Movie Review

Published: May 14,2015 | Posted: May 19, 2015 | Written by: Treva Flores

Action, romance and comedic relief seem to be the three main ingredients for a Marvel movie. In a world full of superheroes with incredible powers it’s impossible not to become entangled in their lives.

From the perspective of a person who has never read the comics, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” was fun to watch.

The movie overall felt longer than it needed to be at an extensive two hours and 22 minutes. There were a lot of drawn out dialogue that barely kept the story going and felt out of place. Most of these talks were about Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and The Incredible Hulk’s (Mark Ruffalo) budding romance.

The new romance made absolutely no impact on the plot and felt unnecessary overall.

Although a lot of important character development happened it would have been better to give Black Widow her own movie.

This movie also felt lengthy because it was mostly setting up for the second half of the film. The setup took way too long, but the ending action made it worth the wait. The scenes with Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olson) made more of an impact than anything else as their characters switched from villains to heroes.

The comedic relief of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) unleashed their witty one-liners. There were also many continuous jokes that were tossed around from the opening to the ending scene. The running joke did feel a little tiresome, but for the most part remained funny.

It was great to see more of Hawkeye’s (Jeremy Renner) character, as the Avengers laid low at his house with his wife and children. Seeing the buffed up heroes hanging out in a relatively normal environment made the characters seem more down to earth with real lives to live outside of saving the world.

Captain America (Chris Evans) was just the butt of everyone’s jokes. He was mostly part of the setup for Civil War as he continuously bantered with Iron Man; overall his character was flat and unmemorable.

Ultron (James Spader) was one of Marvel’s most intimidating villains, but his part felt rushed.

His introduction didn’t really occur until the second half of the film, yet when he was introduced the film picked up the pace. Jarvis (Paul Bettany) became the savior as he turned into the Vision and battled Ultron. Vision was the most exciting character seeing as he’s the only Avenger besides Thor who can pick up the hammer, Mjölnir.

Many feminists disagreed with this film and claimed that director and writer Joss Whedon ruined their strong female character, Black Widow. In a rampant uproar they sent Whedon profanities and death threats.

The feminist issues mostly focus on Black Widow’s character. There was first a dispute when Evans and Renner called her a “slut” after being asked about rumors of Black Widow wanting to be in a relationship with Hawkeye and Captain America.

The two later apologized with Renner stating to Entertainment Weekly, “I am sorry that this tasteless joke about a fictional character offended anyone. It was not meant to be serious in any way. Just poking fun during an exhausting and tedious press tour.”

Renner has a point, although media representation is important in the end these are fictional characters with fictional lives. There is no justification for sending death threats to someone via the Internet.

Black Widow’s relationship with The Incredible Hulk was also arguable. I agree that the relationship was unnecessary, but I don’t think it ruined Black Widow’s character. Almost all of the men are in relationships, so it shouldn’t seem unusual for her character to become romantically involved with someone.

Black Widow is just as strong as ever and it’s pretty amazing that she can calm the Incredible Hulk down without getting killed.

Another Black Widow issue is that she refers to herself as a monster after revealing that she can’t have children. However, she wasn’t the only one calling herself a monster. In the film Captain America said, “Yeah, what kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them in order to protect their country?”

In fact each of the characters called themselves or one another a monster and Black Widow was not alone. There was a feeling of brokenness throughout the film, but each character proved that they could do good for the world as long as they worked as a team.

Overall the movie was very successful in its debut. According to box office numbers “Avengers: Age of  Ultron” made $188 million during its domestic opening following as a close second to the first “Avengers” movie that made $207 million. 

Although it was not the most perfect film it was still enjoyable and entertaining to watch.

3/5 stars