Day 2: Ultron

First off, the 10-Word review: "Exciting, epic, overdrive action. Thrilling, without the thrill of discovery."

Now a little more.

When the first Avengers movie came out in 2012, I was anticipating it like crazy. I saw it multiple times in the theater, grinning my way through a mad adrenaline high with each viewing. I love gigantic blockbuster movies full of audacity when they’re well made, and Marvel has been knocking them out of the park for close to a decade. I know the movies aren’t exactly intellectually challenging awards bait, but if I’m going to invest the price of a ticket, a drink, and some popcorn, to say nothing of a sunny Saturday afternoon, I want the big explosive fun that will pin me back to my seat. Marvel delivers.

“The Avengers: Age of Ultron” was a great big comic book hero movie. The world in peril, cities leveled, physics-defying heroics, civilians rescued, good vs. evil vs. moral ambiguity, geniuses performing feats of impossible science fiction, charismatic villains, and tension-relieving one-liners liberally spread throughout the dialogue. It’s a solid example of everything that makes Marvel movies great. But I had two small issues with it.

First, there was just so much going on all the time. The action was relentless to the point that when the movie reached a slower, more character-driven part in the middle, it was a welcome change of pace. The first movie had crazy energy like that too, but this one was just all so nonstop. And I’m not saying that’s bad. I really enjoyed the ballistic action, and with that middle section adding a nice dose of character I was still engaged enough to follow what was going on. But when it goes on and on and on, it gets easy to forget the why and the how of the big fights that are happening, and challenging to track  the overlapping destruction.

Secondly, and, admittedly this isn’t so much of a knock on the movie itself since there’s nothing it could have done differently to work around this for me, it was a sequel. The big fun of the first Avengers movie was seeing how everything came together, and how the characters were introduced and became a team. That thrill of seeing something new wasn’t as much of a part of this one. There were some moments; I won’t spoil anything other than to say I think people who have seen the Iron Man / Captain America / Thor movies that led up to this will appreciate it more, and there were some mind-blowing parts that had me laughing out loud with excitement. But it just didn’t have that magic of experiencing something for the first time.

Which isn’t to say I won’t be going to back to see it a few more times before it gets nudged out of the theater later in the summer....