A purely awesome film.

Rating: 10/10 (25 October 2015)

After seeing the first Avengers and having loved it, I couldn't wait to see Avengers: Age of Ultron and upon seeing the teaser trailer, my expectations for this film shot through the roof and when I sat down to watch the movie in the theater with a few friends, it surpassed most of my expectations while there were a few things that could have been done better.
The film opens with The Avengers engaged with Hydra forces lead by Wolfgang von Strucker. While attacking the base, the team encounters two of von Strucker's test subjects, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff and arrest von Strucker, while Tony Stark recovers Loki's scepter. Stark and Bruce Banner discover an A.I. within the scepter and use it to finish Tony's world protection plan called "Ultron". Unfortunately, once Ultron is created, he comes to believe that the human race must be wiped off the face of the earth in order to save it. He then attacks the Avengers at their base and escapes with the scepter, begins to build an army of drones and recruits the Miximoff twins. Now, it's up to the Avengers to stop Ultron before he can fulfill his plan.
Joss Whedon had a lot to live up to with this movie and he managed to pack an awful lot into a two and a half hour film and juggles the humor, action and drama very well. Not a single moment in the movie felt wasted and every scene adds to the overall film. The characters also seem much more developed and Joss does a fantastic job digging deeper into each hero's psyche and making each one relatable. Whedon also keeps the tone dark yet the movie does have some light moments and it gave me exactly what I wanted from a superhero movie.
Right from the start, the film chucks the team right into some deafening action, pulling us into a whirlwind of dangerous and visually unstoppable action scenes that allow every smash, punch, flash of light and battle to essentially become near-incredible forms of eye-crushing sights and it's when our heroes go into combat that the movie overwhelms our famished eyes and maintains complete control over the viewer's interest, allowing the impressed viewers to follow the visual spectacle as it reaches beyond the audience's mind. I could go on and on about the battle between Iron Man in the Hulk Buster suit and a rampaging Hulk because it's just so damn awesome and the final showdown between The Avengers and Ultron's army almost tops the battle in the first film. The visual effects are great and serve a huge purpose when the action is taking place. The musical score by Danny Elfman and Brian Taylor fits the film perfectly and gives it life.
As with the first film, the way the characters interact and play off one another works very well here and not one word of dialog didn't work. The humor couldn't have been better and I found myself laughing my ass off more than once during the course of this movie. The acting is also top-notch with each actor bringing their A game when playing these characters.
Robert Downey Jr. never fails to astonish me as Iron Man/Tony Stark in these movies. From his intelligence and skill to his billionaire playboy personality and humor, Downey has perfected the role and made it his own. Chris Evans once again shires as Steve Rogers/Captain America, bringing a real sense of morality and bravery to the role and the argument between Rogers and Stark sows the seeds for Captain America: Civil War. Scarlett Johansson once again is awesome as Black Widow and keeps on proving that women are just as capable of kicking ass as guys are and it was great to see a little of her back-story in the movie. Chris Hemsworth is awesome as Thor, throwing out some really funny lines throughout the movie as well as being a total bad ass in the battle scenes. Mark Ruffalo rocks it again as Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk, juggling the nerdy scientist and the raging green monster extremely well and still manages to be quite humorous at times. One complaint that I had with the first Avengers film was Hawkeye not getting enough time on screen, but thankfully, there's more of him here; Jeremy Renner is terrific in the role, gets a chance to develop the character more and is a total boss in the action scenes. To overlook the new characters in AOU, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Vision, would be unjust because all three play their roles very well. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is good as Quicksilver, capturing the arrogance of the Quicksilver from the comics perfectly, but while I did like Johnson; Evan Peters is and will always be the definitive Quicksilver. Elisabeth Olsen plays the role of Scarlet Witch very well and really comes into her own in the final battle. Paul Bettany is great as Vision. Sam Jackson kills it again as Nick Fury. Anthony Mackie shows up as Falcon and kicks plenty of ass as does Don Cheadle as War Machine. James Spader was born to voice the character of Ultron by being crafty, hilarious, and menacing and portrays both sides of Ultron to perfection.
Now, this film isn't entirely perfect, Ultron is extremely underdeveloped and comes across as a whiny villain and not a major threat to the Avengers. The Black Widow-Hulk romance felt out of place and serve no purpose to the overall story and the set-ups for Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok felt shoehorned in and didn't add anything to the movie.
Yet, I still enjoyed this movie, it's action-packed, has some strong emotional moments, the score is great, the actors all give top-notch performances, and the post-credits stinger sets up the rest of the MCU nicely. So, do yourself a favor and watch Avengers: Age of Ultron, you'll have a blast watching it.