Zooming In: An "Avengers: Age of Ultron" Review

In spite of my excitement, I wasn’t able to see Avengers as early as I would have wanted to because I was on a Singapore trip the day that it premiered (imma tell you about that in future posts). I would have wanted to be one of the guys who have had first dibs, but seeing it late also had its perks you know, like shorter lines, preferred seats…okay fine I admit that I'm disappointed!

In an effort to get closer to world peace and security, the Avengers are reclaiming the scepter of Loki from Hydra, who might use its power for you know, bad stuff that villains do. They successfully retrieve the scepter, and upon further inspection, Tony Stark discovers that it posseses a power that has a potential to be a super computer similar to how Jarvis works. From this, he designs an artificial intelligence called Ultron whose main function is to protect world peace. However, Ultron starts to believe that what disrupts the peace are human beings themselves, so he goes on a mission to rid planet Earth of humanity.

Avengers Age of Ultron Trailer

In spite of being a long film, it’s got a fast-paced plot where we get to see the Avengers in action right from the start, and the bad guys get introduced not long after. It no longer needed a kick-start from where its predecessors left off, but instead we get propelled right into the action like it hasn’t been years since the last Avengers movie.

I guess what’s different about Age of Ultron is that we zoomed-in into the Avengers’ dynamics as a team. Imagine how Furious 7 keeps on talking about being a family, only this time you’ve got superheroes instead of drag-racers. We see more of them working together on a plan, more of their teamwork during fights (Thor and Cap seemed to be getting the hang of pairing up their toys), but most importantly, the film gets more detailed in showing each Avenger’s relationships with the other members. I’m not just talking about Hulk-Black Widow love team here (which works well, by the way), but also about the roles that they took in relation to the group – like seeing more of Captain America demonstrating his leadership, Bruce and Tony showing off more of their engineering and scientific skills, and Thor being a vital figure in figuring out the power of the Infinity Stones. Even the conflict involved the internal struggles of each Avenger, showing us their fears, their past, and their motivations.

Speaking of giving emphasis to each character, Hawk Eye seemed to be given a generous amount of screen time in this Avengers installment. The revelations about his life and the deeper focus on his character seemed to be hinting of a Hawk Eye movie, don’t you think? I’m not sure but if ever that happens I won’t have a problem after seeing Jeremy Renner’s performance in Bourne Legacy.

The usual Marvel spectacle and humor was still there and I enjoyed how we are able to see clearly every action sequence in spite of the chaos of the scenes. My favorite was when Iron Man, Thor, and Vision ganged-up on Ultron with their hyperbeams and thunderbolts – it was a bit of an overkill but still loads of fun nonetheless.

Oh and yeah I’ve heard rumors that there aren’t any after-credits scenes but I kind of already made it a tradition to stay ‘til the end of the credits so I just decided to be patient. You know what, there are after-credits where *SPOILER ALERT!* we see Thanos getting his hands on the Infinity Gauntlet. Looks like he’s the guy “pulling the strings” that Thor was talking about.

 Credits to the images and videos used in this post go to "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and/or to their respective owners. I do not own these materials. No copyright infringement intended.