Not a whole lot of fun.

Rating: 6/10 (27 September 2015)

The Avengers are somewhere batting some army in an awful intro scene filmed in cheap accelerated CGI. Later we learn they are attacking a Hydra facility to retrieve Loki's scepter and are after some German scientist. Of course none of them suffers a scratch that is until the German guy releases The Twins, a pair of "enhanced". One of them is a version of The Flash and the other a pretty girl who does Tai Chi and releases a powerful multipurpose red mist that controls people's minds, train brakes, and acts as a weapon and shield. These two finally manage to get at least the Arrow-copycat injured. But the operation is a success of course. The Arrow-copycat is healed in the regenerating machine borrowed from Elysium.
In Loki's scepter is artificial intelligence for some reason and Stark and Banner agree to merge it with Jarvis to unleash the Ultron initiative that will bring peace to earth through war and death. When Reddington-Ultron wakes up and wears one of Stark's suits he's a bit confused but ready to accomplish his mission so he goes rogue.
His first goal is to buy that super metal used to make CA's shield. By now he's joined forces with the twins. The Avengers crash the deal but Tai Chi girl makes them all hallucinate in long pointless sequences, that for some reason include a long and dull battle between the iron suit guy and the green guy and we learn which one is stronger.
Ultron borrows the healing machine that together with the supermetal will give him a super body but the downloading of all his consciousness is taking way too long in the superworld so the Avengers manage to grab the incipient being.
Stark and Banner again agree to do something stupid in the name of science, namely re-insert Jarvis' mind in the being and wake it but the others finally realize what these two morons are up to and put a stop to it. Until Thor arrives and jumpstarts the creature which happens to have a third eye made of one of the infinity stones.
By now Ultron without his superbody is ready to bring peace to earth, by helping humans evolve. His means of accomplishing this is for some reason wiping out all life on earth, so he separates a whole city from earth and once it's high enough he'll drop it on earth to act like a meteor.
Now all the dressed-up goofs will have to join forces and stop Ultron while saving everyone on the city that's starting to fly up.
Avengers: Age of Ultron is rather unimpressive. Nothing here stands out. There's no great action sequence to speak of, no central message. Instead this movie is, like Ultron, confused about what it stands for. The first half is somewhat anti-war, the second half adopts some bizarre message for kids about "doing your job!" (no matter what and without question, I take it). The message of unity and togetherness is lost in repeated exhortations to do your job.
Despite being penned and directed by Whedon himself, this movie is lacking both in action and dialogue. There's a lot of emotional stuff going on as with Romanoff's strange and surprising romance with Banner. At least it's handles with innocence. There are handful of smart and interesting lines but no worked out thoughts or ideas. Most come from Ultron as he analyzes human behavior, even though humans really shouldn't be that foreign to him. But the potential was there for more incisive thinking.
I didn't think much of the first Avengers movie and this one doesn't do much to change my mind about the multiple series of tiring sequels. Thor I and Captain America II remain so far the highlights. Unfortunately we're told that the Avengers will be back of course, perhaps next time they'll put more effort into making it a smart and entertaining movie.