Movie reviews can sometimes be too personal, opinionated and highly subjective. Because of this, The Daily SuperHero will only post a "quick review" with bullet points of hits and misses in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON.
Obviously there could be an endless amount of hits and misses, which can also be viewed as opinion-based, but here's five of each that stand out (to me) the most:
HITS
- The Vision and Hawkeye - Vision is pleasantly weird and perfectly cast. There needs to be more Vision sooner than later, please. Hawkeye finally got his time to shine in the spotlight after being a zombie in the first film and his quips were funny: "We are fighting an army of robots ... and I have a bow and arrow."
- Fantastic hero team-up moments like: Thor using Captain America's shield as a baseball, Vision using Thor's hammer, Black Widow handing off Cap's shield while he was battling Ultron on top of the truck, etc.
- Comedy moments were great like: Vision handing Thor his hammer, Hulkbuster Iron Man punching Hulk over and over and over again, Rhodey trying to get some laughs out of his story, etc.
- The set-up work done for Phase 3 films: CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, BLACK PANTHER and THOR: RAGNAROK.
- Infinity Stone twist of Vision having it and being the Mind Stone, which probably means Adam Warlock won't be the Soul Stone as he is in the comic universe because having two characters as Stones may be too redundant. But this also means Thanos is most likely going after Vision and that battle should be glorious!
MISSES
- Villain issues. Lack of character development with Ultron who shouldn't have been killed and should have been able to download himself to escape, which Vision prevented. Also, Marvel Studios has been saying how Ultron was an immature teenager in this movie but killing him off prevents seeing a more mature and psychopathic Ultron... unless they retcon him, of course. Baron Strucker was killed off way too fast. Both villains were simply plot devices and are now irrelevant for the future of the MCU.
- Too many choppy close-ups during action scenes which were a bit jarring and seemed like bad editing during post-production.
- Too much revealed for the Hulk and Hulkbuster fight in trailers, TV spots and clips. Just stop releasing so many trailer, spots and clips in advance and let these great movie moments play out in the theater.
- This is a double-edged sword complaint. As a standalone movie, the plot doesn't do this sequel any favors as it has to set up multiple Phase 3 films and ends more open-ended than any previous MCU film because you know more is coming.
- Tony Stark not being freaked out that he nearly destroyed the planet at the end. He was too calm and simply drove away when he should have been a bit more distraught which would have led into his CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR showdown/fallout with Steve Rogers.
Final Thoughts:
Again, this is just one guy's opinion of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON and some hits and misses may not affect others as much as it does for me. But in the end, Age of Ultron is a very fun and entertaining movie that gives fans a little bit of everything they wanted to see in the sequel. It may not have made as big of an impression on me as THE AVENGERS did, but it was still great to see the team back together with new team members!
7 out of 10