I sure could’ve used a “Previously on Marvel’s Cinematic Universe…” segment at the outset of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The movie is another installment in a mega-franchise, not truly a stand-alone project. After a fan-service-heavy opening sequence, during which each member of the titular superhero squad gets to take a brief bow in the spotlight, I was soon disoriented by an onslaught of quasi-mystical and pseudoscientific gobbledygook designed to set up the central plotline of this new adventure.
My early mistake was attempting to reconcile it all with the little bits I remember about the endings of Iron Man 3 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, two earlier films in the series that Marvel Studios has so brilliantly contrived to empty our wallets.
It was only after I surrendered to the futility of my attempt that I was able to relax back into my seat and enjoy this delightfully irreverent second assemblage of the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr).
Original Avengers writer-director Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) remains at the helm and again displays his virtuoso talent for injecting just enough humor into scenes of action-packed derring-do and menacing pronouncements by villains to keep it all from sagging under the weight of its own absurdity. “The city is flying. We’re fighting robots. And I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense,” says Hawkeye, by way of a pep talk to newcomer Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) during the climactic battle.
The Big Bad this time around is a Frankenstein creation of Stark’s. Intended to be an impenetrable shield for Earth, artificial intelligence Ultron (voiced by James Spader) instead decides the only way to bring peace to the planet is to eliminate the human beings who live there. His nefarious plan involves a scepter from outer space and huge amounts of the metal from which Captain America’s shield was forged. A fictional Eastern European state, a stand-in for war-scarred spots like Bosnia or Kosovo, is the staging ground — and provides an excuse for some of the film’s more serious moments, when characters wonder openly about the moral justifications of preemptively waging a war in order to protect peace.
The Avengers briefly fight among themselves over how to confront Ultron, but they rally to save the day (hope that’s not a spoiler?) with the help of some new friends. It’s fun, though it sometimes get bogged down by the fealty that must be paid to Marvel’s visionary cash-cow. The snap and crackle of Whedon’s dialogue are what have stuck in my mind rather than the overly frenetic and cartoonishly CGIed action sequences.
As much as I liked it, I can’t imagine wanting to watch Age of Ultron again. The downside for Marvel of turning their interlocking films into the biggest-budget TV show ever made is that the individual episodes begin to feel as expendable as most of what’s on the boob tube. The audience is trained to focus feverishly on what’s next — even sitting through 10 minutes of end credits to view a five-second tease of what’s to come — rather than waste any time savoring what they’ve just witnessed.
