The Age Of Ultron

Rating: 10/10 (27 May 2016)

Joss Whedon returns to write and direct 2015's "Avengers: Age of Ultron," which is not in any way related to the critically acclaimed Marvel Comics comic book series "Age of Ultron" by Brian Michael Bendis, Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson, and Carlos Pacheco - except, of course, for the title "Age of "Ultron." (As a side-note, I read this series before I ever saw the movie, which has a completely different story-line from Whedon's film.)
"Avengers: Age of Ultron" takes place three years after "The Avengers" (2012), in which the Avengers team of super-powered heroes - Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Dr. Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Natasha Romanoff/The Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), and Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) - must Re-Assemble to combat Ultron (voiced by James Spader), a rogue artificial intelligence that was created by Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner in a good-willed, if mistaken, attempt to protect the Earth from all threats, human and extraterrestrial, and to create a world where the Avengers are no longer needed.
Of course, and in what is perhaps Marvel's attempt to one-up the similarly-themed "Terminator" franchise, Ultron - Marvel's version of Terminator's Skynet - comes to view humanity as a threat, and that the only way to truly achieve peace is to eliminate all human beings. So the Avengers, with newcomers, and twin mutants - Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his sister Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) - go to work to try to stop the ego-maniacal and quickly evolving Ultron before it destroys all of humanity. (In another side-note, it is worth mentioning that the pairing of Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen here as siblings is really interesting since just one year before, they played husband and wife in 2014's "Godzilla.")
"Avengers: Age of Ultron" is a superior sequel to "The Avengers." I've waited a year to see this movie and it didn't disappoint (much). I don't need to talk about the other performers because we've grown so accustomed to them already and we know who they are. And although strong supporting characters such as James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle) and Sam Wilson/The Falcon (Anthony Mackie) make small appearances here & there, the real star here (and the real reason to see this movie, period), for me, was the truly awesome James Spader as Ultron.
It is well-known that in the original comics, Ultron was actually the creation of Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym/Ant-Man/Giant-Man, and the maniacal robot harbored a murderous personal grudge against its creator in a bizarre twist on the so-called "Oedipus Complex"; but here, he was created by Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner. Ultron is also one of the greatest comic book villains of all time, and one of the few non-human characters to take that mantle. So although Spader himself never appears on-screen, he was quite menacing as Ultron, and with just his distinct voice alone, he was able to make Ultron a truly formidable adversary to the Avengers, with a darkly humorous personality to boot. His portrayal of this psychopathic robot from Hell is one of the better portrayals of superhero-movie villainy in recent years.
"Avengers: Age of Ultron" was an exciting and action-packed entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe - which, of course, was one of the principal titles that would set up this year's "Captain America: Civil War" (2016).
10/10