In what ways has Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark become less fun since his debut as the machine-suited superhero in 2007’s Iron Man (easily the second best Marvel movie after Spider-Man 2)?
Well, does he invent anything anymore? It seems like all this machinery just pops up out of nowhere for him to smash more things into oblivion. Because who needs a man of creativity when you can have one who numbingly clobbers mindless henchmen?
No longer does he explain himself. He leaves it to his charm, which, once very enjoyable, has now become thin and dorky. Most every other time, it’s all business with him, hard, boring, and there only to make a plot. He’s become less of a relevant, realistic, satirical personification of the scarily booming warfare industry and more of an action figure in a kid’s playset.
Other characters could have had the chance to make these Avengers interesting. Chris Evans has always given a chirpy man-of-his-times performance that’s subject to his script. And Mark Ruffalo has been supportive as Bruce Banner, alter ego of the Hulk. But if Downey Jr. can’t bring this home, whether it’s his fault or not, the Avengers can go ahead and save the world a million more times without ever taking off.
I’ll say what I think. Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sequel to the massively popular The Avengers film released in 2012 and written and directed by the same Joss Whedon, is not much better than any Transformers mess Michael Bay has slapped onto the screen. I only use “better” because the latter-mentioned films drive every single crude joke into the heart without any intention of holding back the remarks that might be found as immature or even offensive. “Age of Ultron” isn’t quite at the point of being classified as a digital crime, but a digital circus wouldn’t be so far off. The blame goes neither to the characters nor the actors, necessarily. They didn’t choose to sink into their now-brittle persona.
Amidst all the computerized punches, kicks, and body slams that are thrown around for these two straight hours, I’d like to hear Marvel studios give a truthful answer as to whether our superheroes go anywhere they already haven’t in “Age of Ultron.” The corporation doesn’t have to, and it won’t, but every time I watch yet another small, unsatisfying hero movie these days, I picture the Marvel chairman (or someone) one day deciding the viewers from which he has sucked his millions worthy of knowing the truth, climbing atop the highest peak in the land and calling out to the commonfolk, “You’re completely right. You don’t need to see any of these movies.”
Then it would at least be the audience’s fault.
Because that’s Marvel’s scheme. The only reason it makes a film is to get you excited about the next. I don’t hate hate the majority of Marvel movies, per se. But I hate hate Marvel Entertainment.
I literally had to look up the plot of “Age of Ultron” to recall it. Oh, yes, here it is. Everybody’s back for this one. Tony Stark (Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers (Evans), and Bruce Banner (Ruffalo) are all tossed aside to make way for Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk (at least Thor can just stay Thor) when the title programming system Ultron (voiced by James Spader), who’s built for good, turns… bad. And they need to fight the computer who… controls everything. Because he’s bad.
Did I get the plot down? I think I did. Yep, I did.
Hold onto all your crusaders while you can (yes, even Jeremy Renner’s curiously minor role as the archer Hawkeye). By the end of this film, it’s implied that not all of our protagonists will return for the next “Avengers.” Contracts expired before Marvel wanted to stop making these things. That would have made a better story than how “Age of Ultron” works around it.
Every reach for a laugh is forced. Each plot point, each scuffle is engineered with the sole purpose of pointing the movie toward the awaited boss battle encompassing the final twenty minutes. And nothing is done to give the story any worth beyond its threat to the general human race. At one point, our Avengers, in looking for a secret hideaway from the omniscient and seemingly unstoppable villain bent on destroying the world, almost comically seek refuge in the abode of Hawkeye’s family, which has never before been mentioned. When they get there, his wife might as well be innocently making breakfast while the kids play with their toys.
You remember when you were a child, jumping from couch to couch to avoid the hot lava, how your parents would walk through the imaginary pit of scalding molten rock unharmed, as if to say your silly imaginary world wasn’t worth dealing with? That’s kind of what this scene feels like.
There’s not much more to this story I can rip on. There’s not a lot it gives us, period, but allow me to give some social commentary on the matter.
I’d like everybody to watch 1978’s Superman, the one with Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman. Superheroes used to be crime fighters, not fighters. Heroes and villains weren’t complex characters. All the former needed to do was embody everything selfless and righteous about the ideal citizen, while the latter needed to incorporate the personal interests of greed and recklessness. The villain didn’t want to fight the superhero, but he would if he had to. And between those, the concept of the community and the concept of the individual, there was a clash. And I mean a true, meaningful, precipitated clash.
Today, superheroes don’t want to think about each other (Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson, is Banner’s out-of-place love interest), and villains don’t want to wreak havoc. But they will each fulfill their respective duties if they must, only if it helps them take care of their jobs and give the audience what it wants, an empty slugfest more for people to forget than to remember.
It’s not even necessarily that I’m targeting big blockbusters that overshadow the really good movies that can’t afford sufficient marketing. I love The Force Awakens, probably more than I should, even when I try only to like it. What I’m waiting for, and call me a dreamer, is a time where the right movies get the right attention that’s coming to them.
Has “Avengers: Age of Ultron” earned that? No.
