Enough flies to make it worthwhile

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2015)

Let me start off about Ultron. Voiced (and performed, perhaps in mo-cap) by James Spader, he is a weird, robotic creation meant for peace and, instead, reverts to the ways of violence. Actually, that's not entirely true: Ultron gets all the information on what is up with his sorta-creator Tony Stark, and the world, and realizes there is a way to make peace: by getting rid of all the people on it. He may need some things for it, like the stone inside of Loki's scepter, and then he'll be ready to go.
What's so refreshing with Ultron is that he/it's a villain who probably, no, for sure knows how twisted this is, and yet sees with such contempt what the Avengers are and stand for. That and being a sarcastic son of a b****. He's the sort of curse words that the heroes, in mock jest, tell each other not to say. You know, kids are watching! Age of Ultron is as BIG a spectacle as they come, with the action you come to expect from Marvel movies. The highlight for me is when the Hulk, influenced by the powers of the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen, among many top shelf actors here), goes on a rampage in an African city, and the only one who can stop him is Tony Stark - as the HULKBUSTER. And yet for how ridiculous this sort of fight can get, as others in the film like when A.I.'s Ultron and the Vision (the later-model sort of hybrid of other alien stuffs whatever of Jarvis) go at it, Whedon makes the battles creative and refreshing.
And there's even time out to, you ready for this, showing the superheroes going out of their way not only to make sure people are out of harm's way (much as they can, sometimes it can't be helped, though there's no R-rated stuff for here), they save people sometimes one by one. Though things certainly get melodramatic near the end - there may be death, there may be rather abrupt departures for characters for, you know, 'reasons' of the plot that aren't convincing - the writing is consistently clever and funny throughout. Genuinely funny I should say; you don't expect to get things like a Eugene O'Neil reference, but it does come at one point (whoops, does that count as a spoiler)?
There can be gripes with certain decisions characters make, or that the film has both too much in it and not enough time to go even further with things - allegedly a director's cut is waiting for DVD. But this is the sort of case where I'm happier to get more rather than less, and there's a balance of strong character interactions and great dialog carrying things along. A relationship like the one that Banner and Natasha have shouldn't work - for some it might ring as false or rushed, like where was this in the first film(?) Whedon ultimately knows two things: we're invested already with these characters (and he's done his share in the first Avengers), and there's real pain and tragedy to how they connect. Could things be different if they weren't broken people, or thought they were, amid the heroic acts? Who knows? But the filmmakers put that in there just as we think it's ALL about the jokes and mayhem.
Added to this are some wonderful new characters like Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch - people who you don't know for sure will or won't be the villains, the 'puppets' for Ultron ironically enough - and reappearances by others in the gallery of characters from the past Iron Man and Captain America and Thor movies (Incredible Hulk... well, who knows). It's all so much you may take for granted that Downey is still a blast to watch as Stark, a man who is his own worst enemy and keeps screwing things up for his team. He's self-aware, terrible and wonderful, a jerk and a realist, and drives the story forward.
So... yeah, good times all around, if less than great for reasons of certain plot issues, things that seem to go by so quickly you may need to watch it a second time, and characters that only get a sliver of screen time (i.e. Andy Serkis, and... Julie Delpy?!)