A mostly fun mess.

Rating: 6/10 (5 September 2015)

Formulaic or not, it's undeniable what cultural impact The Avengers has had on the youngest generation of movie goers. Kids who were born in the Summer of '12 now claim the Avengers to be their favourite thing (source: my girlfriend's 3 year old nephew and his Hulk impersonations). I almost envy them for having such a planned web of movies to be nostalgic about in their teens. The closest thing I have is the long but more contained Harry Potter franchise, though I do pity their parents wallets when it comes to the eventual bulky boxsets. As the Marvel Cinematic Universe gets more and more crowded, so do their movies. Avengers: Age of Ultron has little room to breathe and is more-or-less a big stitched-together mess. A fun mess for the most part, but one that emits a consistent buzz of CGI, action sequences and fan service to the point where it's far too easy to become numb to the stakes as it goes along.
I really enjoyed the first Avengers, by about a million times more than any other Marvel movie, but I think the novelty of the group hit its limit there. The most efficient part of Age of Ultron is Robert Downey Jr's sharp witted one-liners, the best his humour's been yet, and one that will almost definitely go over the heads of the film's young fans. I knew the Iron Man series hinged on his charisma, but this film is hanging firmly by that rope now. I don't know what they're going to do when he signs off. Meanwhile, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are very poor additions to the clan and while I get the ideas behind Ultron, I could never get behind him to take him or his tried-and-tested plan seriously. If Whedon struggles to get enthused about this one, I don't see how I can be either. Easily beats Winter Soldier though. It's like a broken stained glass art with some shards I liked, some shards missing and some shards unpolished.
6/10