Whedon Triumphs Again With Avengers!!!

Rating: 10/10 (17 May 2015)

Watching "Serenity" director Joss Whedon's "The Avengers: Age of Ultron" is like riding on a runaway roller-coaster. As he did with the initial "Avengers" extravaganza, Whedon orchestrates several larger-than-life, gravity-defying, high-octane action scenes that grow exponentially bigger and bigger. Not content to dawdle, Whedon opens this PG-13 film with an exciting assault on a Hydra stronghold in Eastern Europe. Ultimately, he never allows this outlandish, CGI-laden, 141 minute blockbuster with its non-stop shenanigans to wax anticlimactic. Occasionally, "Avengers 2," as I shall refer to it from here on, pauses only to let the heroes and villains deliver important expository information that lets us know about their impending strategy. Whedon relies frequently on rapid, ginsu-knife style editing to depict simultaneous close-quarters combat in different spots among the various super-heroes as they spar with their adversaries and recover from body blows no ordinary mortal could survive. One of my favorites occurs when Thor slams his hammer named Mjölnir against Captain America's shield and sends it hurtling like a giant Frisbee to topple more than a few baddies. Comparatively, not only for its number of narrative surprises but also for its revelations about certain characters, "Avengers 2" surpasses its 2012 predecessor. Whedon discloses far more about Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow than previous Marvel movies, and we find out about Hawkeye's private family life. As it turns out, Hawkeye enjoys home renovation and brings the subject up in the middle of an explosive firefight. During this helter-skelter cliffhanger, Whedon brings in three fresh characters: the obnoxious A.I. robot villain Ultron along with the brother and sister duo Pietro and Wanda Maximoff. Actually, if you saw 20th Century Fox's epic "X-Men: Days of Future Past," you've seen the same character with a slightly different moniker. In the "X-Men" opus, Pietro was called Peter, and he shared the same ability to move so fast that most of what you saw was a blur. Another new character crops up in this ambitious sequel, but I'll leave you to learn about him on your own. Die-hard Marvel fans should enjoy this big, boisterous, slam-bang saga as much if not more than the original. Of course, anybody who read the original comic book will howl at the departures. Many of the Marvel characters are owned by different film studios, so fidelity to the source material in this cinematic adaptation was impossible without copyright infringement.
Inevitably, this charismatic new nemesis infuriates our heroes with its dreams of global Armageddon. "Blacklist" star James Spader furnishes the villain's voice. Listening to Spader indulge in his penchant for loquacity is always a joy, and he savors every line of dialogue for maximum effect. Spader plays the eponymous, sentient robotic villain Ultron, and he is more than a match for Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Nick Fury. Visually, Ultron amounts to an imposing dastard, and he displays no qualms about exterminating mankind on the grandest of scales. He clones an entire robot army to perform his perfidious deeds. Interestingly, he can teleport from one android to another without exposing himself. Naturally, our heroes can never tell if Ultron is the actual robot that they are trying to smash to smithereens. Meanwhile, Pietro and Wanda prove to be challenging adversaries when they tangle with our resilient heroes. Indeed, as Ultron's chief lieutenants, they could easily have defeated the Avengers. Unfortunately, drastic things happen about an hour into the action that makes them alter their allegiance. For the record, the ABC-TV Marvel series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." set the events into motion in "Avengers 2's" first scene. Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg of "Iron Man") had infiltrated the impregnable Hydra headquarters of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann of "Valkyrie") and located Loki's powerful scepter. The Avengers were dispatched to retrieve the scepter. The ensuing fracas resembles something from a World War II battle spectacle. Naturally, the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) demolishes bunkers, while Captain America careens around on his motorcycle. Thor wields Mjölnir with pugnacious abandon. Amid this chaos, Whedon trots twins Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson of "Savages") and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen of "Oldboy") who have voluntarily participated in the Baron's experiments. Pietro can scurry in a hurry like "The Flash," while Wanda can alter minds and heave flaming spheres of energy. Against Strucker's orders, the twins take part in the mêlée, but they aren't around long enough to turn the tide. Later, Ultron exploits them to the utmost. Wanda monkeys with the minds of our heroes, and the Avengers come close to splitting up because they don't trust each other. The delusions that Wanda's skullduggery have forged in Tony Stark's mind as well as Thor's are apocalyptic. At one point, Thor abandons the group to delve deeper into his Armageddon nightmare. None of the heroes are really slighted, but Captain America, Iron Man, and Black Widow claim the lion's share of the warfare. Nevertheless, Thor, Hawkeye, and Hulk get in their licks, too.
Several spectators have complained that "Avengers 2" suffers from fatigue-inducing, marathon-length, combat encounters that last for an eternity. What else would you expect from an outrageous, sci-fi, super-hero saga drawn from a comic book about a unit of costume-clad superheroes? Keep in mind, "Avengers 2" is NOT "Downtown Abbey." Whedon slows down the hurtling, headlong pace just long enough for our heroes to reflect on their horrendous predicament and then they regroup to thwart the villains. All of this is achieved with the brand of humor characteristic of a Disney franchise. Compare 20th Century Fox's Marvel movies, such as "X-Men," "Daredevil," and "The Fantastic Four," that you'll see that they are just a mite more serious about their mayhem than Disney. Having said such, you'll be happy to know that Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, and Samuel L. Jackson all return for this revelry. "The Avengers: Age of Ultron" qualifies as a terrific movie, and it looks fantastic in 3-D.