First things first: I said back in my Captain America: The Winter Soldier review that I could really feel the absence of Joss Whedon on the writing staff, and now, in Age of Ultron, you can really tell that he's back. He brings a light touch to the dialogue that's missing in so much of the genre, and bless him, it saves this movie from a godawful plot.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Also, don't take that as me not enjoying it. The plot was silly and ridiculous and too involved in itself, but it's an Avengers movie. Let's face it, I'm there to watch the heroes kick some bad guy ass, and everything that works beyond that is gravy. There's plenty of gravy; it's just not in the plot.
So, breaking it down.
Plot
Tony Stark builds an AI (Ultron) to help the Avengers, and it decides to kill them, and everyone else, instead. In the course of this, Jarvis the previous AI gets an indestructible vibranium body (and ceases to be solely Tony's AI), Thor has visions, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch (unnamed by code name on screen) are evil and turn good, Hawkeye plans home improvement projects between Avenging assignments, everyone tries Thor's hammer, Hulk and Black Widow canoodle, Black Widow doubts herself, Hulk smashes a town, they take down an arms dealer, Cap learns to swear (because somehow he got through WWII without ever dealing with swearing soldiers), Tony goes through an existential crisis, Nick Fury dusts off a helicarrier, and, oh, yeah, Ultron decides to scoop up a piece of Eastern Europe and drop it to cause an extinction level event. And there's also a body being created, a scientist being mind-controlled, a party, and Iron Patriot/War Machine doesn't impress the Avengers with his stories. (Cheer up, guy... I wanted to hear the rest of that tank story, at least!)
Yup, this is a pretty crowded plot, and if you aren't an action movie person, don't bother trying to follow it. It's not going to suddenly come together and create a beautiful whole. Just take it as it comes. Something has to link up one set piece to another. It sort of works on its own logic, but it's a good illustration of why I can't get into comic books. By comics standards, this is pretty distilled. After all, they have to keep churning the things out month after month ad infinitum, so they have to make them dense.
For me, the plot is just... well, what they use to stick everyone on screen, and I'm okay with that. It didn't stick as well as the last one, but whatevs. It got the heroes suited up and on screen, and that's all that's really needed of it.
For the record, I firmly believe that if you don't have a taste for the ridiculous from time to time, you shouldn't go to movies about people in silly costumes fighting robots, and if you do go to them, you shouldn't bitch about it it being ridiculous. Of course it's ridiculous. So are most things I like, from Odysseus hiding under a giant sheep and cracking jokes at a Cyclops to Princess Leia's metal bikini. We all make our myths somewhere, and there's a good reason that we have flocked to these stories since the beginning of storytelling. (This guy covers it pretty well.)
Character
Given how much was going on, there was a surprising amount of character work here, largely through the medium of the nightmares Wanda (the Scarlet Witch) gives to everyone to isolate them from each other. What people fear is often a good window into them. Tony Stark imagines being responsible for the deaths of his friends -- given that he started out as nearly sociopathic in his refusal to connect to people that says a lot without anyone pounding at it. We find out the depths of what was done to Natasha when she was trained as a spy (it's fairly horrifying -- and I have to say, I had a random idea for a Black Widow script, which her vision would lead into wonderfully). Cap has a throwaway line about being "the world's leading expert in waiting too long," which is the essence of his vision -- but also something he acknowledges easily about himself, which is why it doesn't incapacitate him. And of course, Bruce Banner is utterly terrified of the Hulk, leading to his feeling of utter betrayal when Nat says she adores him, but needs "the other guy"... forcing him to turn into the monster. Thor is terrified that things are falling apart on Asgard. Aside from the nightmares, we meet Hawkeye's very normal family, and see his desire to protect them. We hear about Wanda and Pietro's horrible history (town bombed by people using Stark tech), but also see them immediately change when the realize that Ultron isn't really there to help.
This is actually some very nice work, character-wise. Unlike the plotting, I felt like all the character lines were solid, and connected from beginning to end, and like I came out of the theater knowing each team member a little better, and having a better idea of them as a team.
Style
This is definitely a Joss Whedon joint. Whenever the bizarrely overplotted stuff starts to get too heavy, he lightens the load with a little bit of humor. Unlike The Winter Soldier, which often seemed heavily convinced of its own Deep Importance, Age of Ultron seems to understand that it's a popcorn flick... and that there's nothing wrong with that. (You could always tell when Whedon came back to Buffy after a bit, too, for the same reason. He seems to understand that the material he's working with is ridiculous, but by acknowledging its very ridiculousness, gets beyond it and does really neat stuff.)
The fight choreography is gorgeous. There's a shot that even beats the on the street circle in the first movie, where the Avengers are fighting together around a drill to keep the city from dropping. Cap goes spinning over a couple of robots while Wanda blasts them with magic and Pietro runs around and Hawkeye shoots... it's a money shot.
It would be silly to pretend it's not an FX movie (this is not an insult), and the FX are great. No complaints. I love the Ultron CGI. Nothing else is wildly new, but it was all smooth and didn't make me stop to say, "Oh. I guess that was an effect." Which is what special effects should do.
Setting
Eh, okay. We get jerked around a lot, from Avengers headquarters to two fictional countries (Wakanda, where vibranium is mined, and Sokovia, where they fight the big battle). And Hawkye's farm. And everyone's memories. And the helicarrier. There's not as strong a sense of place when Marvel leaves New York. I have a strong desire to have the next installment take place in Western New York (specifying it from the vague and non-descriptive "upstate" that they use to describe where they are at the end), and get them to film in Letchworth. Tell me it wouldn't be awesome to have heroic antics amid scenes like this.)
But nothing to write home about this time, except maybe the psychological effect of visiting the Barton farm, which seems to set everyone thinking about the future.
Theme
There are two themes running through it. The first is, of course, the science fiction standard: DON'T MESS WITH THAT THING. No, seriously, DON'T MESS WITH IT. It's somewhat subverted when Tony actually manages to create a new hero as well as a new villain, but it's definitely a question they're all asking themselves -- not just should Ultron have been created, but should they have been? ("I miss the time when the weirdest thing science created was me," Cap quips.)
The other theme is about keeping the team together, when everyone is being pulled in different directions. They don't ultimately succeed, either. But through the course of the film, we see them working through it. There were some terrific scenes of Thor and Cap using their signature weapons together, of Bruce and Tony working together (yay for more engineering geek scenes!), Hawkeye's kids loving their "Aunt Nat," and possibly my favorite moment, Black Widow using Cap's shield. Something about that really worked well for me. I think it's that she was doubting herself through much of the movie, but really claimed that heroic mantle that's often eluded her. The fact that isn't commented on is what makes it work. If you have to draw attention to a visual symbol, it fails. She just rides her bike with the shield on the front, and you know -- she's in. No running away, and no more, "Am I really a hero?" stuff.
Other
Little things:
While I enjoyed the idea of Cap/Nat as a ship, I think Whedon did something way more interesting here, both with Cap and Hawkeye, who fandom had so much wanted to pair her with romantically: They were her friends. Hawkeye actually emerges as her family, her best friend, her big brother. Cap is her friend and equal partner. And no one in the whole scenario (except a pair of actors who should have known better, but they did it off screen) acts like there's anything unusual about it.
I was really nervous after Winter Soldier that they were going to have Cap go cynical, which was almost pre-emptively boring me. But they didn't. He's dealing with the world, and maybe has more questions than he would have in the '40s, but he's still the guy who was chosen for the program because he's a decent, solid human being who is trying, against all odds, to do good.
I really liked that the script essentially brought back SHIELD as good guys -- they fixed the problem and got the helicarrier back up (though not under official auspices). It fits better with the actual events of Winter Soldier -- in which at least half the agents were good guys -- than the "Tear it all down" mantra that was going on there. No, getting infiltrated by bad guys doesn't make you corrupt, any more than getting duped by a con man makes you an accessory.
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