“When Tony Stark and Bruce Banner try to jump-start a dormant peacekeeping program called Ultron, things go horribly wrong and it’s up to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to stop the villainous Ultron from enacting his terrible plans.”
Story (8.11)
The second movie of Avengers didn’t fail on bringing us a decently executed story. Instead of pulling thousands of action scenes into the viewer with no break, like the last Transformers did, Avengers doesn’t make itself tiresome. It still does recur to the appeals of the masses, but that wasn’t really a focus. This movie was much more ambitious in its story than the first, and it could reach well what was planned. Most of the conflicts are presented well, executed well and concluded well, except for one of them.
Since the beginning, it was mentioned the Ultron would try to break the group from the inside. This led to some big expectations regarding the inner conflict of the group. However, it couldn’t meet those expectations. Aside from some arguments here and there of Stark and Rogers, there was nothing else. It didn’t really feel like the group was apart, there was nothing intense on this aspect, and the conflict was poorly concluded. They didn’t really try to make up, they just made up (the movie didn’t even show this) when the solution for the problem was presented. This conflict should’ve been explored much more than it actually was.
Action scenes weren’t as memorable as the first movie. There was barely anything really remarkable on those scenes. They did have an impact on the viewer, but they could’ve been much more than that for a movie with this much potential as this one. Unfortunately, it didn’t really try to make those scenes more than just “enjoyable”.
Regarding romance, they didn’t try to develop things really much here. Romance was at the same time stereotypical and at the same time not. It really can be said that it came out of nowhere, but despite that, it worked. It fit into the movie, it had chemistry and it was used to develop the characters well. Not ambitious, but it achieved what it was aiming at here.
Avengers 2 did a great job in its exploration of the story themes. The movie was about fear and what can it do to us. Every hero was afraid of what fear would turn him/her into. Their biggest enemies were themselves. Along with fear, there was trust, which wasn’t really explored because of the underdeveloped conflict I mentioned before. But in the end, the messages were original and went out of common sense, being even unexpected. In Avengers, fear isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and you don’t need to be afraid of it. Fear is always with us, there is no way it can be completely removed, because it’s part of who we are. It can make us even stronger people. And the movie also tell us that we need to trust others, then we can trust ourselves. They are dependent things. There is even a scene that Natasha fights with Roger’s shield, and only then he takes it back and fights with it.
But there was an epic fail regarding the movie’s use of its themes. Tony Stark. He was the central piece of the story, because his fear was directly connected to the main plot. However, Avengers didn’t give him enough focus, neither did it develop his character well nor did it concluded his part of the story satisfyingly. Some may say that Stark had his own movie, but this movie had him as the central, most important and most connected to the story themes and plot whether you want it or not. So, he must had received more focus.
Nothing felt rushed or too slow, the movie didn’t even feel like it was really that long. The pacing was perfect and very natural.
Dialogues were well employed. They decently gave hints of the story themes and its metaphors, as well as to give information about the plot, without being too explicit or too implicit. Comedic conversations weren’t exaggerated like the last movie, but they still were very cliche, aiming at the masses, again.
The story could successfully make me feel what it was trying to. Surprise, tension, heartwarming moments, they were all combined nicely, with a good impact on me. I didn’t really care about the plot, but the focus wasn’t really here anyway.
Characters (9.22)
This is where the movie shone. Avengers wasn’t a standard plot-centered movie like other Marvel movies, but it was strongly character-focused. Each character was given attention and development, and all the conflicts were inner conflicts, even the main one, despite being more subtle. Every single character was closely related to the story, specially Tony Stark. Every one of them feared themselves, they were afraid of what their fears would turn them into.
The characters had also wonderful interrelations. Different from the first movie, in which the cast wasn’t really intimate and were kind of estranged from each other, in this one their bond was explicitly more intimate and strong, besides they had a really good chemistry.
Some of their relations were essential to the story. The trustfulness theme was intensely moved forward by the characters. They completed each other, even making some of them similar when they didn’t seem so initially.
Marvel’s characters are quite unique, but some of them fell into cliches and archetypes, like Natasha, for example, that sometimes felt like a bland Action Woman. But all of them still had some distinct traits or aspects.
The character development was well-paced, interesting and also built along with the interpersonal bonds. We got to see more of each character, making it easier to relate to them. Everything in the story and the action itself feels more real with it and can be better experienced by the viewer.
Of course. there are exceptions. Tony Stark, the one who should’ve been the most developed was the least. And the character development on Thor’s side wasn’t very strong, instead it was used to poorly solve an external problem.
Every single character felt more enjoyable in this movie. If you liked a character in the first movie, in this one you will probably like him even more. The development, the interactions, everything made me sympathize more with the characters, even some I didn’t like before.
Soundtrack (5.63)
The soundtrack did fit well in the story, creating some emotional and powerful moments, however it didn’t go beyond that. Easily forgettable, there is barely anything memorable about it or really original.
Visuals (9.03)
Special effects could be seen everywhere. They really deserve all the money they spent, it created amazingly looking scenes, specially action scenes. Despite that, they were still overused as a form of fanservice.
The background and colors were well employed to set the mood of the scenes. The dark colors, gray, sepia, represented the character’s inner enemies and their fears. The bright sunlight is often used to represent a victorious, instantaneous however, scene. And the red is used to symbolize death.
Technical aspects (8.87)
The actors did a great job with interpreting the characters, except for Hemsworth (Thor). He showed some weird expressions that seemed out of place, and his acting seemed a little forced compared to the first Avengers and the other Thor movies.
About the outfits, there is nothing to complain. Well designed clothes that match each character, and feel at the same time original and unique. An amazing job here.
Overall score: 8.2/10
Avengers: Age of Ultron is an ambitious and surprising movie, a lot better than its previous. Although it leaves aside some central and important aspects of the story and doesn’t have an amazing soundtrack, it deals very cleverly with its themes, while still very entertaining to almost everyone.
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