Marval Movie

The Avengers was one of the biggest, well-written and best superhero movies to come out in this renaissance of the genre. It was one of the largest grossing movies of all-time so that obviously puts a lot of pressure on the sequel.

No time is wasted in giving the audience its candy, with all the Avengers assembled together and leading an attack on a castle, with tanks, laser guns and super-suited soldiers. Seeing a character get their own moment in a movie is still great but seeing Ironman (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) all on-screen at the same time is priceless.

We get two new characters early on. They are twins that have been genetically experimented on. There is Pietro Maximoff (Aaron Taylor Johnson) a speedster that is naturally impatient and has a flare for showing off and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) that is telekinetic and able to induce a nightmare shock state, both sporting thick Russian accents (now I know that their code-names are Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, but they are never called this in the movie).

When the team returns to their tower it seems like the mission is over and they as a group will no longer be needed. Tony however sees a way to make sure they will never be needed again. Using their newly acquired item from the villain that has been the cause of nothing but destruction (wow that's REALLY stupid when you have to describe it). But he does it anyway and creates an A.I. named Ultron (James Spader). The masalah with all A.I. is that no matter what its creators intentions were it will develop it's own goals and ideas.

As a villain Ultron has a lot going for him, he has a good design (even though I do question why a robot needs a flapping mouth and eyebrows), he has power to take on any Avenger and is smart enough to come up with a master plan that will test all of them at once and James Spader gives a truly engaging performance. Spader is an actor that has flown under my radar (until now), what he does with the character is make him unaware about his dual nature, he is a robot and is artificial but there is still that essence of Tony Stark in him that he seems to be unaware of and when his heavy emotions come knocking he is surprised by it himself.

But being that this villain was created by one of the Avengers themselves, it adds friction and conflict within the group. All the trust that has been gathered in the time they've been a team is suddenly shaken to the core. 

Joss Wheadon's strength has always been his unique, flavorful writing. He excels at giving each character their own voice and puts in funny re-accruing gags throughout (this one is about how Cap isn't keen on bad language). It is also impressive that with a cast this big no one feels tacked-on, wasted or pushed to the side, a very tightly woven screenplay indeed. He has also come ways in his directing. It is still the action set-pieces that we are all here for and will be talking about with our friends. They are well thought-out, crafted and executed. It is the unflinching scale of everything that is truly impressive, but what separates it from becoming noise is that we still have investment in the characters and understand the stakes. There are nitpicks but at this point it all becomes superficial.

This movie is significantly darker than the first movie. Both in terms of tone and color scheme. What is happening in this world that superhero movies can never be bright and colorful? This isn't a dark movie but it is darker than the last, which gives me concern. 

Danny Elfman composes the music for this movie, even though it sounds a lot like the first score by Alan Silvestri. But either way this is still a rousing score with all the bombast that one should come to expect while watching a superhero movie.

This is not a flawless movie, I have my gripes, but that is something that comes with the standard being perhaps too high. The first Avengers movie was a great watch and got better with repeated viewings, this might be the same. As a sequel it raises the scale, the stakes and hits the group in their center. Superhero movies have never been better, this movie now shows that they've also never been bigger.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 4