a bit bloated, but good action movie

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2015)

in a vacuum, this is a pretty good action movie, but being a sequel to "the avengers" means it will always invite comparisons to the original and be judged at a higher standard. Unfortunately, "age of ultron" doesn't live up to it's predecessor. The action and humor is still there. Joss Whedon excels at crafting these fluid elaborate action scenes where the camera pans between multiple characters kicking ass in their own way and then occasional teaming up to take down some bad guys. It's pretty impressive to see considering the size of the Avengers roster and the extreme differences in each superhero's powers. Humor-wise, we have typical Whedon jokes, but I'd argue that there's a bit too many going around in the midst of all the fighting this time. Some jokes felt forced, with characters spewing one-liners every time they got any screen time during an action scene.
Plot-wise, the writing is less focused than the first one. There's a scene where Thor goes into a cave somewhere, submerges himself in water, and starts having dream-like visions of the future, and this doesn't make much sense or seem necessary. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are woefully underdeveloped, with a boring backstory and bad clichéd Eastern European accents. With all the details packed into this film, it seems like Marvel's trying too hard to connect the dots between all their properties and set things up for the future, and this comes at the expense of the movie as a whole.
One of the bright spots is James Spader's portrayal of Ultron. Instead of being this stereotypical cold, calculated, terminator-like villain, his personality is that of a spoiled, petulant, mischievous child, and it works pretty well.