Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner
Director: Joss Whedon
Three stars
It will surely stand as one of the most peculiar, and possibly ironic, entries in a director's filmography that in between Joss Whedon's two Avengers films lies Much Ado About Nothing, a low-budget, black-and-white Shakespeare adaptation sandwiched between two blockbusters.
In Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sequel to the third-highest-grossing film of all time, there is definitely plenty ado-ing. Too much, in fact – but then we come to watch the Avengers films, at least in part, for their clown-car excess of superheroes.
What binds Whedon's Shakespeare with his action spectacles are the quips, which sail in iambic pentameter in one and zigzag between explosions in the others. The Avengers (2012) should have had more of them, and there's even less room in the massive – and massively overstuffed – Age of Ultron for Whedon's dry, self-referential wit.
It delves deeper into emotionality and complexity, adding up to a full but not particularly satisfying meal of franchise-building, leaving only a breadcrumb trail of Whedon’s banter to follow through the rubble.
The action starts with the Avengers – Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Chris Evans’s Captain America, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye – assaulting a remote HYDRA base in Sokovia, a fictional Eastern European nation.
Their powers are as varied (supernatural, technological, mythological, lab experiments gone wrong) as their flaws (Iron Man’s narcissism, the Hulk’s rage, Black Widow’s regrets).
Downey’s glib Tony Stark/Iron Man is the lead-singer equivalent of this supergroup and, I suspect, the one Whedon likes writing for the most. “I’ve had a long day,” he sighs. “Eugene O’Neill long.”
What Age of Ultron has going for it, as such references prove, is a sense of fun, a lack of self-seriousness that persists even when things start going kablooey – something not always evident in other faux-serious superhero films. (I'm looking at you, Man of Steel.)
In Sokovia, they encounter the duplicitous twins Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). She can read minds and he’s lightning quick. They, however, aren’t the movie’s real villains: that’s the titular Ultron, an artificial intelligence that the Scarlet Witch slyly leads Stark to create, developing not the global protection system he intends, but a maniacal Frankenstein born, thankfully, with some of his creator’s drollness.
Ultron (voiced by James Spader) builds himself a muscular metallic body and, in pursuit of the supposed objective of world peace, begins amassing a robot army to rid the planet of human (and Avenger) life.
Spader plays Ultron too similarly to other mechanical monsters to equal Tom Hiddleston's great Loki, the villain of the first Avengers film. But Spader's jocular menace adds plenty – wickedly humming the Pinocchio melody I've Got No Strings, for example.
But the drama of Age of Ultron lies only partly in the battle with Ultron. The film is really focused on the fraying dysfunction of the Avengers themselves and their existential quandaries as proficient killers now untethered from SHIELD, which was effectively dismantled by the events of last year's Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Most successful are the tender scenes between Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk and Johansson’s former Russian spy. She soothes Ruffalo’s enraged “big guy” with her soft voice, holding his hand until he shrinks back to Banner.
There’s not a wrong note in the cast, but the dive into the vulnerability of the Avengers doesn’t add much depth (is the home life of an archer called Hawkeye really important?) and saps the film’s zip.
The many character arcs – of the Avengers, the bad guys and the new characters – are simply too much to tackle, even for a master juggler like Whedon.
Paul Bettany, until now only the voice of Iron Man’s computer, JARVIS, arrives late as The Vision, a preternaturally poised, floating robotic hero.
The film’s hefty machinery – the action sequences, the sequel baiting – suck up much of the movie’s oxygen, and the mammoth action scenes have a habit of crushing the smaller moments. There is little as enjoyable, for example, as when the team is just sitting around musing about the physics governing Thor’s hammer.
In the relentless march forward of the Marvel juggernaut, Age of Ultron feels like a movie trying to stay light on its feet only to get swallowed up by a greater power: the Franchise.
* AP
