AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON is a good sequel to the AVENGERS and it follows through with many of the things set up with the movies between the first and second AVENGERS movie in this interconnected Marvel film/ TV universe.  However, the sequel isn’t as much fun as the first AVENGERS movie and it isn’t as great as the high standard set by the first AVENGERS and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER.  It is a movie that is part of a bigger master plan setting the stage for CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, the third THOR movie, and AVENGERS: THE INFINITY WAR.   Joss Whedon has said he had a first cut that almost ran about three and a half hours while there has been news there will be an extended cut for blu-ray. 

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON starts with the Avengers closing in on a secret Hydra hideout in a fictional Eastern European country where Baron Von Strucker (a very underused character in the AVENGERS movies and better suited for AGENTS OF SHIELD or a CAPTAIN AMERICA movie) is experimenting on Quicksilver (the X-MEN version of the character is better than the version Joss Whedon gives us) and Scarlet Witch- a brother and sister who volunteered to be given meta-human abilities.   The stage is set for the team to turn against each other which partly leads Tony Stark to create Ultron which creates a bunch of other problems for our team during the movie as Ultron becomes your basically mustache twirling artificial intelligence robot villain.  While James Spader does his best with Ultron, Paul Bettany steals the show with his performance as Vision. The team does band together as they work to stop Ultron from making all human life extinct.

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON is the best sequel put together under the circumstances of Joss Whedon fighting against Marvel during the process of making the movie and the movie could have been a little longer to allow it to breath more.   It isn’t the fun movie that the first film was and Joss Whedon has a vision which does contradict with producers at times (and why we never got a WONDER WOMAN movie from Joss Whedon too).  Whedon is the type of smart creator that you are best leave to his own creative genius without trying to fit him too much into a box or get him to fit a different type of mold than his type of mold.  I understand that Marvel is trying to do an interconnected film and TV universe, but sometimes you have to allow creative genius like Joss Whedon to fly (and I do think Marvel’s plan did hamper the first half of the first season of AGENTS OF SHIELD).   I wish Marvel and Joss Whedon well as they go their own separate ways.   I can’t wait to see what will happen in the next CAPTAIN AMERIC and AVENGERS movies (and that little movie known as THOR 3).

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Three featurettes:

MAKING AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON- a 20 minute behind-the-scenes featurette that covers the casting, characters, motion capture performance for Ultron and the Hulk, special effects, and the locations used

THE INFINITE SIX- a breakdown on the Infinity Stones in the Marvel movies (with clips from the Marvel movies Phase 1 and 2) so far as everything is being set up for the two part AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and Marvel movies Phase 3.

GLOBAL ADVENTURES- a brief featurette on the locations traveled to for AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

Four deleted scenes with optional audio commentary by Joss Wedon on why the scenes were cut, but The Norn Cave scene lays lots of info on the Infinity Stones and I wish it was kept in

Gag reel

Audio commentary by writer/ director Joss Whedon which is very informative on the process of making a big budget film and how he had two additional directors (including the second unit director) to get all the material he needed in addition to talking about the overall story

FINAL ANALYSIS: Despite the creative differences between Whedon and Marvel creating AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, it is still a good sequel even though it isn’t as good as the first film.  I do wish there were more extras, but the extras on the disc score high.

This review is ©9-30-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

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