Avengers return

Rating: 5/10 (25 June 2015)

The first Avengers film was a fun popcorn film, it helped that it had a fiendishly fun villain in Loki.
Age of Ultron begins in the middle of an action sequence with all the Avengers assembled and it is the first of several prolonged action scenes in the film. It reminded me of Man of Steel, a lot of wanton destruction in one film which just becomes dull after a while.
The plot, Tony Stark uses Loki's sceptre to kick-start an artificial intelligence peacekeeping programme that he has tried to develop for some time. Even though Bruce Banner warns him several times not to mess around with the power of the sceptre, Banner then goes on to help Stark. The end result is the formation of Ultron who decides that it is the human race that needs to be destroyed and kick-start a new earth that would be peaceful.
So in between the wisecracks including an ill judged Latin gag it is Iron Man's recklessness that causes the chaos. Captain America is still an overgrown boy scout, there is a bolt out of the blue growing love affair between the Black Widow and Bruce Banner which comes across as unconvincing as the scenes where they tried to hide Scarlett Johansson's bump as she was pregnant in real life at the time of the shooting, hence why she is the bar woman for the night in that party scene.
It is Hawkeye who is more fleshed out in this film and delivers a more human dimension to the plot.
Of course along with the main plot we have a whole host of subplots thrown into the mix including more superheroes and villains. So we have the Falcon dropping by, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch and the formation of a new Avengers team by the end of it.
The film tries to do too much and looks like a film made by committee and lacks the personal vision which elevated Captain America: The Winter Soldier last year.