Originally published April 15, 2019

Avengers: Age of Ultron is not as bad as a lot of the critics said, but that is not the same thing as being a good movie. There’s simply too much going on for the film to work. The various plots and subplots are of mixed quality, and none of them receive the focus they need. What I will say, however, is that many of these storylines arise naturally from the plots and character arcs of previous films. They are not forged specifically to fill this film’s run time, as with the plot of The Avengers, but instead develop directly from the films that preceded it.

The film opens with the fall of Hydra, which is fairly anticlimactic considering the events of Winter Soldier. However, there’s a nice payoff to the entire SHIELD/HYDRA storyline with the reappearance of Fury and a helicarrier at the end of the film, providing a last-minute rescue to the citizens of Sokovia. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Seeds of Civil War

A big part of Avengers: Age of Ultron is the conflict between Cap and Iron Man. Tony Stark is continuing on the path laid out by Iron Man 3, thinking bigger and better in pursuit of preventing future cataclysms. Unfortunately, this leads him to be reckless, causing the events of the film when he creates Ultron. Captain America is still on his crusade against subterfuge, unilateral action, and loss of liberty. He takes it poorly when a member of his team secretly creates Skynet. The conflict between the two men builds organically based on their motivations.

Thor is having visions of Ragnarok. Because of that, he just kind of…wanders off at one point. It doesn’t really have anything to do with this movie. It also doesn’t really seem to have much to do with Thor: Ragnarok either, if I’m being honest. It just happens.

Hawkeye has a secret family. There isn’t really a character arc there. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s mostly just set-up for Endgame. The Avengers spend a solid act of the film at the Hawkeye family farm, which gives the main team the chance for some important conversations. This sequence also gave us that scene of Chris Evans pulling apart a log with his bae hands, so I’ll say it’s a net win for the film.

Bad Romance

Then we have the relationship between Bruce and Natasha, which is awful in almost every way. Okay, that’s not entirely true. It’s just really, really bad in one specific way. Bruce and Nat bond over feeling like monsters. Honestly, I can buy that. Bruce is the Hulk, and Natasha is an assassin. But that’s not where the film places its emphasis. Black Widow’s major internal conflict in the film is over her sterilization as part of the Red Room program that trained her. The focus is not only on her past kills, it’s also on the fact that she can’t have children. It’s really, really bad framing that implicitly equates infertility (at least partially) with being less than human.

The New Avengers

We also have the newly introduced Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. They do not get nearly enough focus in this film. They do get a pretty compelling reason to hate Tony Stark (which nicely ties back to his arc from the first Iron Man), and they get a compelling reason to join the Avengers later on. That doesn’t change the fact that they are underserved in this film. Quicksilver gets it way worse in every sense, but Scarlet Witch could have gotten a little more focus too.

This is also the movie that introduces Vision, and that’s a whole thing in and of itself. Vision doesn’t appear until late in the film, but he’s an evolution of JARVIS, who has been around since Iron Man 1.

We even get a tease for an upcoming movie or two. Wakanda gets name-dropped, Vibranium is a key plot point, and Ulysses Klaue appears. Sam Wilson drops by just long enough to confirm he’s looking for Bucky.

My point is that it’s a LOT for one film to handle. And the film isn’t good enough in other respects to make the audience forget about its narrative shortcomings.

Serious Shortcomings

The visual effects work in this film is surprisingly weak. It feels like a step back from what we just saw in Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s a lot of CGI, and a fair amount of it is very noticeable in a bad way. It almost appears as if the computer-generated animation is dropping frames in some scenes, as it has that same choppy feel. There are some bright spots, such as the Hulkbuster fight, but overall the film’s reliance on CGI has not aged well.

Once again, Joss Whedon hasn’t met a dramatic scene he couldn’t “improve” with some witty repartee. It’s okay to let your actors just emote. They don’t have to say something that’s too cute by half every time the camera cuts to them.

The Good Parts

For all my criticism, there are things I really enjoy about the film.

I love the costume designs. This has my favorite Captain America design and favorite Hawkeye design in all of the movies released thus far. Everybody else looks great too. My only complaint is Black Widow’s design for the film. She has random Tron lines on her outfit for some reason. Blue ones. Doesn’t even match her traditional color scheme.

There are also has some outstanding fights, marred only slightly by the overreliance on CGI. The big finale in Sokovia is a bigger, flashier version of the battle of New York. It’s an escalation in the best sense.

The best part of Avengers: Age of Ultron is the quiet moments when characters get to just interact without being forced by the plot. An early scene where the team attempts to lift Mjolnir is just perfect. The conversation between Steve and Tony at the Barton family farm is also fantastic. Hawkeye’s speech to Scarlet Witch about being an Avenger is the best character development either of them had gotten up to that point. The film nails the character dynamics, it just doesn’t translate that excellence to the overall narrative.

Setting Up the Endgame

There is one other very compelling reason to watch Age of Ultron beyond its general plot relevance. I have a theory, just a hunch, that part of the problem with Age of Ultron is that it was setting stuff up for future movies, including movies that are still in the future as I write this. Here are some examples of elements in AoU that might see payoff down the line:

Editors note Post-Endgame: I’ve now noted where I was at least a little correct, and where I wasn’t.

Confirmed:

-I think the title of Avengers: Endgame comes from this film, not from the prominent line in Infinity War. Tony Stark explicitly refers to potential cosmic threats as the “Endgame” of the Avengers. He asks how they’re planning on beating it. Steve answers: “Together.” Tony insists they will lose. “We’ll do that together too.” Expect a callback to that moment about thirty seconds before somebody says “Avengers Assemble” for the first time.

Deconfirmed:

-At the end of the film, Vision confronts the last remaining Ultron. What happens next is ambiguous, but it seems as though Vision uses the Mind Stone to destroy Ultron. Or maybe he doesn’t destroy him, but he certainly does something. It’s important to remember that Ultron was a product of the Mind Stone to begin with. Consider this one of my outside picks for things to come back in Endgame.

Confirmed:

-Tony spends a substantial amount of time in the film angsting over the idea that his actions will get everybody killed, leaving him alive. I expect this to come back as a core part of his character arc in Endgame.

Deconfirmed:

-Thor has a vision of the dangers of the Mind Stone, leading him to help create The Vision. We’re given to believe that the threat he sees is Ultron. But it would be super on-brand for this type of long-form story to reveal that he was actually seeing Thanos. I still think Vision may have a major role to play.

Deconfirmed:

-Quicksilver straight up dies in this movie. Prior to Infinity War, he was the ONLY Avenger to die. I consider it an outside chance, but I think there’s a slight possibility he comes up in Endgame in some fashion.

Conclusion

Avengers: Age of Ultron is more than worth a re-watch. Not because it’s just that good, although it does indeed have redeeming qualities. While it has substantial flaws, it’s also a critical component in the ongoing narrative of the MCU. If you want ideas as to where Endgame might be going, this is a good place to look.

Re-watchability aside, Avengers: Age of Ultron is still a very middle-of-the-road entry in the MCU. Its ranking reflects this.

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