Quality Superhero team flick, actually better than the first one

Rating: 8/10 (2 August 2015)

"Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2015) is a quality superhero team movie. The first movie (2012) was so over-hyped that it was almost impossible NOT to be let down a little. It started good, but the set-up went on & on and wasn't overly absorbing, plus way too much time was spent on the SHIELD heli-carrier, which created a somewhat one-dimensional vibe; lastly, although Loki was a worthy villain, his army of Chitauri were stereotypically ee-vil, faceless villains who were basically just canon-fodder for the Avengers.
I like this one better because the "origin" element is out of the way and the setting isn't one-dimensional. There are numerous locations (England, Seoul, Bangladesh, South Africa and Italy), and additional characters like Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). Ultron (voiced by James Spader) makes a worthy villain and the over-the-top action sequences are balanced out by quality character bits, like the Black Widow/Hulk/Banner relationship. Furthermore, the third act delivers with the requisite earth-threatening crisis.
When I heard Olsen was going to play Scarlet Witch a couple of years ago I was disappointed because she definitely didn't have the curves to pull-off a woman like Scarlet Witch, but she obviously gained weight for the role and looks great. She has a striking face and is quite a convincing actress. Taylor-Johnson is fine as Quicksilver, but I can't help wondering why they didn't use Evan Peters, who played the character in 2014's "X-Men: Days of Future Past."
There are so many quality superhero movies at this point that a new one is pretty much just more of the same. So "Avengers 2" creates a bit of a "been-there-done-that" vibe, but it's well done for what it is. What makes me grant it a fairly high rating, besides the positives already noted, are a couple of moving parts, the subplot about Thor's hammer and the revelation of another character in the third act that I wasn't expecting, which elicits a "Wow" reaction if you're familiar with the comic and even more so when you observe the tie-in to the aforementioned hammer.
Lastly, there's a lot to take in with "Avengers 2," which makes it worthy of repeat viewings.
The film runs 141 minutes.
GRADE: A-