Sigh. Perhaps it was the massive hype before the movie was released. Perhaps it was the unnecessary romantic subplots. Perhaps it was the lack of character development. Perhaps it was the badly developed villain. In any case, it was just lacking in the crakalacking, if you know what I mean.
Allow me to give a more detailed review, though. I mean, it wasn't all bad. I enjoyed it the first time, more or less. I just wish it was more...marvelous. (SEE WHAT I DID THERE OMW I AM THE FUNNIEST PERSON AHA AHA AHA)
Naturally, expect spoilers. I won't even warn you past this point.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Overall rating: Three stars
Before the Movie:
"IM SO EXCITED WHO WILL DIE I KNOW SOMEONE WILL DIE I JUST KNOW IT OH PLEASE DONT DIE CAPTAIN AMERICA I WILL CRY MY HEAD OFF WITH YOUR BROKEN SHIELD AND JUST STOP THE CAR I CAN'T IM GOING HOME"
During the Movie:
"Yas.....YAS...........YAAAAASSSSS.....wait. What? Wait, Hulk and Natasha? No. Please no. Omg....no. WHy. HWY ANM I NHERE>. HWY> . I can't no. stopppppppppppppp.
"Okaaayyy I have to get over that. Focus on the move. CLINT FARMER. Yas Tony/Steve conflict. YAS THIS IS no. Why? WAIT WHY ARE THEY SPENDING HALF AN HOUR FIGHTING THE HULK????????? LIKE WHAT is Ultron just twiddling his thumbs while this is happening?! THERE IS A VILLAIN TO FIGHT PEOPLE A REAL LiFE PROBLEM oh for pete's sake.
"Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch! Finally!.................okay so I guess they are side characters obviously......are they going to speak?............IF I DIDN'T OBSESSIVELY RESEARCH MARVEL STUFF I WOULDNT EVEN KNOW THEIR NAMES RN THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. WHERE IS THE DEVELOPMENT THEY ARE EMPTY SHELLS.
"Where is Ultron even. I've seen him like twice through the whole movie and he said some cool lines, chopped an arm off and...what? That's like it. But okaaaayyy...I'm sure he'll do something cool in the end.
"He did not do something cool in the end.
"Why is Thor in a pool with Dr. Selvig.
"Why.
"I'm so confused.
"I just want Bucky.
"They didn't even mention Bucky.
"*slightly bored*
"Aaaaaaaand Quicksilver died. Of course he did. They had to have some sort of emotion in the movie. But, surprise! I'M NOT EVEN EMOTIONAL BC HE DIDN'T EVEN SAY FOUR LINES."
THE PROBS
The Hype
The hype that was built up for this movie was humongous. When I first saw the trailer with the creepy "Got No Strings" song in the background, I was flipping out for weeks. I was sure this was like, the end of the Avengers altogether. Between Cap's broken shield, all the dead Avengers, etc, I was ready for the apocalypse. What I got was a robot with a cool voice sauntering around quipping back and forth, taking over the internet (and doing nothing with it), and overall just being a bit of a nuisance.
PLUS, IT MADE ME SO MAD THAT BASICALLY THE WHOLE TRAILER WAS TONY'S STUPID DREAM. LIKE, IT MADE IT LOOK SO COOL LIKE EVERYONES DYING GUYS LOL THEN NOPE. JK. IT'S JUST A DREAM. NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS AT ALL IN THIS MOVIE.
The Romantic Subplots
They. Have. Ruined. Natasha. Romanoff.
NATASHA ROMANOFF DON'T GET SAPPY.
NATASHA ROMANOFF EATS SAPPY FOR BREAKFAST WITH HER CEREAL OF NAILS AND BLACK COFFEE.
Like, really? REALLY?! What even possessed Joss Whedon to put that pairing together? Of all the pairings that could happen...that was just...the worst. Just...no. Like, sure, Clintasha was kinda a blah thing, like everyone secretly knew it wasn't gonna happen (THOUGH IT WOULD HAVE FULFILLED DREAMS), but I mean, Natasha and Steve was pretty cute! I wouldn't have minded them! JUST NOT HULK AND HER. WHY.
Not only that, but one of Natasha's main character traits was how strong she was. Sure, she had her issues of "red in her ledger" and such, and she felt guilty, but I mean...SHE'S NATASHA ROMANOFF. She gets over it. And she do NOT. NEEd. NO. MAN.
All rage aside, there was no real buildup for it either. When it happened, I was practically thrown off my chair.
Lack of Character Development
Wait, what's that?
Oh, it's all the character development AOU didn't have.
Basically, AOU had a whole bunch of characters but only focused on developing about three or four of them. And none of those were the newly introduced characters.
Tony's development was all fine and good. In fact, I loved how they explored his little PTSD thing. I have already discussed my disgust with Natasha and Bruce's development. They developed Clint as well, which I had a love/hate relationship with (my Clintasha ship...down in flames). Even Ultron was moderately developed, I guess (though I still have trouble figuring out his motives and plans. It seems like he kept switching everything up on us). However, the issue was with the new characters, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
In short, they basically were not developed at all.
We learned almost nothing about these twins, other than they're twins, Scarlet Witch is 12 seconds older than Quicksilver, and that they obviously have a strong bond. However, other than VERY BASIC personalities (Surprise! Quicksilver is a fast-paced, slightly goofy, catchphrase-wielding speedster!) we don't learn much about them. Which leads to Quicksilver's death and how VERY UNEMOTIONAL it was. The only reason I was upset was because Hawkeye was upset. Which made me upset. Because I luv Hawkeye.
Quicksilver's death was not impactful or shocking because we hadn't learned enough about him to really care about him. If we don't care about him, we won't be too sad to see him go. It's just kind of a "oh that's a shame" deal.
The Villain
Take a moment to sit down and ask yourself this question: What did Ultron really DO? Sure, he roughed up a few thugs, blew a few holes in Avenger's tower, almost destroyed the world...this is all pretty big stuff, but honestly, it's nothing previous Marvel villains haven't done before. What I wanted to see was something different. Obviously superhero villains have to have big goals (destroying the world, per say). In fact, you could say nearly every villain has the same goal: to destroy either the hero or the world.
For example, Loki, in the first Avengers, wanted to rule the world, and killed 80 people in three days PLUS destroyed New York, arguably one of the most important cities on earth, culture/commerce/population/etc. wise. He was Thor's brother; there was immediate conflict do to his relationship with an Avenger. He killed Coulson. He mind-washed Hawkeye.
The Winter Soldier, for another example, "killed" Nick Fury, the head of SHIELD, nearly killed Captain America himself, and aided in bringing down SHIELD as a whole. Hydra destroyed a SHIELD HQ, had Nick Fury killed, murdered various SHIELD agents, took over and destroyed SHIELD...
In short, the stakes were higher in the olden days, people. What were the stakes in AOU? We had Hulk destroying a city (honestly nothing new and immediate), Ultron was gonna blow up the world (nothing new), and a character we barely knew got killed. Um...boring.
Honestly, I could go on and on and on about how disappointing this movie was to me. Don't get me wrong, it was a relatively good movie, but compared to other Marvel movies...this was not Joss's best work.
So, what did you think of AOU? Liked it? Hated it? Have an opinion you want to share? Comment below or tweet me on the sidebar!
