A bowl of overcooked,convoluted,entertaining mess

Rating: 6/10 (6 May 2015)

Right off the bat I can say one thing without any hesitation. I enjoyed watching this movie. It was supposed to be linear summer blockbuster flick meant to cash in on the now highly maximized marvel fan base. Joss Whedon to be honest was at his best while making this movie. I have watched this movie twice. My first viewing as a normal 3d movie and my second in IMAX, thus my review is pretty much an in depth analysis about the movie and a lot of it's aspects that grew on me, in the bad way. Throughout this review, my statements might sound a bit nit picky but these aspects really pushed me out of the overall experience of the movie as a whole.
1) Casting and Characterisation: - I have absolutely no problem with the returning avenger crew. They were fantastic back in 2012; they are equally fantastic and dynamic now. The first party scene in the movie shows the relationship and chemistry amongst the old returning crew and highlighting the brilliant work done by the casting crew previously. Talking about new comers, James Spader was spectacular. Ever since the first time I viewed him in the Office and Blackhat, I knew he was perfect for the role o this menacing baddie . With what was given to him by script and what he executed, he was generally flawless. But the incoherent plot script and rushed narrative didn't flush out his character to the fullest throwing down the brilliant opportunity to make him a very memorable villain, which I will be explaining later in depth in this review. Also Quicksikver is not as good as the days of future past iteration.
2) Story, Screenplay and Plot: - This is the basic reason why my rating for this movie is as low as 6/10. Everything wrong and bitter about this movie lies with the unnecessarily over convoluted, incoherent and unexplained plot that drove me crazy on the first viewing.
i) How and why did tony start making his suits again after the end of iron man 3? ii) What was the compelling reason why Ultron became that menacing? iii) Why and how did the relationship between Natasha and Bruce crop up?
It just feels as if the whole movie was just rushed to the audience as if Disney is sitting back in their office and saying, " They will pay us and watch it anyways ". Seriously! The love story between Bruce and Natasha for that matter is so underdeveloped and cooked. I didn't see any chemistry between them in previous movies, at least not something that could bring up this love story into light. The biggest point of the movie, the reason why this movie was made, Ultron was just scrapped completely and misused by Joss. Ultron quite literally comes in the beginning of the movie, gives a vague reason, turns ultra menacing, builds more of his kind and plans a world destruction scheme all with absolutely no character development. It's shameful to see this happen especially with someone as good as James Spader in the shoes. Hulk and Thor were also left back, especially Hulk put into the stupid mess of a love story I didn't give two damns about. It is really frustrating to see such missed opportunities here. The whole movie is one bowl of ambitious but overcooked plot that Joss Whedon thought it would be okay to put some more darkness and gritty plot actions to make this movie something really dark and aggressive. Thus on a whole not as good as the first one.
3) Direction: - I need to give a shout out to Whedon though for putting his best efforts to bring in the crew again into the screen to make this a compelling movie. The charm of seeing these heroes assemble was gone with the first one, and Joss Whedon has done a brilliant job fulfilling a tough task to make these characters feel relevant again as a crew. The action is superb. I loved every moment of action in the movie; in fact Joss was clever to add in an explosive scene every time you say " WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? " about the plot to keep to attracted to the movie. The first battle with Ultron was a bit over the top I felt, but nonetheless kept me at the edge of the seat. I still don't understand how many of the heroes don't exactly get hurt or injured towards the end. Kudos again to Joss who even under Disney's pressure didn't back away from showing causalities and death in this movie unlike the first one where every citizen was conveniently alive. And the hulk buster fight, if that was the only thing in the movie I would give this a 10. On a whole, yes great director, no for a screenwriter or script writer for that matter.
On an overall, the movie is a mess. I don't go into a theater to see explosions every 2 or 3 minutes and feel satisfied with that. I am disappointed about the fact that though this movie could not live up to the first one, the crew did an awful job at including the thrilling charm and vibe of the first movie's villain and his motives into this iteration. The first avengers showed Loki at every step doing his job, explaining his motives giving him enough screen time and making him the lovable dirt bag we wanted but this movie has less than half of what the movie needs to offer. , Or at least half of what it's previous movie offered. It is a fun movie, and must be watched in theater, but let me warn you, if you are a big avengers fan, like I am, this movie will grow on you, in a bad sense.