Age of Ultron: One-Liner Edition

Rating: 5/10 (5 May 2015)

I hadn't seen the first Avengers, but I'd heard good things about it. So, it would be intriguing to see whether the inevitable sequel would live up to its predecessor. Unfortunately, the end result is a whole lot of 'meh', a polished slice of mediocrity that fails at everything it tries to do.
We find the Avengers fighting in a forest. They seek to find a Scepter of sorts. (I'm not too familiar with the Marvel Universe nor have I seen the first Avengers, so cut me some slack.) Tony Stark finds a peacekeeping program or something and sees it as a way of keeping the Earth safe from alien invasions. This would allow the Avengers to safely retire. The program's AI (Ultron), however, goes rogue, inhabits a robot body and forms a robot army to oppose the Avengers. His philosophy is a distorted version of Stark's—keeping the world safe. Ultron figures that this entails mankind's extinction. The Avengers must now not only fight Ultron, but also themselves as doubt enters their ranks, rooted in Stark keeping the program a secret.
This might all sound very interesting, but it mostly isn't. Although the concept of the rogue AI has been interesting since 2001: A Space Odyssey, here it just feels like 'been there, done that'. There're a few scenes where they try to force the HAL 9000 comparisons by having Ultron sing, but there's only one problem: Ultron doesn't hold a candle to HAL. The character development is also lackluster. The only noteworthy thing taking place is the blossoming romance between the Hulk and Black Widow but even that feels forced and unnatural. The script feels less like a script and more like a collection of one-liners. Someone should check if there's a record for the amount of one-liners in a film, because I think Age of Ultron has a serious chance of breaking it. Seriously though, what's with all these one-liners? At worst, they're not funny and ruin any tension, since a character making a wise-crack implicitly tells you a) he's not taking things seriously and therefore neither should you and b) that the good guys will win in the end, thereby ruining any tension a scene might have generated.
The whole story is just so basic. The film tries to make you feel like the Avengers are actually in danger of losing due to internal strife which of course doesn't happen. There's also the mandatory scene where they discuss the prospect they might die during the final battle which of course doesn't happen. (spoiler) Yeah, there's a scene towards the end where one minor superhero dies much to another's great grief, replete with melancholy choral music and reduced sounds effects and voices, but it's so melodramatic and overwrought you're beyond caring. I sometimes truly wonder if the filmmakers expect anyone to shed a tear during these scenes.
By the way, you gotta love the morality play going on towards the end when Ultron raises a chunk of city to the sky and the Avengers simultaneously fight Ultron's robot army and escort civilians to safety. The message is that the Avengers don't just fight evil, they protect the innocent and so on. But if that's true, what about the midway fight scene between Iron Man and the Hulk where they tear half a city apart? Only several minutes in does Iron Man try to lure him out of the city before failing after which the fight goes on. And why doesn't he just flee from the Hulk? The Hulk is obviously chasing him, so why not take the fight to some wasteland? For God's sake, even Dragon Ball Z had this figured out.
The actionis what it is. The filmmakers thankfully avoid throwing things at you/the camera and the cinematography and choreography occasionally provide some cool imagery, but a) the 3D looks terrible and b) the visual effects are terrible. Full stop. It all looks just a bit too blurry to be believable, you know.
I've read a few comments defending Whedon by saying that the inevitable third Avengers film is the more important one in the bigger scheme of things, but those are just excuses. Bad directing and bad scripts are what they are: bad. You either make a worthwhile film or you don't. Despite the 2,5 hour length, Age of Ultron is still quite entertaining, but I definitely left the theater with an overwhelming feeling of indifference.