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Rating: 5/10 (11 October 2015)

There's plenty of pressure when making a highly anticipated sequel to one of the most profitable movies of our time, and there most certainly will be studio executives involved in the creative process - which can sometimes be good, but often bad. I'm not sure what happened here. You can see plenty of "playing it safe", sticking to the first movie's structure and at the same time trying to be bigger and bolder. You can't do both, and as if that weren't enough, this movie is desperately trying to set up 800 another movies. In the end we got just a serviceable action movie.
I had read about too much being cut out of the film, about its messy construct and out of place and/or too frequent humorous quips, and of course about some ridiculous feminist "controversies" regarding Black Widow and director Whedon himself. I'm glad to say that even if the film was needlessly complicated, it's still understandable enough and it didn't feel like there was supposed to be that much more to it. The humor mostly works and Black Widow - contrary to what screaming hysterical people who can't handle a movie might claim - had the best character moments along with Bruce Banner/Hulk, and they seemed the most human and relatable of the whole cast.
The movie itself, if you think about the construct, is very much like the first one. The team gets demoralized, only to team up again and fight thousands of faceless enemies in the end while some sort of McGuffin is around to do something. Short tech-babble and exposition tries to make sense to things in between scenes and acts, just like in the last movie. It feels lazy and forced when you think about it - and it is - but the familiarity wasn't the biggest letdown.
The biggest fault in "Avengers: Age of Ultron" is that at times it feels more like a product than a movie. Even if I don't count the awkward moments where they're trying to set up other movies, there's still a disconnection between the movie and me. I want to focus on the show, but I feel like the backstage is making too much noise. The story itself is serviceable but never engaging or focused. It's a simple story that is pretending to be something else. Because of that we can see through it and we're noticing many shortcomings we wouldn't care about otherwise. This film doesn't quite overburden itself to a point where everything stops making sense, but the overall tension is lost. Less is more, studio people. Less is more.
There is plenty of action. Things are getting punched, things are getting destroyed and energy beams fly all over the place. There are some inventive things and neat choreography. Generally it all looks very good, but I wasn't invested. Like I said, this movie failed to connect with me. I see all these grand things happening, and I can't feel anything. It all felt so emotionally weightless. It's not as bad as in Man of Steel, but it's there.
It didn't help the experience when the very first scene in the movie has our heroes fighting faceless enemies we know or care nothing about. It didn't help that the enemy hordes are basically stormtroopers, only to be wiped out easily but unlike stormtroopers, they are completely void of any personality, as they're just faceless things that our heroes need to punch, once again. It didn't help that the main villain has a weird, silly design that makes him absolutely non-threatening (why didn't they go with the original design, which they do use in certain shots in the movie?), and that the events around him are needlessly complicated and forced. It didn't help that the ending of Iron Man 3 means nothing anymore, especially when Marvel is all about this "big picture" and continuity. It didn't help that two shoe-horned characters with fake Russian-ish accents feel out of place.
While the pretty action is lacking in weight and/or heart, there are some cool little character moments here and there. Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo get the best ones and they handle their parts very well. The dialogue in general is easily above average. The (little too numerous) quips mostly work, allowing us to feel something. Robert Downey Junior and Jeremy Renner were enjoyable too, but mostly because they're Robert Downey Junior and Jeremy Renner, not because of the material they had. James Spader's voice did fit the main villain, and I liked that they tried to give him this weird personality, but like I said, the main villain is somewhat wasted with silly design, needlessly complicated plot elements around him and hordes of faceless henchmen. Anyway, these character moments are easily the best parts of the whole movie. Imagine that: In an Avengers movie the fights and story elements make me want to sleep, but the conversations and little subtleties manage to keep me awake.
In short: a somewhat decent movie, where the most of the (plentiful and pretty) action and several beats of the story feel like filler. Actors do a pretty good job though, there are smart character moments and unexpected nuances that most movies like this don't have. On a surface level it's entertaining, stuff happens all the time, but it's painfully empty on the inside and nothing like its predecessor. Did Whedon fail to bring his A-game or did the studio force the unbearable stench of cynical corporate mediocrity into this movie? I don't know. Last year was far better for superhero movies, because Winter Soldier and Days of Future Past are leagues above this one.
Let's hope that the next big Marvel superhero movie is "just" a movie, not a product or a brand vehicle to set up other brand vehicles. Because "just" a movie makes for a better movie than anything else.