A Fun, Entertaining Ride!

Rating: 8/10 (30 April 2015)

"Avengers: Age of Ultron" is the 11th film entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that began with "Iron Man" in 2008. Joss Whedon who wrote and directed the first team up movie of the MCU - "The Avengers" in 2012, returned to do the same for the sequel, and as confirmed by all, barring a changing of minds, or a surprise return down the line. will be his swan song for Marvel. "The Avengers" is generally considered one of the best, if not the Best Superhero film of all time. The first trailer for the sequel suggested a much darker tone, while the trailers that followed showed the trademark Whedon humor he injected into the first one – indicative of his past work, ala his TV series - "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Angel", etc., would be there as well. While there is some dark tone to it, with some great moments when it goes in that direction, ultimately most of great parts of the movie for me were the great humorous one-liners, spread out practically amongst all the main players, and one or two non main players. Returning Avengers are Tony Stark – Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America - Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) , The Hulk – Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow – Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansen) and Hawkeye – Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner). A number of their supporting players from other MCU movie figure prominently as well, and they are also joined by new comers – The Maximoff Twins – Pietor – Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor- Johnson), and Wanda – Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), as wel1 as the Vision (Paul Bettany). The antagonist is the Robot "Ultron" (voiced by James Spader - Yes – The voice of Tony Stark's computer Jarvis – When you the see movie – all will be clear). In as nut shell – the movie is a mostly fun and entertaining for the around 2 ½ hour running time. It is well paced, so it never feels long. All the characters are given moments, and different story arcs are touched upon with each of them. Sometimes that does create a jumble, and if some were fleshed out more, while it would have sacrificed time for some of the other story arcs, I think it would have improved the movie. Having said that – In the end, while not as good as the original, it is an enjoyable, fun ride, and Whedon's great Dialogue, humorous and non-humorous, when it does hit, and it hits often - shines! 3 ¼ out of 4 Stars - 8 ½ out of 10 Stars.