Personally, this movie is the one that brings me the most happiness out of the entire MCU.
Wait! Before you start pounding manifestos into my front door (though I mean, I need to replace the thing anyways so go right ahead), recall that I did NOT rank it at the top of the list. There are some legitimately crippling issues with Age of Ultron. But there are also a lot of moments that speak to the "fan" side of me, and those moments speak so loudly that yes, it's very nearly my favorite movie in the MCU. And it's my list, so I get to make decisions like this. If you want to get all butt-hurt about it, go write your own dang list.
Let's talk about some of my gripes. One of my pet peeves is a character who is hyper competent at one thing, who has been established as hyper competent at that thing, suddenly becoming hyper competent at something unrelated because "smart peoples be smart, yo." In the first Avengers, Bruce Banner is brought in to consult for S.H.I.E.L.D. because he's the world's foremost expert on gamma radiation, which is needed to track the tesseract. In Age of Ultron Stark brings him in to help try and create an artificial intelligence from a rock because... uh... physicists are notoriously good at both biology and computer programming?
For the uninitiated; they're not.
Another thing. There's a jingle, sung by Tony, let me see if I can remember the words to OH YEAH "I'm decrypting nuclear codes and you don't want me to..." This... is a continuation of one of the most unforgivable action movie tropes. Nuclear codes aren't something that can a) be accessed from the internet, or b) used to launch nukes from some random computer via the internet. That's not how it works. The actual silos don't even use hardware that can be connected to the internet, and launching a nuke requires the actual interaction of several actual people with manually operated hardware.
Also, Quicksilver. He was fine, the accent was a little weird, but let's get real here. X-Men: Days of Future Past had already come out by this point. So this version of Quicksilver was never really going to stand a chance in comparison.
But there are also so many excellent things! The effects, the script, the banter, the character interaction, BruNat, Ultron's slow descent into madness! THIS SCENE!!
There's no doubt that the movie could have been better. Some of that probably could have been improved with less meddling by studio execs. Some of the issues could have probably been avoided if Joss had been allowed to cut characters. But forget all of that for a second. Ignore the world of "what could have been" and just look at what we got. Age of Ultron is one of the most fun comic-book romps I have ever seen. The ensemble cast bounces off itself in the most pleasing way possible, because the script has some of the best dialogue to come out of Hollywood, and because the actors in this film are pretty universally fantastic. The movie looked amazing, and the action sequences are amazing fun to watch while still maintaining the feel of the comics that inspired them.
Joss Whedon didn't beat out The Avengers on his second go, I won't dispute that. But to anyone who won't appreciate the awesomeness we got and throws **** at this movie just because they wanted "more," I have just one thing to say.
Language!
Wait! Before you start pounding manifestos into my front door (though I mean, I need to replace the thing anyways so go right ahead), recall that I did NOT rank it at the top of the list. There are some legitimately crippling issues with Age of Ultron. But there are also a lot of moments that speak to the "fan" side of me, and those moments speak so loudly that yes, it's very nearly my favorite movie in the MCU. And it's my list, so I get to make decisions like this. If you want to get all butt-hurt about it, go write your own dang list.
For the uninitiated; they're not.
Another thing. There's a jingle, sung by Tony, let me see if I can remember the words to OH YEAH "I'm decrypting nuclear codes and you don't want me to..." This... is a continuation of one of the most unforgivable action movie tropes. Nuclear codes aren't something that can a) be accessed from the internet, or b) used to launch nukes from some random computer via the internet. That's not how it works. The actual silos don't even use hardware that can be connected to the internet, and launching a nuke requires the actual interaction of several actual people with manually operated hardware.
Also, Quicksilver. He was fine, the accent was a little weird, but let's get real here. X-Men: Days of Future Past had already come out by this point. So this version of Quicksilver was never really going to stand a chance in comparison.
But there are also so many excellent things! The effects, the script, the banter, the character interaction, BruNat, Ultron's slow descent into madness! THIS SCENE!!
There's no doubt that the movie could have been better. Some of that probably could have been improved with less meddling by studio execs. Some of the issues could have probably been avoided if Joss had been allowed to cut characters. But forget all of that for a second. Ignore the world of "what could have been" and just look at what we got. Age of Ultron is one of the most fun comic-book romps I have ever seen. The ensemble cast bounces off itself in the most pleasing way possible, because the script has some of the best dialogue to come out of Hollywood, and because the actors in this film are pretty universally fantastic. The movie looked amazing, and the action sequences are amazing fun to watch while still maintaining the feel of the comics that inspired them.
Joss Whedon didn't beat out The Avengers on his second go, I won't dispute that. But to anyone who won't appreciate the awesomeness we got and throws **** at this movie just because they wanted "more," I have just one thing to say.
Language!
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