BEFORE: I'm back, after taking a day off to study Star Wars trivia and then Star Wars Day itself. There are no other hardcore Star Wars fans on my usual trivia team, but that's part of what allows us to succeed, we have experts in different types of trivia. We have a music guy, a politics guy, we used to have a literature gal, we've got a TV guy - you get the idea. The less overlap between our areas of expertise, the better we should do (theoretically), and if there's a dispute over a TV show answer, you go with the TV show expert's opinion. My knowledge extends into a number of different subjects, but I'm primarily the movie trivia guy, plus a lot of general pop culture stuff, like you see on "Jeopardy!". Anyway I was there alone, but got an invite to join another team, so I rolled with that, because what fun is playing if you're not interacting with others - and although they didn't really need me, I'd like to think I was of some help to them, and that team finished with the most points, but came in second in the decisive buzzer-round.
In retrospect, I could have sandwiched in another Scarlet Johansson film, like "Lucy", which is available on PPV, but I don't like paying $5 for a movie when I'm already paying for premium cable. I'm sure I'll get to that in a few months, anyway. But ScarJo carries over from "Her", as was my original (but poorly-timed) intent. It's been a challenge in the last week, avoiding spoilers for today's film, but I've kept a finger on the fast-forward button every time an "Avengers" actor has appeared on a talk-show, and I skipped the Entertainment Weekly review - even after all that, I feel I probably know too much about this film already, just by osmosis.
I was debating the other day whether everything happens for a reason, and if being under-employed at the moment means I get to see "Avengers: Age of Ultron" on a Tuesday afternoon, with only 5 other people in the theater, it's hard to argue with that notion. But in debating whether or not to see it in 3-D and/or IMAX, I asked the ticket-seller the difference in price between regular 2-D and fancy 3-D, and she started quoting me the IMAX price. "But that's not what I asked you," I said. And while I admire your attempt to up-sell me, please answer only the question I asked, or I will find another theater. It took her so long to come up with the answer, I said, "Screw it, give me one ticket for regular, non-3-D, non-IMAX." Because at some point you lose the right to my extra 4 or 6 dollars or whatever it is.
THE PLOT: When Tony Stark and Bruce Banner try to jump-start a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and it's up to the Avengers to stop the villainous Ultron from enacting his terrible plans.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Avengers" (2012) (Movie #1,144), "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (Movie #1,800), "Iron Man 3" (Movie #1,489)
AFTER: My first reaction to seeing this film is, "Holy Freakin' Sh*t"! Which is much like my reaction to the first "Avengers" film. When I think of how many years I read comic books, which at their best are just still pictures, and how I wished they could move and I could see the action unfolding in real time. Well, we're living in that kid's future, because making the Avengers move and fight and blow things up is right there on the screen, and it may have taken 30 years or so, but damn, I got my wish to come true. Watch Hulk crash through a tank like it's made of paper! Watch Hawkeye launch an explosive arrow at a bunker, and a second later, it blows up! Watch Captain America throw his shield, take out 5 HYDRA soldiers, and have the shield bounce back right into his hand! It all instills in me a sense of wonder and amazement, and I hope I never lose that, or take it for granted.
You know I'm due to start hating (OK, not hating, but at least nitpicking) any minute now, but I had to first get the admiration and appreciation out of the way. Sure, I'll find fault, but I love the overall attempt - I love that Marvel movies swing for the fences, and if they only get 80% of the way there, I've come to accept that. It's kind of like an inside-the-park home run - it didn't clear the wall, but it still scores for the team. Could it have been better? Sure, things can always be better, but let's first appreciate what got accomplished here.
Now, Ultron goes way back in the Avengers history - NOTE: Marvel Cinematic Universe is not the same as the Marvel Comic-Book Universe, this has been established already. I can complain all I want that the MCU is very different from the MCBU I grew up with, but it won't matter. Anyway the big trend now is destroying continuity in order to re-build it, (see: Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Men) and make it fresh for today's young audiences. More on this later. But Ultron (in the comics) was a robot designed by Hank Pym (aka Ant-Man, aka Giant-Man, aka Yellowjacket) with the capacity for self-improvement. Oh, and evil. He was always rebuilding and replacing himself with Ultron Mark V or Ultron Mark VI, he'd be drawn a little differently, but always trying to kill the Avengers, maybe to impress his "father"? He was a robot with daddy issues (and mommy ones, too, given how many times he kidnapped the Wasp.).
The film changes his story, but preserves what's best (worst?) about Ultron - the fact that he's a robot dictator, like a Robo-Hitler, with a vision for the world that includes eliminating the people he doesn't like. For Ultron, that's just about everybody, starting with the Avengers who accidentally created him. Here Tony Stark, still shaken up by the alien invasion of New York (we got a bit inside his head in "Iron Man 3") creates a bunch of Iron Man-like robots to help with crowd control during Avengers battles. Always thinking about ways to improve things with artificial intelligence (like the J.A.R.V.I.S. program), he (presumably) wants to protect the earth with A.I. Avengers, so the human ones can have a bit of a break, and designs the ULTimate RObot Nanny (my acronym) - what could possibly go wrong?
Well, a lot, as any comic-book fan can predict. Ultron gains sentience before Stark and Banner have the chance to program him to not be evil, so he takes control of the Iron Legion, and gets to work on the systematic process of taking over the world, rebuilding himself and killing the Avengers, not necessarily in that order. His first recruits are Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver - not the ones from the MCBU, which used to be Magneto's children, and not the Quicksilver seen in "X-Men: Days of Future Past", who was from a timeline that may no longer exist in a different movie universe, and who the director of "Avengers: Age of Ultron" hopes you don't ask too many questions about.
(ASIDE: Get your house in order, Marvel! Is Quicksilver an Avenger or an X-Man? Was he born in the 1960's, or the 1990's? Is he American or European? Is he Magneto's son, or not? The comic-book fans want to know, but his history in books and movies is now WAY too complicated to untangle. I picture the top brass at Marvel sticking their fingers in their collective ears and shouting, "Naa Naa Naah, I'm not listening, I can't HEAR you!")
As for Scarlet Witch, who in the comic-books has Reality-shaping powers (akin to witchcraft, but not really, cause Wiccan is so 1990's), here she works completely differently, with psychic powers, because that's what the plot dictates she has. On the plus side, this gives us a chance to see the secret fears and doubts of our heroes, exposing their very vulnerable (super)-human faults. Hits 'em right in their very soft brain matter, and tears the team apart. (Another plus, this perfectly sets up the next Captain America film "Civil War", where Cap fights Iron Man, and all the heroes have to ally with one or the other.)
The one thing that's constant about the Avengers is change - Back in the early 1960's, they only went a few issues before Hulk left the line-up, and then it was only another year or so before Ant-Man, Wasp and Iron Man took a break, and Capt. America rebuilt the team with Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (all former MBCU villains). Over the years everyone from Spider-Man to Wolverine to Storm to Mr. Fantastic has been an Avenger, some for very short periods of time before the next shake-up when the next writer wants to play with a different set of blocks. That's clearly where the MCU is headed too, a number of heroes get to take a break after this one, but new Avengers step up to take their places.
My biggest complaint about the state of Marvel Comics (and I hold some shares of Disney stock, so really, I'm like their boss in a way, and they should really start listening to me...) is that right now, when the big blockbuster Avengers film is hitting theaters, Marvel's tearing their universe apart for a big summer crossover called "Secret Wars". Essentially the universe and everything in it gets destroyed, except for the super-heroes, forced to fight on a Battleworld comprised of pieces of real estate from other universes, other realities. But as much as you might like to see 14 Thors from different timelines battling each other, here's the down-side: nearly every Marvel book is getting cancelled for the duration of the event. I'm sure they'll be back in a few months, re-launching with new collectable #1 issues, but for any kids who see this movie and want to go to a comic-book shop and buy the new Avengers comic, bad news, kid, there isn't one. But here, try this crossover comic that requires you be familiar with not just one continuity timeline, but also 13 others. This is NOT the way to get young kids interested in Marvel Comics. Couldn't they have postponed the Secret Wars for a few months, so there'd be a proper tie-in? I guess they did have an Avengers one-shot with the MCU Avengers, but that's not much. But hey, print is dead, right? Do we even need to make comic books on paper anymore, now that we have them on celluloid? Umm, I mean digital film. When a Marvel movie makes a trillion dollars, I'm guessing the comics are now just loss leaders.
(Another ASIDE: I got to see a few trailers before this film, like "Pixels", "Terminator Genisys", "Tomorrowland", "Jurassic World", and "Fantastic Four". Much more complaining is in store for Marvel regarding the Fantastic Four, like how they're not going to support that film with a comic-book either, but after seeing the trailer, I'm much more intrigued for the new FF film. I may even go and see it. Same goes for "Ant-Man", which looks a lot better than I expected. And now I think I'm going to have to see "Jurassic World" first-run also, because dinosaurs.)
But let's get back to "Age of Ultron" (which, by the way, was a completely different storyline in the comics, where Ultron took over the world, and Avengers had to go back in time and kill Hank Pym so he wouldn't build the robot in the first place. Damn, I can't help it! What's wrong with me? And why can't the movies just stick to the scripts I'm already familiar with?) This Ultron keeps trying to decode the nuclear launch codes to kill all humanity, and when that doesn't work, he tries to build himself the ultimate synthetic body, and when THAT doesn't work, he comes up with another plan, which doesn't seem to make sense at all, until eventually it does.
The Avengers go global in this one, with action taking place in Korea, South Africa, and some fictional Eastern European country. Probably good for them if they get out of NYC once in a while, assuming they're even welcome back there at all after what went down in the first film.
Oh, if only the Avengers could face down their darkest fears, and re-unite as a team and get back to putting their lives on the line to save the world. But, really, what are the chances of THAT happening? (Hee-hee, see what I did there? I made you think that wasn't going to happen...) Actually, the heroes are sort of portrayed as losers here, the messed-up kind with real fears and neuroses, and (mostly) messed-up relationships. The romance that does develop is rather surprising, as I've never seen anything in the comics between these two people, but (apparently) it makes an odd bit of sense in the MCU. I would have bet on Black Widow and Captain America (the whole Perestroika thing) or even Black Widow and Hawkeye (which happened in the comics, but here there's a valid reason they're only besties.)
In the end I'm glad I followed up "Her" with this film, because the theme of artificial intelligence carried over. When does a robot or a computer consciousness count as "alive"? Did the voice in "Her" have feelings, or was it all simulated? And if you try to create a new lifeform without human concepts like "good" and "evil", do you set yourself up for failure? Will a robot default to a very logical view of how the world will be better without humans? Or did Tony Stark just forget to fall back on Asimov's laws of robotics, which you gotta admit, seems like a real rookie mistake?
I was all set to have the same NITPICK POINT as I did with "Her", because in every promotional clip I saw for this film, Ultron just sounded much too human. Sure, you want to hire James Spader because he's got a great voice, and if his expression doesn't carry over, then what's the point? But in the movie theater, Ultron sounded much more like James Spader sealed into a tin can, which was much better. But the N.P. is still there, in slightly altered form - namely that Ultron used too much slang, spoke with very human words like "Yeah" instead of "Yes". If he had spoken more formally, he could have been a lot creepier - plus I think it would have been more accurate. If the robot can download gigabytes of data in seconds, you'd think there would be a guide to proper grammar in there somewhere, and if he really thinks he's better than humans, he should sound more like a Shakespearean villain, egotistical and above it all.
Also starring Robert Downey, Jr. (last seen in "Iron Man 3"), Chris Evans (last seen in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"), Chris Hemsworth (last seen in "Thor: The Dark World"), Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "Now You See Me"), Jeremy Renner (last seen in "The Bourne Legacy"), the voice of James Spader (last seen in "Sex, Lies, and Videotape"), Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Django Unchained"), Don Cheadle (last seen in "Flight"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "8 Mile"), Paul Bettany (last heard in "Iron Man 3"), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (last seen in "Kick-Ass 2"), Elizabeth Olsen (last seen in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"), Cobie Smulders (ditto), Linda Cardellini (last seen in "Brokeback Mountain"), Claudia Kim, Thomas Krestchmann, Andy Serkis, with cameos from Hayley Atwell, Idris Elba (last seen in "Pacific Rim"), Stellan Skarsgard (last seen in "Thor: The Dark World"), Julie Delpy, Stan Lee, and the voice of Josh Brolin (last seen in "Gangster Squad").
RATING: 8 out of 10 collapsing buildings
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