Avengers: Age of Ultron

13. Avengers: Age of Ultron

Before the first Avengers film, Marvel was planning a slow but steady climb to box office dominance by releasing standalone films for its several characters. Then the first Avengers film came along and took over the world. We wanted more and it wasn’t long before the longer-term plans of the ever-expanding Marvel Universe got into gear. 

Given the world was attacked by aliens in the first team-up movie, it was just a chance for other aliens to have a go. The doorway between our world and the galaxy had been opened and the world was watching the Avengers to be the ones to protect it. 

But before we got to “Avengers: Age of Ultron”, Phase 2 showed its three main heroes - Iron Man, Captain America and Thor – return with another standalone film, each of which did very well. So, when Avengers: Age of Ultron came along, the novelty of seeing all these heroes on screen together had worn off slightly, but the interest was still there. Audiences knew what to expect, so the opening scene plays into this well. The last remaining remnants of Hydra are being attacked by the Avengers, who storm their castle base in Eastern Europe, in a spectacular show of action and ass-kicking. The Avengers reclaim the Tesseract and take it back to Avengers HQ in New York city. 

Confident they were back in control, Tony Stark starts to play with his toys and some how creates an artificial intelligence entity he calls Ultron, which Stark hopes will help create peace around the world. And as Ultron comes to life, world peace is his quest, but at the cost of massacring many people and being the one with all the power. Stark finds his own team turn against him briefly as he has unleashed a power under his control which he obviously didn’t understand. 

New super-human characters are introduced here, who we briefly in the post-credit scene of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”. Known as the twins, the boy is fast, and the girl is something of a young witch. She manages to sneak up on our Avengers and cast a spell on them; tapping into their mind and forcing them to live their deepest, darkest fears. For some of our Avengers this shows a prediction of the future, and for others, it’s a revisit of their troubled past. This tears the team apart, and they regroup at a safe house to try and figure out how to stop Ultron from taking over the world by any means necessary. 

Age of Ultron definitely wasn’t as big or good as its predecessor but still had its moments. With a darker and more psychological focus, the show belonged to Ultron, Tony Stark’s accidental creation that wreaks havoc on the world. Voiced to perfection by James Spader, Ultron is a multi-faceted and complex character, who makes some good points in his mad rantings, and will find ways to make our heroes question their purpose in life. The other dramatic elements of the film are the relationships between our Avengers. Stark and Rogers (Iron Man and Captain America) began to disagree – a lot – and the struggle over who is really leading the Avengers reaches boiling point. This is great fodder for the further developments between their characters, which forms the whole basis of “Captain America: Civil War”. Meanwhile, Hulk and Black Widow try to find a way to have a relationship, but Bruce Banner can’t guarantee Natasha he can contain the beast.

Overall, proceedings this time around were more straight forward and at times, just going through the paces rather than breaking any new ground. But every series has its Crossover film; the one that bridges the gap between how it started and how it would end, which is exactly the approach the filmmakers took with Age of Ultron. By this point, they knew where the series of films was heading; listen closely and you will even hear hints of the phrase “Endgame” here and there, which ends up being the title of the upcoming film. 

Looking back over Age of Ultron now, it sits alone in the Avengers films, and works more as a character driven piece for our heroes, who would begin to band together more or start their own wars. This was integral to several of the upcoming films, and all working as the perfect lead up to “Avengers: Infinity War” 

Post Credit scenes – There is only one post-credit scene here, and aside from also being the shortest of them all, is perhaps the most important in the whole Avengers timeline. It starts with the sound of metal gears moving, and a chamber of some sort opens, to reveal a single golden glove sitting on a stand. A tall, dark figure emerges from the light beyond the glove, and in his deep, heavy voice says “Fine, I’ll do it myself”, and slides his hand into the glove. It’s Thanos, and we now know he’s donning the Infinity Gauntlet, setting out to claim the missing stones.

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