Following a perfect summer blockbuster like 2012's "The Avengers" is a tough task, but Joss Whedon and his team have done the near-impossible and topped that film with its sequel AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON.
The film opens in the middle of an action sequence as the entire Avengers teams descends on the last stronghold of Hydra to get back an alien weapon in the hands of the Nazi-like villains.
The first fifteen minutes is an amazing action sequence that would have been the epic conclusion of any action film from years gone by, but our team of heroes is just getting started.
When Tony Stark (perfect Richard Downey Jr) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo's best Hulk yet) team up to explore the capabilities of the weapon and use its advanced technology as the final piece of their world peace keeping technology, things go horrible wrong.
Thor (Chris Hemsworth in his funniest and best Thor performance), Captain America (Chris Evans emerging as the moral center of the Avengers), Black Widow (excellent Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) all have important roles to play as the story unfolds.
When Stark's peaceful system reinvents itself into an Ultron focused on the destruction of the human race, the Avengers find themselves battling a very different kind of enemy.
The film gets so many things right. Casting James Spader as the voice of Ultron is perfect. As the robot goes from an emerging consciousness to a dangerous superpower, Spader manages to perfectly convey the petulance of a child and the sarcastic menace of a Bond villain.
There is a strong streak of terrific humor throughout the film, from Captain America's intolerance of bad language to the heft of Thor's Hammer keeping you laughing between the massive action set pieces.
And they ARE massive.
Somehow Writer/Director Joss Whedon manages to create battles on a huge scale with personal stakes, so they never collapse under their own weight like those endless boring battles in the Transformers films.
Whedon also cleverly dives deeper into the characters, giving the audience a much bigger stake in the consequences. This time, we see Hawkeye in much more depth. His personal life, his background and his acceptance of the fact that in the middle of these superheroes he's "just a guy shooting bow and arrows, it doesn't make any sense". It's that sense of humor that makes the film standout and enjoyable from its opening moments to its final post credits teaser.
The nearly always present music score by Danny Elfman builds nicely off of the original themes by Brian Tyler.
A huge supporting cast lends excellent support, with strong moments from Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury, Don Cheadle as War Machine, Hayley Atwell as Agent Carter and Anthony Mackie as The Falcon.
Paul Bettany's role as Jarvis is expanded with great results and two new characters with powers are launched.
Elizabeth Olson is menacing as The Scarlett Witch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the blindingly speedy Quicksilver.
As Cobie Smulders summarizes in her role as Agent Hill (you Agents of Shield fans know who I'm talking about) "She's weird and he's fast". Luckily, by the end of the film, there's a lot more to the brother and sister than that fact.
There's a lot more of EVERYTHING in Age of Ultron. More laughs, more action, more bad guys and more expectations.
The final battle with an entire city lifting off the ground could have been confusing and repetitive. At the hands of this cast and these filmmakers, its a visual feast of action, music, drama and solid laughs.
This is one helluva a way to kickoff the 2015 Summer Movie season. Age of Ultron gets an A+.
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