Impressive Sequel

Rating: 8/10 (22 May 2015)

A really impressive squeal! Without any shadow of a doubt this movie goes in my top 15 favourite movies of all time. I have never been a big marvel fan but I have watched the Iron Man movies, the Thor movies, the Captain America movies and the original Avenger's movie which I thought were all very good. I do tend to dislike squeals of excellent films because as we all know sequels of great films tend to never cut the mustard. one of the best examples of this would be The 3 squeals to the original pirates of the Caribbean movie, they have all be dreadful compared to the original however I am happy to report that Age of Ultron does not fit this pattern, it's a film with unparallelled action scenes and some outstanding acting performances. The story is a bit complicated if you don't know a lot about marvel but with a 5 minute explanation from a marvel geek and you will have no probs understanding the story. The theme itself centres on what can happen if we let artificial intelligence to its own devices, other themes include love, family bond, regrets and power.
The story line: I can understand why the story line could get criticised due to its reliance of things happening in the right place at the right time however I think that the story was well thought out, there were many twists and turns, for example we get to see that Hawk eye has a family which is untrue of any of the other avengers. This gives the story the chance to show the downside of being a superhero, the risk of having a family which is clearly seen with the scene between black widow and Bruce, both of them wanting children but are unable to have them. This for me is the reason why we see love between these two characters as they seem to have an excellent understanding between each other. I can see this match something that critics will dislike due to the unlikelihood of a relationship between an attractive assassin at the top of her game and a mad scientist with breath taking anger management issues :) but for me this was a very clever way to explore the deeper parts of the two characters. delving into the bulk of the storyline it essentially involves a crazed AI attempting to end the world, sounds a bit clichÃ© but the way it was told was very impressive, the ending of the story stems from a vision that Thor has, something tells him that he must complete an already stared piece of work, Ultron's clone. This clone had been half completed by Ultron himself then stark attempts to program Jarvis into its brain, he is stopped by the captain but Thor comes into finish the job and vision is born! Part Ultron, part Jarvis, part Thor, he holds the power of one of the five infinity stones and is essentially a god. This can be seen in my favourite part of the film when he picks up Thor's hammer and says 'but we have to go' this action confirms his Goddness due to you having to be as worthy as the God Thor to lift the hammer. The final part of the story is a typical American lets save everyone scene in which the world and civilians are saved from certain death. Where sadly we see the death of quicksilver. Acting performances Top spot goes to Mark Ruffalo with an excellent performance as Bruce Banner and the hulk. I really liked him in the first Avengers movie but in this movie he really was very good. We saw his dark side a little in this movie, from his inability to have children to the mad scientist creating Ultron. Robert Downey junior, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and hawk eye where typically good. (Surprisingly I actually really enjoyed hawk eye in the movie.) Scarlett Johansen was definitely a stand out in this movie but in my opinion this wasn't her finest performance in the marvel universe and last but by no certainty no means least was James Spader as Ultron. He really did nock it out of the park in this movie he really captured the essence of a crazed AI perfectly he only just misses out on the top spot to Ruffalo. Should you watch it? Most certiantly!!!! An excellent movie if you understand marvel or not action packed and with a good story behind it however this film may not appeal to adults whom are not marvel enthusiast's due to its lack of scenes that don't involve action but for anyone who just wants to see a fun, action packed, high budget blockbuster then I can't recommend Avengers Age of Ultron enough. (oh and p.s. I recommend watching the first avengers before you watch AOU)