Photo Courtesy: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
As of the writing of this article Avengers: Age of Ultron has made well over 200 million dollars. Its first week at the box office, however, was unable to match that of its predecessor The Avengers.
Though it may end up making well over the amount the first Avengers made and be seen as a commercial success, the hard truth is that this movie is not as good as the first one.
It is absolutely an enjoyable film and one that I would recommend to friends but it doesn’t have the same joy that made the first Avengers film a pillar for the marvel Cinematic Universe.
Three years ago it was a dream to see Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man come together to defend the world. Each of their respective movies had laid the foundation and whetted the appetites for fans wanting to see every superhero come together.
It was just enough to see Thor use his hammer on Captain America’s shield in the first movie. That was a scene that elicited cheers from the audience that I saw the movie with and when it happened in the first ten minutes of Age of Ultron, there was little to no noise.
In this movie, it no longer felt special to see the characters together. The story had progressed since we last saw them fight, but for the audience it was only the second time that they had come together and it felt routine.
Having such a large cast really detracted from Age of Ultron whereas in the first Avengers they enhanced the movie. The extended cast came together and on top of that there were two more added in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
The problem with all these characters is that they each had to have their specific moment to shine to make sure they had a reason to be in the movie. Each character had to have a funny line to show the audience that they were cool and sometimes it took away from the film.
The first Avengers had humorous moments and one liners from each character, but they never felt forced. In Avengers: Age of Ultron it sometimes felt like the writers realized that Thor hadn’t said anything cool in a couple of scenes so they needed to give him a clever line to bring him back to the rest of the cast.
This balance between all of the heroes is hard to do in film and instead of bringing each hero up to the quality of the best, it brought them down to the level of the worst. Some characters were brought down by the writer’s need for all of the characters to be super cool.
Finally, Ultron was simply not as cool as Loki. He will be in no way as memorable as the trickster-god himself.
Loki had been seen in a previous movie and had been established as a threat. When he appeared in the Avengers with seemingly more power, he became a world level threat.
Ultron did not have the benefit of being built up in another film and really suffered because of it. He was supposed to be smarmy and irreverent in the same vein as Loki.
A lack of the same character buildup Loki received was detrimental to Ultron’s ability to appear as a threat to this incredibly overpowered superhero team.
Overall, Avengers: Age of Ultron was not and will not be a flop. It will continue to make money and is a good movie.
It is not on the level of the first Avengers and will have a difficult time holding up to some of the better movies that Marvel has produced for its cinematic universe.
