Spoilers Review - Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Rating: 8/10 (3 May 2015)

Avengers: Age of Ultron is the sequel to 2012's The Avengers and the 11th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film is written and directed by Joss Whedon and boasts a huge cast including; Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L Jackson, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders, Anthony Mackie, Hayley Atwell, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgård and James Spader.
This was one of my most anticipated films of this year and it had a lot to live up to, every single Marvel movies seems to up itself and get better, especially the last 2 films, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians Of The Galaxy which are my favourite so far, and i'm glad to say Avengers: AOU didn't let me down but i had a few problems with it, that didn't make me enjoy as much as the two films i just mentioned.
The story of the film is pretty complicated because of the various plots going on but the main plot is Ultron, Tony Stark with help from Bruce Banner help create a A.I that would stop The Avengers having to go and risk their lives for the world, and that this new A.I, Ultron could prevents disasters from happening first, but when Ultron is created he realises that humanity is the real problem and tries to vanquish them all and start all over again, so The Avengers have to deal with this threat they created from within. This is enough story for the film, yet there are various side plots that feel like they are just build up for the upcoming films in the Marvel universe instead of helping this story. One of the weakest side plots was when new addition, Scarlett Witch, uses her powers to give The Avengers nightmares, which was interesting but these didn't really lead anywhere, especially Thor's which seemed like a lot of set-up for his next movie, Thor: Ragnorok, and makes me think a lot of this film got left on the cutting room floor, Whedon said that the first cuts was over 3 hours long so they definitely took a lot out of the film, which i think was a disservice but you can't have a 3+ hour movie. Also the main villain Ultron, he was a great character but i think his evolution was rushed in the film, i would of liked him to start off good and then realise that humanity was the problem in the world instead of being there from the get go.
Moving on to the good things in the film, the dialogue between the characters were just as witty and funny as in the first film, maybe even better thanks to Whedon's writing, i thought the 4 new main characters were great; The Maximoff twins' Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch were great additions to the team, there powers were really cool, especially Scarlett Witch's which had a big effect on the story of the film. The other new avenger, Vision, was also amazing to see on screen, Paul Bettany did a really good job of playing this android who was just born very well, he had a scene which blew my mind when he lifted up Thor's hammer which immediately shows you what kind of character he is. Ultron was the last new character and he was a great imposing and intimidating villain, not as good as Loki but he was close, i thought it was really interesting that he was a lot like his maker, Tony Stark, even did the same funny quips that Tony Stark would do, but i was disappointed that they didn't focus on that too much because Ultron is really like Tony Stark a worryingly amount that could be foreshadowing for Tony Stark doing something really terrible to try and help humanity.
Of course the returning Avengers were better than ever, Captain America was a bad-ass, head of the team who had some really interesting stuff to do in the film, trying to keep everyone on the same side, Iron Man really messed up by creating Ultron and feels really bad about it but he still has time for his funny lines and has one of the best scenes in the film in his hulkbuster armor fighting The Hulk which was amazing, speaking of The Hulk he wasn't as impressive as in the first Avengers when he was the highlight of the film but he was still good here, Bruce and Black Widow had a very strange relationship story-line which was really good because they are both such messed up characters that it was nice to see them messed up with each other. But the standout of the returning Avengers is Hawkeye, after the first Avengers when Hawkeye was a mind controlled drone of Loki, it was nice to see the real Hawkeye this time round, he had some great lines and we got to meet his family which added to how we looked at the character, they also did a really good job of making it look like Hawkeye was going to die in this film, every-time any character in the film was talking about death, it would cut to Hawkeye and they put him in peril a lot, to do the swap at the end of the film and have Quicksilver was a great change to what i thought was going to happen and worked great and will also give Scarlett Witch some great character development in the films to come.
There is really too much to talk about in the film, i really enjoyed the film but i think it was too much for one film, and that it messed up some of the pacing for the film, but i still loved it and can't wait to see it again.