Recently, I watched Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron for the second time, because my kids had not yet seen it.
This doesn't happen very often (almost never, in fact), but in spite of all of my issues with the movie the first time around, I found myself enjoying it significantly more than I did the first time I watched it. A lot of that is down to the fact that, unlike my first experience, I dispensed with the utterly s***ty 3-D conversion, which really hampered my first viewing experience, and went with good, old-fashioned 2-D.
I still noted some of the things I had gripes with, like Thor's somewhat disjointed subplot that explained the whole "Infinity Stones" thing and which still felt like a vague plug for his upcoming solo sequel Thor: Ragnarok, and the fact that Tony Stark was an even bigger egotistical prick than before, but I was able to ignore them in favor of what I really enjoyed about this film.
I'm obviously not going to review the film again, but I will highlight a number of things I really enjoyed about the movie, in ascending order.
5. Improved Fighting Skills All Around - In this day and age of blink-and-you'll-miss-it martial arts sequences, it was really gratifying to show that the Avengers' fighting skills, particularly those of Captain America and Thor, have actually improved since the first movie. It was especially cool to see them double-teaming the bad guys with a one-two shield and hammer takedown. This is a team movie, after all, and it's great that it actually feels like it. It never felt right to me in the early MCU days that Black Widow had a monopoly on all of the cool martial arts sequences, something Marvel remedied with the Captain America sequel, and here it was gratifying to see Cap not only kicking gratuitous ass from start to finish, but also punching well above his weight when, he took on, without hesitation, a much more powerful foe in Ultron. The gratifying thing about a lot of the fighting is how grounded and practical it feels; basically it looks like the actors really worked out and actually took part in the meticulously choreographed fighting rather than letting their computer-generated avatars do all the work, something that happened rather frequently in the CGI-infested Hobbit films. The promised Cap/Iron Man throw down in Civil War got a bit of a sneak preview here in act three of this movie, and I have to say I'm really, really excited to see it play out in Cap's movie, which is now being touted as a de facto Avengers sequel of sorts.
4. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch - Last year 20th Century Fox kicked off a bit of a "friendly" rivalry with Marvel Studios when it featured popular "Avenger" Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters, in X-Men: Days of Future Past. In that film, Quicksilver had a show-stopping display of his speed in the sequence in which he freed Magneto from his prison under the Pentagon, after which he was somewhat arbitrarily written out of the script, most likely because his further participation in the story would have obviated a lot of the narrative tension that follows, or in short, he could have solved everyone's problems. Well, as impressive (and humorous) as Bryan Singer's take on the character was, Joss Whedon's was superior in a number of ways. His overall look, starting with his costume, hewed much more closely to the comics than his Fox counterpart. His cocky personality and anger issues were a much closer approximation of the comic-book Quicksilver than the laid-back juvenile delinquent in Singer's film. Finally, MCU's Quicksilver was ultimately more heroic, saving dozens (maybe even hundreds?) of lives in Korea and later in Sokovia (and in the process, showing everyone what a dick Superman was in Man of Steel), and ultimately sacrificing his life to save Hawkeye's. Also, while he didn't have a protracted, money-shot of a sequence, his display of power was ultimately more impressive, and not only that, but his participation in the movie, from start to finish, makes more narrative sense.
The Scarlet Witch, who will be sticking around a lot longer (barring a Phil Coulson-like character resurrection for Pietro) was not quite as flashy, but she had some of the film's very best moments, such as her utterly creepy mind-control sequences, her primal scream of grief when she senses the death of her brother, and the utterly satisfying scene in which she rips out Ultron's "heart." It was great to know that she'll be part of Captain America: Civil War, which is actually a notable innovation from the original comic book series (from which Wanda was notably absent), and I can't help but feel, and hope, that the filmmakers there will play up her rage at Tony Stark, which has to have somehow been exacerbated by the fact that her brother was killed by Stark's creation.
3. Hawkeye's Turn to Shine - I was one with Jeremy Renner in feeling that Hawkeye, easily one of the most beloved Avengers from the comics, got the short end of the character development stick in the first Avengers film. While this was inevitable given how many characters Whedon had to juggle in what was then the most ambitious-ensemble themed big-budget movie ever, it still felt like a distinct disservice to such an important staple of the team. Well, Whedon made it up to Clint Barton, Renner and all of us fans in the best possible way, by giving him a healthy dose of back story, a wife (girlfriend?), kids and a lovely farm in the middle of nowhere, where the entire team spends some much needed down-time after a rather harrowing sequence of events. On top of that, he gets a lot of really juicy character moments in this movie, and even a not-so-subtle jab at the fact that his character spent the majority of the last movie mind-controlled. Renner has real affection for this character, and it shows. My favorite bit took place in the climax, where he basically talks Scarlet Witch into becoming an Avenger. Wonderful stuff.
2. Location, Location, Location - The last time I really enjoyed a superhero film's location shooting was when Batman climbed out of Christopher Nolan's version of the Lazarus Pit in The Dark Knight Rises and emerged in an incredibly exotic, ancient-looking city which, as it turned out, was somewhere in India. It gets tiresome seeing action movies set in America, which is what makes films like the Bourne series, with their varied locations, such a treat to watch. Well, it was nice to see Marvel finally getting in on the globetrotting action, with as many as four different locations for the movie, and with a significant part of the action taking place in a very old looking part of Italy that, amusingly enough, doubled for the fictional Eastern European republic of Sokovia. I say amusing because, back in Marvel's two-penny, half-penny days, the direct-to-video adaptation of Captain America was filmed in the genuinely Eastern European republic of Croatia, which doubled for all of the film's locations, including the United States. Well, here it's obvious that Marvel wasn't just after tax breaks or cheap labor; Whedon makes extensive use of what looks like a medieval fort for the staging of the action in Italy, and considering that huge chunks of the action also take place in Seoul, South Korea and Johannesburg, South Africa (more on that next), this film is ultimately much more global in scope than any Marvel movie that has come before it. The Johannesburg sequence, in particular, was a real doozy...
1. Hulkbusting Glory - When I reviewed this film, for all of my nitpicking, it was without reservation that I heaped praise on the Hulk/Iron Man fight in Johannesburg, going as far as to call it "iconic" and I totally stand by that pronouncement. Watching it again, without the piss-poor 3-D conversion was pure, unadulterated joy. In a film full of excellently-staged action sequences, this truly stands out. Whedon expertly dances along the line between fast-paced and coherent action, which says a lot considering that this fight could easily have degenerated into a Bay-tastic blur of flying fists and shredding metal, and it's gratifying to see that at all times during the battle, civilians' lives matter. No matter how hard it is, Tony Stark (but obviously not the mind-f****d Banner) does everything he can to make sure people are safe. The interaction of so many elements in this sequence, including real backdrops and actual extras, really sold this sequence for me and, I suspect, a lot of other people. This is the sort of sequence comic-book fans have been salivating for since "The Avengers" was first made into a movie, as evidenced by the fact that it was the single most prominent part of the film's marketing campaign, and to my mind it has completely and comprehensively lived up to the hype. There is nothing in any other action film (yes, I am being all encompassing here) that even comes close to measuring up to this battle. If there was any justice in the world, this sequence alone should win Industrial Light and Magic their nth Academy Award for visual effects, but even if it doesn't, to my mind, this is one of their greatest achievements as a visual effects house so far.
While it looks as though the new adventures of Mad Max are getting raves from critics, limited funds means I have to choose which movies I can watch, so I'm saving up for Brad Bird's Tomorrowland, his first new film in four years and his first original property in eight. It looks like an incredibly ambitious piece of science fiction, and its release (for me) cannot come soon enough.
For now, though, I was more than happy to take one more joy ride with Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
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