The gang is back and thanks to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) they have trouble…Big trouble.
When the film begins, we find ourselves in the Eastern European country of Sokovia where the Avengers: Stark, Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), t Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) raid a Hydra outpost run by Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, (Thomas Kretschmann), who has been experimenting on humans, using the scepter that Loki once possessed. And as fate would have it, our guys meet two of Strucker’s experiments…twins, Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver, (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) named for his super human speed and his sister, Wanda,The Scarlet Witch, (Elizabeth Olsen) who can MANIPULATE people’s minds and throw these really awesome red energy blasts. The twins blame Stark for their parents death and want him dead, like yesterday. Before you can say sequel, the first big battle erupts between the Avengers and these two pissed off super beings. Of course, the good guys win or we wouldn’t have a movie, right? Well that’s not totally accurate. The twins escape but Tony does capture the scepter.
Back at his lab, Stark and Banner discover an artificial intelligence within the scepter’s gem, and decide to use it to complete Stark’s ‘Ultron’ project. For those who don’t know, this is Tony’s global defense program. He thinks Ultron (voiced by James Spader) is the key to bringing peace to the planet, Without the other Avengers knowledge, Stark and Banner bring Ultron (voiced by James Spader) to life, which turns out to be a very, very bad move. How bad? Well let’s just say that Ultron has slightly different ideas when it comes to this whole ‘peace’ thing. This mega monster robot believes that in order to save Earth, humanity must be wiped out. Big bummer for us humans. It doesn’t take long for Ultron to get down to business. He wipes out Stark’s A. I. buddy, Jarvis/Vision (Paul Bettany) memory and then attacks the Avengers during a victory party, taking place at their headquarters. After another big CGI battle, Ultron escapes with the scepter, uses it to upgrade his body and builds an army of robots. He also recruits the twins who are more than happy to help him out..
Okay, so what happens next you wonder? …Simple…battles, more battles, many more battles, with robots killing people and people killing robots. At the same time, Scarlett Witch uses her powers and gets inside the minds of all the Avengers causing them to have major hallucinations (think really bad acid trip). Our super heroes start to fall apart both physically and mentally. Luckily Hawkeye takes them to a safe house, which just happens to be his home away from home. It’s here we discover that Mr. Bow and Arrow has a house in the country, a wife (Linda Cardellini) and a couple of adorable kids. Unfortunately, even this respite doesn’t help our guys. The Avengers come very close to disbanding. In fact, Banner and Black Widow talk about taking off to an island where they can make mad passionate love and hopefully keep the big green guy asleep forever. Of course, with the help of Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) the Avengers eventually get it together and set out to destroy Ultron and regain the Scepter.
‘Avengers Age of Ultron’ was written and directed by Josh Whedon and he does what we’ve come to expect from him. The film is funny, exciting, with spectacular CGI effects. Spader’s Ultron is both sarcastic and witty, but he sounded too much like his television character, Red from the series ‘The Blacklist’. My main problem with ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ was that it lacked the originality and the freshness of the first one from 2012. Some of the humor will go way over the head of the preteen group which will make up a huge part of its audience. The budget was $250 million dollars and of course with that kind of money, it’s very easy to go overboard with EVERYTHING and that’s exactly what Whedon did. .For those reasons, I gave ‘Avengers Age of Ultron only three bagels out of five.
The film opens in theatres, Friday, May 1 and I would love to know what you think. Check out the Two Jews On Film video for more of my thoughts and to see my adorable guest star.
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