Definitely.
Wife, kids, and another on the way. Plus an actual, literal farm. All the signs were there.
Jeremy Renner definitely got the plum part in this movie. Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson were next. And James Spader, of course - but the villains always get the great lines.
Robert Downey’s part in this movie seemed strange. It appears they decided to ignore the events of Iron Man 3 and make this movie a do-over. Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, and Samuel L. Jackson seemed to be in this movie because they were expected - none of their characters really contributed a lot to the story.
Don Cheadle and even more blatantly Anthony Mackie seemed to have been put in this movie just so they could justify appearing in the next movie in the series.
Definitely not as enjoyable as the first film, I think one of the reasons is the villain. Ultron in the trailers looked and sounded great, in the film I think I must have missed a scene, maybe you can elucidate me - why exactly did he want to destroy the world? He seemed to have no motivation beyond for the evulz which makes a boring villain, he’s born and immediately he seems to hate Tony Stark, the Avengers and by extension all humans for no more reason than he has some daddy issues. What’s his motivation?
That came across as completely clear to me- and it certainly wasn’t simply “the evulz”.
He understood his purpose to be to protect the Earth- the Earth itself ie: not to protect humans. He saw humans as being a threat to the Earth and felt an extinction level event was required to jumpstart a new stage in evolution. Of course, when Stark told Banner that Ultron would be meant to guarantee peace on Earth, what Stark was thinking was that it would be peace on Earth for the benefit of humans. He failed to make that point clear. Just leaving it at peace on Earth left humanity with no priority in the objective.
Add to that, although he has super intelligence he is way to emotionally messed up to have anything resembling wisdom. I’d much rather a near-omnipotent being be wise rather than intelligent.
Saw it last night, and really enjoyed the mood in the theatre - there were cheers and applause and reactions throughout the whole.
I have to say, I have some serious JARVIS feels going on.
As a minor note, did anyone catch what F.R.I.D.A.Y. stood for?
As spoiler-free as I can make it: when Vision makes his entrance (FINALLY) - the climax of that particular scene made the ENTIRE audience audibly react. It was a beautiful moment.
Can’t wait to see it again and see what I missed!
Thought I musta missed something, probably distracted by Black Widow or something, sounds like a similar plot as [spoiler]that I, Robot Will Smith movie where the robot wants to protect humanity from itself and decides that the best way to do that is crush kill destroy.
SKipping the thread for spoiler avoidence:
I read online that there is a mid-credits scene, but no post credits scene…can anyone confirm that?
In the Netherlands this was correct, yes. No reason to stay beyond the first scene (though we did of course).
Same in South Africa.
Awesome, thanks guys!
Yeah, not just an international market thing- no post-credits scene at all for anybody. I didn’t read the Wiki page for the movie until after I saw it. There’s a quote from Whedon that flat out says no post-credits scene. I saw it in a theater full of people who waited all the way to the end only to let out groans and cries of betrayal when there was nothing extra at the end.
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Did anyone else notice Hawkeye’s baby’s name as his mama holds him up in the video chat with Natasha at the end of the movie?
It’s established earlier when we first meet the Bartons that Natasha had been expecting the baby to be named after her but Barton’s wife reveals that she now knows the baby is a boy and will therefore be named Nathaniel instead of Natasha (“Traitor!”).
Well, at the end of the movie when we meet the newborn baby, he’s wearing a shirt or a onesie with his full name on it:
Nathaniel
Pietro
Barton
Nice touch, I thought.
(Though that’s the tiny detail that, for me, seals Pietro’s otherwise possibly open ended fate.)
I liked it a lot but can see why reviews are somewhat mixed. Felt more character driven than the plot driven fun of the first one. Also the characters are slightly losing their freshness and running on charm and charisma (which they have in buckets luckily).
A few thoughts:
I wonder if the focus on saving civilians was a thumb in the eye to Man of Steel and its complete, callous lack of same?
Was it said how they lost the Scepter in the first pace? They had it at the end of the movie. Did it get lost when SHIELD fell apart?
I’m not sure if it was intentional but seeing a pensive looking Hulk filling a fighter cockpit struck me as really funny.
I was hoping for a flashback to reveal how Hawkeye handled the events of CA Winter Solider but it’s possible he was home with his family when those things went down.
I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me a year or so ago but the X Men franchise’s Quicksilver ended up being the more entertaining character of the two.
As fun as the Hulk/Iron Man fight was, it really was just an action scene and could have been cut without changing the plot at all.
CONTINUING SPOILERS!!!
This hurt me. Really it did. I’m not a Whedon fan enough to be burned by one of his early demise’s…but this hurt, I feel so sad for poor Wanda.
THERE ARE SPOILERS ABOVE!!! BIG ONES!!! This is for the “I’m not reading spoilers”
I agree its primary purpose was to justify a big fight scene. But it also served to develop Bruce Banner’s character. The other times when the Hulk appeared in this movie he was called up by the other Avengers and was fighting a legitimate threat; based on those appearances, the Hulk could have been considered to be under control. But in the scene you described, he had appeared spontaneously and attacked an innocent city. This showed Banner that the Hulk was not a problem he could put behind him; it was a threat he would have to live with the rest of his life. And it was that realization which caused him to quit the Avengers, not have a relationship with Natasha, and apparently go off into self-imposed exile.
I frankly don’t understand some people’s criticism of this movie. I just came back from it and it was head and shoulders better than the first and I LOVED the first movie. There was so much characterization for so many characters that was fitted so well into one reasonable-length movie that had an assload of action as well and a ton of shout-outs to the comic fans.
It was an incredible movie and I can’t wait to see it again.
I think it’s heightened expectations. We’ve now seen the first Avengers movie (in my case, I rewatched it the same day I went to see the new one) and we expect a movie that’s at least that good.
My spoilers are open but I’m not going to deal with major plot points.
I saw Avengers in the theater in 2012. I really liked it. Later I saw it on video and it felt, hmm, kinda dull. I didn’t like Ultron very much at all. Lots of whiz-bang stuff on the screen but nothing really affecting. And lots of stupid stuff, which I will detail here. Lots and lots and lots…
First, a note of praise: Elizabeth Olsen was adorable as the Scarlet Witch. I have a new crush. Actually, these movies are quite well-acted. That’s not an issues. OK, here comes the torrent of neg, in no particular order.
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The CGI felt really fake throughout the whole movie. I felt this during the first scene. It seemed cartoonish and dumb. I’m sick sick SICK of CGI for most action (backgrounds, etc., different matter). Whether done with CGI or not, the action in this movie was trite and boring.
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The many robots in this film are no better or more exciting than the Chitauri of Avengers 1 or for that matter the battle droids of the Star Wars Prequels. Truly low-grade mooks. We already have drone technology that’s better than these mo-fos! It’s pretty simple: just have bombs inside the robots: they explode and kill people! Or, you know, shoot a simple missile at where you already know that all of the Avengers are standing. You will instantly kill half the team, the ones that are not invulnerable. It’s not rocket science, people. Actually, missiles are rocket science, nm.
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That said, the main Ultron is tricked out with dangerous tech–but he can’t kill Captain America in a one-on-one?! Wait a sec before you object: he shoots him in the chest at a short distance with his repulsors and punches him in the head. And he is otherwise throwing him and knocking the shit out of him. Later, Ultron has Thor by the throat and has more or less temporarily immobilized him. Ridiculous.
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Speaking of Captain America, he is fighting the robots by whipping his shield at them, and it sticks in them and stuff, like a blade sticking in a melon. Doesn’t make a lot of visual sense. More absurdly, he’s punching them and ripping their heads off. I know he’s strong, but each of these robots individually should be a formidable opponent. Each should be at least as strong as Cap and certainly more resistant to “injury.”
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They have to get every last Ultron robot, or it’d bad. Well, is Ultron smart or stupid? He sends all of the robots against the Avengers. That’s dumb. He’s clearly pumping out this dudes fast as fuck, so why not sock away a bunch of them and just keep multiplying. Save some for backup. If that’s AI, I’d hate to see what AS (Artificial Stupidity) looks like.
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What is Quicksilver using as a weapon? He is just zooming up to 'bots and… tearing them apart with his bare hands?!
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The visions given to Avengers by one of the characters were rather embarrassing to watch.
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Ultron is just a shitty, uninteresting villain. He’s approximately 1/20 as interesting as HAL in 2001. I didn’t find his dialog witty or sharp or anything good at all. Also, why does his mouth move? It just looks stupid! Where is Tom Hiddleston when you need him? (Spader did fine with what he was given to work with, which was a bunch of villain tropes I’ve heard before in better versions. Zorg’s ode to creative destruction in The Fifth Element, etc.).
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Speaking of dialog, it worked in Avengers 1. Here, not really. I laughed once.
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WTF was the scene with Thor in the mud hole?! That and what he does later made nothing even close to sense.
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But everything in the plot is stupid. Stark and Banner are geniuses, not idiots. They would not do what they did in this movie. What the villain wants to do is stupid.
I could go on. It’s just really all dumb. To me, Avengers 2 is one of the best anti-movies we’ve seen yet: maxmimum Sturm und Drang, delivering no thrills, merely tiring eyes and brain. I gotta agree with Ultron: it’s time to evolve. Beyond this dead eye candy crapola.
Overall grade: D+
Thought of something else that bugged me: Why is it called “The Age of Ultron”? The whole thing seems to take place over a week or so. “The Few Days of Ultron,” maybe?
I do have a theory. In a more realistic movie, one can imagine a villain like Ultron truly occupying the Avengers and humanity as a whole over an extended period of time. Thus, the title may have been inspired. But in the dumbed-down world of the movie, this is a villain to be punched to death in short order.
Too. Much. Fighting. We were in “Man of Steel” territory where the majority of the film felt like a fight scene.
And even then, some of the fighting was very much in the “cut quickly, can’t quite see what is going on” Transformers variety.
As an example of character moments they should have had but were missing, the Banner/Natalia thing had already started. I’d much rather have had ten minutes less fighting and ten minutes showing how that started, even if it was in flashback form.