A fun ride..

Rating: 6/10 (3 May 2015)

*potential minor spoilers mentioned!*
To think that it has been three years since we last saw the Avengers assembled in the midst of battle is quite something. Now in 2015, we have been treated with the follow-up Age Of Ultron, in which the team have to overcome an intimidating threat in the formidable foe Ultron, a creation of Tony Stark, in order to prevent or rather at least minimise any threat. However, something goes wrong and instead Ultron is created and aims to impose vengeance on the team. James Spader does a splendid job as the villain, using his own voice to really capture that sense of Ultron being something with life, and not just any simple,lifeless robot. However, as the film moves on from his introduction and other plots are looked at (which I cannot mention without necessarily spoiling), I personally lost interest in him and wanted to see the development of the other arcs. In doing so, I guess you could say it is leading on to future films and to be fair the film has got me excited for next years Captain America Civil War, but at some points it felt like too much was going on and being crammed in for the sole purpose of the development of future plots.
One small aspect of the film that I didn't quite like is that it starts off with the whole team in battle, fighting together, which seems to entirely forget previous character arcs in other films such as Tony Stark's retirement in Iron Man 3, but regardless it was a great action packed opening. Speaking the action, the crew seemed to have upped the ante and each character has their stand out moments, which is definitely something director Joss Whedon set out to do, after some fans anger regarding the way in which Hawkeye was used in The Avengers. Don't worry, this time he has plenty of screen time to show off his bow and arrow skills!
Overall, the film retains it's franchise now trademark sense of humour, epic action and all- round-fun. The dynamic interaction between the heroes is fantastic and if anything has just got me excited to see how the Justice League team are portrayed together. Now, in terms of where I would put it on my list of the best Marvel films, I would consider it to be below The Winter Soldier and below The Avengers, but that's expected because TWS is a film devoted to one of the heroes and the Avengers was the first time we saw the characters fighting together. My personal gripe is that for me, Marvel have yet to create a villain on the big screen that really stands out and is developed well, like some of the DC villains we have seen and I would still argue that we haven't seen that yet. Something like the Kingpin from the exceptional Marvel TV show, Daredevil is what they need. I guess that's what we'll being seeing as the Avengers face Thanos in upcoming the Infinity War films. Bring it on is all I say.