Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (25 April 2015)

**SPOILERS**
Taken as a whole AOU is a really enjoyable blockbuster film, but it is way below expectations for the MCU. I think Joss just had a breakdown trying to fit all the characters in, sometimes less is more. Lots of elements seem very forced and the whole movie is very hap hazard. Don't get me wrong it's thoroughly enjoying and the set pieces are amazing, but the character development is terrible and doesn't even seem to relate to what these characters were doing in the previous films. Black Widows' romance with Bruce is understandable and I could have excepted it if she hadn't been flirting and hinting at more with Hawkeye in Avengers and Captain America in the Winter Soldier, it just makes her look really bad, it's terrible writing for such a great character.
Lots of little bits of "quick give this Avenger 10 minutes of screen time just because they're on the poster" is more damaging than just not having them in the film. Look at poor Thor, just hanging around with his hammer.
But the biggest unforgivable disaster is deviating so very far from comic book Hawkeye and giving him this daft unbelievable family, wife, kids, isolated farmhouse, wtf? Totally shoehorned in there for smulchy reasons. Totally out of character, just plain awful and forced. This will enrage fandom in an epic scale. Joss what were you thinking? Thank god you're not doing any more. No idea how the Russo's will pull this one back.
Also where's the foundation for Civil War? Cap and Tony were best buddies at the end of the film. Will all the universe building for this be turned over to Agents of SHIELD? Seems a dangerous game to play.
The other minor points could be forgiven for the grandiose and excitingly choreographed fighting and even the amazing performance from Ultron, but they have successfully ruined the characters of Hawkeye and Black Widow, total character assassination. And when they seemed to think that this film would give both more airtime to develop them more, so wrong, very wrong.
I'm just not sure where they go from here. I really did expect so much more from Joss after the brilliant first film, I mean I gave that one 10/10, but simply for the ruination of Hawkeye AOU just get's a 7/10. So many instantly obvious flaws, just disappointing and disjointed. Maybe if you go into the film with lesser expectations or don't really care about the minor characters than you'll enjoy it a lot more. I loved it while watching it but rumination lead to ruination. I'll try again when it comes out on DVD but not sure my missus (who loves Hawkeye) will never forgive Joss.