that someone decided to give him a mouth to talk through!? It's just distracting, his CG mouth and Tony Stark inspired humour is terribly distracting.
The first two quips were cool but it became this whole character thing... which is kinda explained in the movie via his relationship to Tony but it makes the villain too cartoony - he is not menacing or threatening at all. The quips work with Loki but Ultron mmmh.
Winter Soldier was able to handle the change in tone from humour to "Now we getting serious a little bit," better than Avengers - which is permanently set on kiddie safe mode. Then there’s Quicksilver who is underutilized. For me the X-Men: Days of Future Past Quicksilver comes off way better than this one. Then there’s how every country is marked except “the African coast”!? In 2015!! Hollywood still does not think much of us on this continent.
Anyhow, if you want your entertainment very light, cartoony and witty then Avengers is for you but if you're looking for anything ‘darker’ with real tension, wait for next years Batman vs Superman.
Avengers 2 will probably do well at the box office but it's actually not memorable at all - the trailer oversold it... based on the trailer we were promised, "An Empire Strikes Back" but instead we got, "The Phantom Menace" with Ultron almost straying into Jar Jar Binks territory. Actually one of my cousins summed up Avengers 2 quite well: "a bad robot day out"... that kinda puts everything in perspective.
Rating **1/2
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index
* Junk **Almost bearable ***Now we cooking **** Almost perfect ***** Classic
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