Craggus’ Countdown To Infinity: Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)
The Avengers have been chasing down the remnants of Hydra and trying to locate and retrieve Loki’s staff. The mission is a success despite the intervention of two ‘enhanced’ individuals and the sceptre is returned to Avengers Tower where Bruce Banner and Tony Stark work to unlock its secrets in the hope of bringing their long-theorised Ultron programme into being. But when Ultron’s consciousness asserts itself, the Avengers find themselves pitted against an adversary who knows them better than they know themselves.
Consistently underrated and the first Marvel movie to suffer from unrealistic expectations, “Age Of Ultron” is one of my favourite go-to MCU rewatches. There’s some clunkiness, sure, especially in the disconnect between the last time we saw Thor, Iron Man and Captain America and what they’re doing here and, of course, it ends with another of Tony’s trademark [temporary] retirements but it also tells a great story of Tony’s well-intentioned hubris, a world-ending threat, introduces not one, not two, but three new heroes to the roster and sets up the circumstances for “Civil War”, “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Black Panther”. The backlash was mean-spirited and undeserved. This is another of Marvel’s ‘second films’ that doesn’t fall below its predecessor in any way. Spader’s Ultron is great and if anything needed more screen time to develop his character and plans. I’d much prefer a release for the reputed 3-hour Whedon cut of “Age Of Ultron” be released than any Snyderised “Justice League” do-over. The truth of the matter is there was just no way any other movie was ever going to be able to recreate the sheer novelty of the first time Marvel got the band together.
It was the first movie where I found myself really taken aback by how awful fandom could be. Looking back, it seems pretty tame by the depths sunk to over the likes of “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” but it was enough that I felt motivated to write a second blog post (“Age Of Ultroverreaction“) about it separate from the review. For a while, I actually felt a bit ashamed of liking the film as much as I did – I wanted to give it a score of 10/10 but worried about having to defend it ad nauseum if it drew the attention of the wrong kind of fans – so initially I played it safe. I’ve regretted that ever since and used it as a teachable moment for myself: like what you like, to the degree you want to like it. So there you have it. I think “Age Of Ultron” is great, and a definite 10/10 from me.
Original Review: Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) Review
Well, well, well, Loki’s Sceptre was another infinity stone all along, the Mind Stone, now powering Vision. Thanks to Thor’s early bath, we also get a real sense of a coming together of the other stones.
Vision (Paul Bettany)
Stan Lee plays a veteran who reckons he can handle his Asgardian liquor. He is wrong.
If you want a job done, do it yourself. Growing tired with the lack of progress in his crusade to obtain the Infinity Stones, Thanos puts on his Infinity Gauntlet and decides to go get the Stones himself, sparking off numerous fan theories regarding the gauntlet we’d already seen in Odin’s vault.
The first word spoken in the film by an Avenger is “shit”, much to Cap’s chagrin.
10/10 
