Avengers: Age of Ultron

Rating: 7/10 (9 May 2015)

Avengers Assemble was a brilliant coming together of all Marvel comic book fans' favourite superheroes in the same film, so it was no wonder that there would be a follow up, directed by returning Avengers director and Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon. Basically, continuing from the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Avengers: Iron Man aka Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the Hulk aka Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America aka Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Black Widow aka Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye aka Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) fight against the forces of Hydra following the exposure of S.H.I.E.L.D. They capture Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (King Kong's Thomas Kretschmann), who had been experimenting on humans using the sceptre previously wielded by Loki, they encounter two of the experimented humans, twins Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver (Kick-Ass's Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who has superhuman speed, and Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen, Mary-Kate and Ashley's sister), who can manipulate minds and project energy, but they retrieve the sceptre. Within the sceptre's gem, Stark and Banner discover is an artificial intelligence, and in secret use it to complete Stark's global defence program called "Ultron", but Ultron (James Spader) becomes a sentient being and believes that the world will be saved by eradicating humanity. So Ultron begins his plan by eliminating Stark's A.I., Jarvis (Paul Bettany), attacking the Avengers at their headquarters, stealing the sceptre, upgrading his rudimentary body at Strucker's Sokovia base, and building an army of robot drones, he then kills Strucker and recruits the Maximoff twins, they hold Stark responsible for killing their parents with his weaponry, and obtain vibranium from arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), they Avengers pursue them, but Wanda stalls the heroes with haunting visions, until stopped by Stark's anti-Hulk armour. Following some destruction and the threat of Wanda's mind manipulation, the Avengers go into hiding at Barton's safe house, Thor goes to consult with Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) on the meaning of the apocalyptic future he saw in his hallucination, and meanwhile Romanoff and Banner are finding mutual attraction for each other, but Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) shows up and encourages the Avengers to form a plan to stop Ultron. The team's friend Dr. Helen Cho (Claudia Kim) is forced by Ultron into using her synthetic tissue technology, the vibranium and the sceptre's gem to perfect a new body for him, uploading himself into his new body Wanda is able to read his mind and discovers his plan for human extinction, she and Petro turn on him, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye find Ultron and retrieve the synthetic body, but Romanoff is kidnapped. The Avengers are fighting amongst themselves, but Jarvis is found still alive, having been hidden by Ultron in the internet, Stark uploads him into the synthetic body, to become physical being "Vision" (Bettany), Thor returns and explains that the gem is one of the six Infinity Stones, the most powerful objects in existence, settling their differences the Avengers, along with Vision and the Maximoffs group together to stop Ultron. To cause global extinction Ultron has used the remaining vibranium to build a machine to lift a large part of the capital city skyward, he intends to crash it into the ground, Banner rescues Romanoff and becomes the Hulk to fight, the other heroes fight against the may machines, while Fury, Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), James Rhodes aka War Machine (Don Cheadle) and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the Helicarrier evacuate civilians. Pietro is killed, Wanda is enraged and abandons her post to destroy Ultron's body, allowing one of the drones to activate the machine, the city plummets, but the machine is overloaded by Stark and Thor and the landmass is shattered, in the aftermath the Hulk departs, unwilling to be with Romanoff and endanger her, while the Vision confronts and eliminates Ultron's last remaining body. In the end the Avengers have established a new base, run by Fury, Hill, Chpo and Selvig, Thor returns to Asgard to learn more about the manipulation of recent events from forces he suspects are coming, Stark and Barton depart, Rogers and Romanoff prepare to train and welcome new Avengers: Rhodes, Vision, Sam Wilson aka Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Wanda. In the mid-credits scene, Thanos (Josh Brolin), seen in Guardians of the Galaxy, is dissatisfied by the failure of those who have tried to conquer the world, he vows to retrieve the Infinity Stones himself. Also starring Idris Elba as Heimdall, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Linda Cardellini as Laura Barton, Julie Delpy as Madame B and Stan Lee cameos as a military veteran who attends the Avengers' bar victory party. The cast still all do very well, Downey Jr. quipping, Evans being the sensible fighter, Ruffalo as the man who turns big and green, Hemsworth as the long-haired warrior, Johansson being the confident female, and Jackson being the guiding head figure. The only tiny problems I have with this sequel is that the story is not as compelling as the previous Avengers film, and the villain being artificial intelligence is not completely menacing, despite a chilling voice by Spader, but you can slip into it enough, and there are no complaints to had about the spectacular set pieces and special effects to create to create all the superhero gadgets and gimmicks and explosive sequences, it is a worthwhile action fantasy adventure. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and it was nominated the BAFTA for Special Visual Effects. Very good!