An Improvement Over the First Avengers

Rating: 6/10 (12 January 2016)

I didn't have any expectations going into this movie. I haven't been particularly fond of Marvel movies since 'The Wolverine' came out, so what drove me to watch this most is unknown to me. As expected, it wasn't anything special.
Avengers: Age of Ultron's plot isn't something we haven't all seen before. Technology takes over the world, and now the superheroes have to stop it. That's not entirely accurate, but for the most part that's what it is. Now it's not bad for a movie to have an unoriginal plot, and in this case it was alright. Some of the ideas surrounding the new-found technology were interesting. Unfortunately the movie was so focused on action that it forgot to develop the plot further then it's base idea, which was a little disappointing.
The characters are, once again, nothing special. Their personalities revolve almost solely on their sense of humor, which for everyone is pretty much the exact same. So all the jokes are at least in character (for the most part) but they rarely go deeper than that.
Something that really bothered me was Quiksilver and Scarlet Witch. There were two things about them: 1: Neither of their names are ever said. The only reason why I knew who Quiksilver was was because he ran quickly, and the 'Quik' part of his nickname is obviously referring to the word 'quick'. Scarlet Witch, however, was never mentioned by name. At least not to my memory. They were never really introduced, just thrown in. 2: Like I just said, they were just thrown in. Whatever their role was with the baddies was never very well developed, and they just came and went as they pleased. They never felt like real characters and more just as existences that you knew were there but didn't really even want to be. They were just a waste of space, and the movie would have been almost identical without them.
The action is more entertaining than it was in the first movie, which is good, considering that's all that these movies revolve around anyways. It's certainly far from the best action I've ever seen, but it made it a least a little better.
Overall Avengers: Age of Ultron is just okay. Some forced or weak characters, along with a cool but poorly developed plot and decent action make it at least entertaining. Unfortunately, it's far from great, or even good. If you've already lost hope in Marvel then don't bother with this one, it (probably) won't restore your faith in them. In the end I wouldn't recommend this movie unless you were a die- hard, easily impressed Marvel fanboy (or fangirl).