Avengers 2: Age of Ultron

[tinker683]

Oh, James Spader...how awesome you are...

 

[ceecee]

He just keeps getting better and better.

 

[Totenkindly]

Love James Spader, always did. He's even cooler now that he's not a pretty boy.

The trailer doesn't clarify much, but I think it's great they are actually focusing on Ultron. It likely will tie into the "Civil Wars" movie they plan to make down the road.

I like Whedon in that he's great at merging humor and drama while still having a forward-moving plot, and he's also good at teasing out the humanity within particular characters and storylines that might be overlooked by other directors in that genre.

 

[Totenkindly]

I just saw the trailer on large IMAX screen.
Made my skin crawl and a bit teary cuz I was freaked out (in the good way).

They should at least pay the trailer guys a hefty bit for that piece of advertising, even if the movie sucks.

 

[Totenkindly]

Two months until the Avengers 2 hits the theaters.


For people without much comics background (or even if you do), I found this ranking of Avengers members interesting, if not also just a walk down memory lane. (I know most of them.)

Every Member Of The Avengers, Ranked

 

[Cellmold]

Just finished watching it.

Enjoyed it. Bit tired at the moment for anything in-depth but I notice a fair few people criticising Ultron's portrayal. I liked it, it wasn't what was expected, which is exactly what I like to see.

Ultron is strangely flippant, if I were to choose a personality trait that stands out, but flippancy with a genocidal edge to it. But that fits with how he is influenced by Stark's personality.

 

[Totenkindly]

It's not out here until next week, so I saw a matinee of Ex Machina instead. Great movie, very small cast; reminded me of Under the Skin in some ways, probably the opposite of A2 in terms of action and scope.

Anyway, looking forward to A2 releasing here.

 

[Nico_D]

It liked it but was also a bit disappointed. It might be because of 3D glasses, I hate those things, they bother me take me out of the experience. But still, there isn't enough time to flesh out the story properly when you have a cast this big. Whedon does a decent job and there's some truly awesome fight sequences. I expect the film work better the second time around.

 

[Frosty]

Hm I could never sit through Avengers 1. I'd watch the first 15 minutes and get bored. But if 2 is coming out, guess its time to get back to the basics.

 

[Evil Otter]

Okay movie... but very forgettable. I already forgot how it ends... or maybe I fell asleep I don't remember. Either way the movie was more like an episode of the Avengers TV show they have for kids than a top-production movie. I guess it just didn't seem like any of it mattered by the end of the movie. Oh and Whedon... what's with reverting all the female characters back to stereotypical love-interests and variations of damsels in distress? Seriously what the crap?

 

[Totenkindly]

Saw it in IMAX 3D. I thought Ultron was pretty cool, and there was some decent action sequences. I was also pretty excited to finally see The Vision on the big screen, I've been waiting for this. He rocked. Overall opinion: A fun outing, interesting in spots, but it never really rises out of the genre. Winter Soldier had more depth.

The more intriguing ideas were touched on but not really dug into. For example, Ultron is Stark's child, so what makes Ultron much different from Stark? (There's even a line that suggests this -- that Ultron gets confused between creation and destruction, but where do you think he gets it from?) I really really wish they had dug more into that. Every time the movie started asking those uncomfortable questions, it ended up getting back to an action sequences. (Same thing with the intragroup skirmish at Stark's place; Thor shows up as a deux es machine, versus it being solved organically.)

In this movie, I also had a much deeper feeling of "What makes the Avengers any better than the guys who trash the place, since they are also trashing the place?" The biggest sense of this is when

Hulk goes bugnuts, and he and Iron Man trash a non-American city in the process of getting Hulk under control. It's pretty bad... and there's a scene where Hulk/Banner is looking around and seeing everyone viewing him as a monster because he just trashed their town.

ALSO -- where Ultron tries to smuggle out the android body who becomes the Vision, and he and Cap America are fighting in the truck. A number of cars are flipped, crashed, smashed... and in this scene for some reason it was just really in the forefront of my mind that they are killing human beings here. Every one of those cars -- "collateral damage" -- likely resulted in a bad injury or a death. But the movie doesn't really focus on that. This entire movie happens only because Stark tries to create Ultron against some other better judgments, and then they go after Ultron in/near crowded cities.

The most WTF moment that I understood why they did it for characterization but that is likely to never happen is when

Hawkeye takes a beaten Avengers back to his FAMILY's hidden farm .... the wife and kids no one knew he had. Are you freaking kidding me? The Avengers just got mind-controlled and have a habit of attracting supervillains who trash entire cities. WHy on earth would any dad who hid his family away in the first place land the Avengers jet on their farm, to get some R&R in the same house his pregnant wife and kids are in? I guess the jet was "stealthed" but still; I think Hawkeye would be most likely to keep the Avengers FAR away from anyone he loved.

Anyway, for people who don't plan to see it but want to know how it pans out (body count and the Avengers 3 roster):

Captain America: In
Iron Man: Out
Thor: Out
Hulk: Out
Black Widow: In
Hawkeye: Out (?)
War Machine: In
Falcon: In
Scarlet Witch: In
Quicksilver: Deceased
The Vision: In

Also, the "sneak peak / end clip" that shows up in each Marvel movie:

Thanos has realized that if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself. So he grabs his Infinity Gauntlet and gears up. Oh crap.

 

[Totenkindly]

Good grief. I half feel sorry for this guy, until I recall it was his idea.
I went to the 29-hour Marvel Movie Marathon in high spirits. I left a broken man. - Vox

 

[Riva]

I watched it on friday which was the day it was released here. I liked it. I think it was better than the first one.

However, it's action action action and action. Few or no character development. But can't blame them, when there is a cast that big it's hard to give each person an individual time.

I think the plot was nice too.

What I didn't like was he fact that the villain is a machine, eventhough he was very much human.

Someone said that Spiderman will be in the third one. I've never read the comics so don't know whether that is true. Would be awesome I think to have him in it.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, here's kind of an indictment of the direction of "chick flicks," I guess.

 

[Totenkindly]

Someone said that Spiderman will be in the third one. I've never read the comics so don't know whether that is true. Would be awesome I think to have him in it.

The next movie is based on the Civil War storyline.
The rising tension between Iron Man and Captain America is part of the setup for that.
In the comic, Spiderman played a major role in that story.

What I didn't like was he fact that the villain is a machine, eventhough he was very much human.

he's freaking Ultron. I guess you don't follow the comics much? He's been around for a long long time. Avengers fight more than just human villains. I'm just glad they did something else than more Norse junk or Thanos dudes. It also contributes to the upcoming storyline: What Tony did is a setup for A3.

 

[Riva]

The next movie is based on the Civil War storyline.
The rising tension between Iron Man and Captain America is part of the setup for that.
In the comic, Spiderman played a major role in that story.

Thanks. What is the reason behind the tension?

Glad to know Spiderman will be in it. Anyway in the comics is Spiderman closer the Toby Maguire version or the 1960s cartoon version?

Edit - oh yeah I don't read comics much. I was interested in reading the Ultimate series (Ultimate X-Men etc) but I heard they screwed up the ending, so I didn't.

 

[Totenkindly]

Thanks. What is the reason behind the tension?

What did you just see in the Avengers? What did Cap and Iron Man disagree on?

The specific thing in Civil War though, is

due to a really nasty incident where a schoolbus of children gets blown up in a battle (?) between B-rate heroes/villains, the US government finally says "Enough is enough" and insists that all superheroes expose their secret identities and become registered. Iron Man is for this and supports a heavy-handed government approach, Captain America is against this and becomes the leader of the 'rebel' forces.

Glad to know Spiderman will be in it. Anyway in the comics is Spiderman closer the Toby Maguire version or the 1960s cartoon version?

There are many interpretations of Spidermans -- there have been, what, 55 years of Spiderman or something now? And everyone who writes the book has their own spin on the character. I would say the two "basic" types of Peter Parker as Spiderman have already been covered by Garfield and by Maguire. I've heard rumors the Civil War spiderman will be Peter Parker again (they couldn't seem to settle on the Hispanic vs the white Spidey for awhile), though.

 

[Totenkindly]

Don't read this until you've seen the movie:
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/avengers-age-of-ultron-death-spoilers-how-joss-117899426522.html

However, I disagree with Whedon here.

I don't think it cost the Avengers anything, really, since Quicksilver was not part of the team at that point -- just a potential member. The audience did get to bond with him a bit, but Whedon did not kill an Avenger. He basically set Quicksilver up as the red shirt and then killed him... kind of lame. Also, interestingly, I never really believed Hawkeye would be killed. I guess all the signs were there, and I wouldn't have really cared either way, but... I just figured he'd get out somehow.

And that was one of the movie's flaws. I really didn't much care who lived and died. The movie didn't have much impact, emotionally. I wonder why that is.

I think Wanda's powers in the movie are really kind of sloppy, too. It's not really clear what her powers are. In the comic book, she's, well, a witch and cast "hexes" of luck (good or bad), and even she is not quite sure of their outcome. I understand the difficulties in showing that on the screen, and I guess they wanted to use her as a blaster and have her be able to protect the thingamabob and thus she and The Vision and Ultron would have certain conclusions in their relationship (as it played out). But... what exactly can she do? I guess it's telekinesis as explained, but then she does mind powers stuff... she's kind of like a poor man's Jean Grey.

The Hex thing would have been something unique, though. Oh well.

 

[Totenkindly]

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/joss-whedon-fighting-marvel-over-avengers-age-ultron-040034343.html

Director Joss Whedon told Empire Film Podcast (minor spoilers ahead) that Marvel brass weren't thrilled with the scene in the film, in which Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner)

visits his family at their farmhouse, along with the moments when the characters experience dream sequences. On the other hand, the studio was quite adamant about including the segment involving Erik (Stellan Skarsgard) joining Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in a cave.

"The dreams were not an executive favorite either — the dreams, the farmhouse, these were things I fought to keep," Whedon said. "With the cave, it really turned into: they pointed a gun at the farm's head and said, 'Give us the cave, or we'll take out the farm,' — in a civilized way. I respect these guys, they're artists, but that's when it got really, really unpleasant."

Whedon explained that there was additional footage shot in the cave, but much of it was cut, as test audiences didn't respond to it.

My experience with the cave is that it seemed to be unrelated to the rest of the movie, nor was it substantial enough to be worth including; I'm not sure why it was there at all, except to give Thor an excuse to come back and

break up the fight between Cap and IM by trumping them about The Vision. So it was kind of heavy-handed even then.

"Death by Corporate Executives" -- add that to the card collection, I guess. Sony execs already butchered AS2.

 

[chubber]

I enjoyed comic books when I was younger. I went to see the movie, for the sake of ... well getting out of the house. And I don't know why I torture myself so much watching something I know I will not enjoy. I have to wonder if it is because of the fantasy side of the story. I, for some reason, very anti fantasy.