Sometimes a suit of armor around the world isn't the right call. (Avengers: Age of Ultron)

     It's been a few weeks since I've talked about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so I figured it would be a good time to get closer to the end of the second phase, and today we'll be discussing one of the most controversial entries in the entire franchise, Avengers: Age of Ultron. This movie marks the end of Joss Whedon's involvement in the MCU, and in a lot of ways, people were underwhelmed in the follow up to the original Avengers film. Though the pacing is a bit wonky and a lot of backstory isn't teased to its full extent, this film does mark something of a turning point in the universe as a whole. We have quite a few new characters in this one, so let's go ahead and get our super suits on as we jump into this supersized threat, this time being something manmade in collaboration with something a bit more celestial in nature.

The next big thing from Tony Stark?

    This movie starts not with a whimper, but with a bang. Apparently The Avengers have been dismantling the headquarters of Hydra across the world since they were last seen, and they've finally located the last of the bases where Baron Von Strucker, the last major leader of Hydra is hiding out. It should be stated that the intro to this movie is the one way that "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," the TV show on ABC, tied in to the movies in a direct way. At the end of one of the seasons, which wrapped up right before this movie came out, they found the locations of all the secret Hydra bases and sent them to Maria Hill, who said that she would give the intel to the Avengers. When I first saw the movie, I had not seen any of the show, so I was really confused as to how this movie began, which was kind of a cool revelation several years after the fact. Anyways, the Avengers are in full swing and taking out tons and tons of Hydra soldiers, with the Iron Legion from Iron Man 3 making a return appearance as damage control, making sure to keep civilians out of the area, seemingly to the chagrin of many protestors around. Things are going really well for our heroes, and things are wrapping up nicely when suddenly a blur appears and knocks Captain America and Hawkeye down. Is it Sonic the Hedgehog? Nope, it's Pietro, one of the test subjects from the post credit scene in Captain America: Winter Soldier. Pietro and his sister Wanda Maximoff are now on the scene as Tony finds Strucker's secret lair where he's studying one of the leviathans that the Chitari brought with them in the first Avengers movie, along with Loki's special staff from the same movie. Tony is about to pick it up when Wanda "whammys" him, which is a term that I'll be using a little bit in this plot synopsis, to make him see a vision of the Avengers all dead, with Captain America's shield broken in two and his final words being, "You could have stopped this...." Pietro is about to rush in and snatch the staff from Tony, but Wanda stops him, knowing that her control of his vision would lead him to do something pretty spectacular. Tony picks up the staff, and boom! Title drop. We have a setup here for Tony to do some wild inventing stemming from Wanda's magical influence, let's see what he does with this new drive, shall we?

    The Avengers return from the base with Von Strucker in tow, all feeling pretty good, though definitely concerned about the Maximoff twins who escaped in the chaos. Tony is convinced that he has a perfect solution to keeping people safe, Ultron, which would run on a system similar to Jarvis, Tony's robotic butler, but using the staff that they recovered from Hydra as an AI database, as it seems to have the ability to think by itself. He gets Bruce to help some on it, and they get to work right away. there seem to be no results right away, but Tony keeps Jarvis working on different ways that they could create this AI network while he gets busy with other things. On the bright side, however, Hydra seems to be wiped out for now, so why not party? The Avengers hold a big party at Avengers Tower (formerly Stark Tower) with all kinds of special guests, though Natasha for some reason gets the job of working as like... sexy bartender or something, which is weird. Weirder though, we have lots of flirting between Bruce Banner and Natasha... hopefully they're not doing anything like that in this movie, that would be very strange. Everyone gets drunk and they get in a conversation about who could pick up Thor's hammer, since it surely couldn't just be Thor... could it? While this conversation is playing out, a much more important conversation is happening between two AIs, Jarvis and the newly created Ultron, as one of the tests actually works out suddenly. Ultron menacingly scours the internet and learns all about humankind and decides that he needs to kill all mankind, as that's the only logical way to keep the world safe. He then fries Jarvis and creates a physical form for himself in one of the Iron Legion suits. He warns the avengers that he's free and will be connecting through the internet all over the world. They kill the Ultron robot, along with many other Iron Legion suits, but unfortunately one of the robots gets the staff then a million other robots wake up in a workshop somewhere else, making reference to Pinocchio ("There are no strings on me...").

    The team gets a peeved at one another, everyone is mad at Tony for making yet another potential threat for them hot on the heels of their most recent one, and then a lot of stuff starts to happen. They get word that Ultron is gonna get some Vibranium from a smuggler named Ulysses Klaww (who we may or may not see in the future). Klaww loses his hand in a deal gone wrong with Ultron and the Maximoff twins, who have now teamed up to create maximum destruction. The Avengers show up to stop Ultron, but he sends in a bunch of drones while Wanda puts the whammy on all the different Avengers, making them relive some of their most traumatic experiences, or make them have some sort of vision of the past in Thor's case. The people of Asgard are in peril, and Heimdall tells Thor that he must be ready. Captain America is sent back to after World War 2 to celebrate the end of the war, then everyone disappears. Black Widow is sent back to her training as a Black Widow, but eventually Hawkeye is able to shoot Wanda with an electric arrow, so she's also incapacitated. Pietro carries her away while Ultron finally gets away from his battle with Iron Man, Vibranium in hand. Before Wanda escapes, however, she whammies Bruce, and suddenly there's a raging Hulk smashing up the nearby community. All of the other Avengers are out of commission except for Hawkeye and Iron Man, though, so Tony calls in the Hulkbuster, a giant Iron Man suit built to fight the Hulk. Tony and Hulk fight it out and cause a lot of damage, but ultimately, Hulk comes to his senses eventually and goes back to normal again. In the aftermath of this event, people are angry at the Avengers, Hulk especially, and the team goes to Hawkeye's secret farm to meet his family.

    Yes, I said family. Clint has been able to have a family hidden from the public eye while he continues to do different Shield missions around the globe. This scene does a lot to humanize Natasha by showing her interacting with Hawkeye's kids, while also giving a chance for more weird Black Widow and Hulk romance subplot. They decide that they're both broken and they're going to run away together. Yeah, it's a weird plot in this movie, but this is a real conversation that they have. Thor rushes off to get the help of Erik Selvig to figure out what his vision meant, and he discovers the existence of the Infinity Stones, magical gems that control different aspects of life. He also discovers that Ragnarok is coming and that he needs to prepare for it. Iron Man and Captain America back at Clint's house get in a manly debate over chopping logs, then Cap splits one in half with his hands because he's so angry about Tony's idea of protecting the world with an AI. Tony is called into the shed to check out the Hawkeye family lawnmower which isn't starting up, and he's confronted by none other than Nick Fury, former director of Shield, and current old man who hangs out in sheds with sunglasses on. This is beside the point, but how long was Nick hanging out in that shed? Has he been hiding there since Shield collapsed? I'm really not sure, but he delivers an inspirational speech to the team as a whole and tells them that Ultron would have gotten the nuclear launch codes a long time ago if it wasn't for an unknown hacker somewhere that is constantly changing them. They also realize that Ultron is going to try making a humanoid body using the vibranium that he stole, and using the staff that he stole as a major feature in the design that he would upload his own consciousness into. Tony has to go somewhere to check out the hacker's identity while Steve, Natasha, and Hawkeye go to stop Ultron's plan in South Korea (I swear this movie is so long and complicated).

    Ultron brainwashes a brilliant scientist (using the staff from Avengers) who has a "Genesis Chamber" which is the device that will make a body for him, and then he begins working on the transfer into this new body. Wanda is able to read his thoughts once he begins transferring his consciousness into the humanoid body and realizes that he just wants destruction, and she and Pietro turn against him, unsure of what to do next. Captain America and Black Widow begin to catch up with Ultron and he sends the Genesis Chamber off in a pod of some sort to keep it safe. Long story short, They get the Genesis Chamber, but Ultron kidnaps Black Widow, leaving Steve watching his new allies, the Maximoff twins. They get back to the Avengers Tower and Tony is also back, he found the hacker, and it was Jarvis somehow. Tony comes up with the idea of uploading Jarvis into the body that's been created by the Chamber, and also keeps the stone in the body. Cap doesn't think this is a good idea, and many other people think the same thing, and they're about to shut the process down when Thor busts through the ceiling and uses his lightning to charge the android the rest of the way. The process is a success and the Vision is born, who is apparently worthy to wield Thor's hammer. They then track Natasha to Sokovia, the country from the beginning of the movie, and presumably where Ultron has hidden the rest of the Vibranium for whatever scheme he has up his robotic sleeves. Finally it's time for a final showdown.

    Ultron is sitting pretty in his little fortress in Sokovia, on the grounds of a dilapidated church when the Avengers come to stop him, they save Black Widow from the fortress and Tony finds all the stolen Vibranium. It's under the city and Ultron is going to use it to make the entirety of Sokovia fly. He reveals his plan in true villain fashion that he's going to fly this land into the air, and then reverse the rocket thrusters to smash into the earth, creating a meteorite big enough to kill everyone on the planet. Fortunately, there's one switch that activates it, and the Avengers with new helpers Wanda and Pietro help to defend it against hordes of Ultron's robots. A whole fight scene breaks out with them trying to keep the robots away, and Ultron goes toe to toe versus Vision, who is able to lock Ultron out of the internet, which prevents him from making more robots. Some of the avengers go to find people who need help evacuating the floating city as Nick Fury shows up with the Helicarrier back in commission, complete with flying lifeboats in order to evacuate the civilians of this city. Hawkeye, Captain America and Pietro (or Quiksilver) all run around this area, trying to find all the people that they can to get them on the lifeboats, then Pietro gets shot several times trying to save Hawkeye's life and dies, making for the stupidest death ever for a character that moves so fast that it makes other people look like they're standing still. Wanda sees this and goes berserk, killing a ton of robots singlehandedly while Iron Man keeps zapping the engine to reduce the speed that the city can fall at. It's a good thing that he does too, because they take out most of the robots but one gets through and pushes the switch that starts it decending to earth, where Tony decides to blow up the engine and reduce the global damage, but Captain America, Black Widow, and Hulk are still on the falling rock, so they escape via another Quinjet, and then Hulk gets in a different one somehow. Black Widow calls Bruce's big green alter ego to tell him to turn around so that they can run away together, but Hulk hangs up the call. That's cold, but ultimately for the best because this relationship was weird the whole way through. In the end, Sokovia is destroyed, with lots of people being killed or left homeless, but the Earth is safe. One final confrontation in the nearby woods between Vision and the last Ultron robot leaves Ultron in pieces after a philosophical debate. Tony announces that he's leaving the Avengers, but creates a new base for them, putting Steve and Natasha in charge of training some new heroes. Falcon, Wanda Maximoff, War Machine, and Vision all make up the ranks of this new group as Steve gives the iconic line, "Avengers...!"

That was a lot...

    Folks, this blog post is supremely long so thank you so much if you've made it to this part. I won't go into individual performances for everyone like I have in the past, because I would be here for another three pages or so, but everyone does a great job with what they're given I think. Gold stars go to our new players, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda (Not Scarlet Witch, absolutely not) making her anger and pain felt through her performance, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Wanda's speedy, smart alek brother who ends up dying in a sad and silly way (due to shared custody between Disney and Fox of these characters), and James Spader as the voice of Ultron. James Spader is just great, and his voice lends a needed touch of coy villainy to the character. Paul Bettany finally gets to play a big character with Vision after being a robotic butler for the first 4 movies that he was in, which is an interesting long play that I'm certainly a fan of. The plot of this movie is a lot, as you can tell, and writing all of this out has really shown me how silly and ridiculous, borderline nonsensical even, that this plot is. Even though it isn't the longest Marvel movie by a long shot, by the time those end credits roll, you as an audience member are kind of exhausted. I have to admit that I do still like this movie overall, but it doesn't feel as fun as the original Avengers movie. There are still lots of good character interactions here, but there are so many different scene changes and set pieces that the movie throws in over its nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes of runtime, you feel like you could have seen several different movies over a longer period of time to set this up. 

    That being said, almost everything in this movie sets up something else that happens in Phase 3, which is something very interesting that I noticed on this rewatch. Thor's vision obviously sets up Thor Ragnarok, but also discusses the Infinity Stones, which are a big deal from here on out, though we've actually already seen four of them at this point. Most recently as of this movie, the Mind Stone is responsible for giving Wanda her powers and gives Vision his sentience, after being the power source of Loki's staff in in the first Avengers film. We see Cap and Tony disagreeing a lot in this movie which eventually come to a head in Captain America: Civil War. Also the events of that movie come about because of the things in this movie, leading to the Sokovia accords. That of course is a story for another day. Where did Hulk go after he turned off tracking in the Quinjet? Keep watching the movies to find out. How will Wanda deal with the loss of her brother? Again, we'll just have to keep watching to find out. A lot of things are up in the air after this movie, and because of that, I still enjoy Avengers: Age of Ultron while realizing that it's certainly one of Marvel's weaker entries so far. My dad, however didn't really like this one, and was one of two Marvel movies that he didn't like now that I've shown him all of the ones that are out so far (Other than Black Widow and the Spider Man movies). He just said it was a lot to keep up with, and he was absolutely right with that synopsis. If you want a Sparknotes version, this is a neccesary film to watch if you want to understand the MCU's workings as a whole, but as a standalone movie, it's not the most fun to watch.

    Thank you so much for reading this post friends, I know this is a much longer post than I normally do, or than the one I set out to write, but here we are. This actually is less like a blog post and more like something else entirely. Hopefully this read was at least somewhat interesting, but I really needed to put a lot of stuff in, because apparently Joss Whedon also felt like he needed to do that. The movie isn't great, but it's fine, not a horrible atrocity I don't think, though others seem to feel that way for sure. If you have any thoughts on Age of Ultron, let me know what you think in the comments, but also if you don't have any thoughts on it, that's fair, because there's a lot of confusion in this one. Until next time, friends, I've been your Self-Proclaimed Marvel enthusiast, and I'll talk to you soon!