Release date:
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April 24, 2015
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Director:
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Joss Whedon
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Cast:
Language:
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Robert Downey Jr,
Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy
Renner, Don Cheadle, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Paul Bettany,
James Spader, Samuel L. Jackson
English
|
Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye,
Black Widow, Thor and Captain America … Avengers:
The Age of Ultron offers the obvious thrill of seeing this
superpowered/super-talented sextet from Marvel Comics all together in one film.
But we already got that in 2012’s runaway global hit Marvel’s The Avengers. What does Part 2 offer that Part 1 did not?
Answer: really not that much more.
For writer-director Joss
Whedon – who helmed the first film too – the challenge was to portray an
evolving group dynamic in The Age of
Ultron, with each member settling down into this formidable assembly,
having had some time since the first film to establish friendships and gauge
the competition. Incredibly enough for a
bunch of colleagues this diverse and this gifted, they’re completely apolitical
amongst themselves. Sure they have their differences of opinion about strategy,
but where are the insecurities? Except for a fleeting moment when we see
Captain America through Thor’s eyes, everything’s all sweet and honey between
them.
How intriguing that a
character exemplifying America’s omnipotence should feel threatened by a pre-Christian
European mythological deity. Age of
Ultron occasionally holds out such flashes of wry humour and depth, and vignettes
of budding relationships, but it does nothing to develop them further. Now why
on earth couldn’t we have got more of that in this film, Mr Whedon?
Before going further,
it’s only fair to introduce the leads to non-comic-book-geeks among you. The
Avengers are a superhero squad that first appeared in print in the 1960s in the
US. The individual characters have their own separate lives that had been
chronicled in several books before they joined hands. Over the years, the membership
has varied. In the two film adaptations so far, the team has consisted of:
(a) Iron Man a.k.a Tony
Stark (Robert Downey Jr), the eccentric billionaire industrialist, inventor and
wearer of a metallic suit of armour fitted with advanced weapons and other
gadgets;
(b) Hulk/Dr Bruce Banner
(Mark Ruffalo), the genius scientist accidentally exposed to radiation as a
result of which, if he
gets enraged or agitated, he metamorphoses from a
gentle, reticent man into an uncontrollably destructive, green-skinned giant
with superhuman strength;
(c) Hawkeye/Clint Barton
(Jeremy Renner), an archer who hits the bull’s eye every time;
(d) Black Widow/Natasha
Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), a skilled warrior and former Soviet agent who
defected to the US;
(e) Thor (Chris
Hemsworth), the seemingly indestructible hammer-wielding Norse god who can
manipulate weather, fly and crush his opposition in ways no human being can;
and
(f) Captain America or
Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), an ordinary man enhanced through scientific
experimentation during World War II, then kept frozen to be revived for future
use. His costume is in the colours of the US flag. His weapon: a metal shield.
They’re a league of
potentially fascinating characters played by worthy actors. In this, the second
Avengers film, the six must save the world from destruction at the hands of the
robot Ultron (voiced by James Spader, best known in India as that delightful
devil Alan Shore from TV’s The Practice and Boston Legal). Ultron has human cohorts,
the twins Wanda the mind-bender and her brother Pietro
the speedster a.k.a. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver,
who are the product of experiments on humans. The siblings are played by
Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Add
to this mix the beautiful-bodied and morally interesting robot Vision, given
form and life by actor Paul Bettany who has so far voiced Stark’s
butler/assistant Jarvis in the Iron Man series.
This film though, is
less than a sum of its best parts. The reason is simple: Age of Ultron’s plus points are dwarfed by an overwhelming feeling
of how generic it is. The ‘scientific’ or pseudo-scientific explanations for
sundry developments come off as boring, confusing mumbo-jumbo. And despite the
pace and energy of the battle sequences, there are no stand-out moments that
take the breath away because of an imaginative concept rather than the SFX
involved. Remember Christopher Reeve in his Superman avatar freezing a lake
with his breath and flying off with the island of ice in his arms to hold it
over a factory fire that in turn melts the ice and is extinguished by the
resultant shower? Not a single moment like that in this film.
Age of Ultron is better in some of the personal interactions
between individual members in the league. Particularly nice is the arc of the twins’
motivations through the story. My favourite scene in the entire film is a party
where all the Avengers turn up looking delicious in civilian clothing. Apart
from the visual relief and the fact that several of them are stunners, there is
warmth and humour in their conversations and some appealing insights into who
they are.
Hulk – with his many internal
struggles – remains one of my favourite superheroes of all time. Here is a humanoid
who can’t control his transformations from Dr Banner to superhero, and desperately
fights his strength because, as Romanoff puts it, when he does get into battle
he knows he will win. In this film too, Hulk has the strongest backing of the
writers. We delve into his inside story, while Hawkeye gets an entire side
story (not a sparkling one, but at least it’s there). Captain America has his
moments too that go beyond Chris Evans’ good looks.
Iron Man, on the other
hand, is dealt with rather superficially. Yeah yeah, we know he’s cheeky, and
of course the charismatic Robert Downey Jr makes him funny, but tell us more.
Thor does not develop in
any way in Whedon’s hands, remaining the same dull, seemingly invincible, invulnerable
guy through the Thor and Avengers series. And Black Widow is dull
because the writers seem not to care enough to flesh her out. So busy were they
focusing on Scarlett Johansson’s hot body and how her pretty nose peeps out
from behind that curtain of wavy hair, that they did not bother to make her a creature
we can invest in.
Perhaps another title
for Avengers 2 could be: The League of Extraordinary White Gentlemen
(With A Token Woman Carelessly Thrown In For Political Correctness). There
are a couple of token black people too uncaringly chucked into the blend – Avengers’
boss Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson and another associate played by Don
Cheadle – but in this world of white male dominance, they operate on the
sidelines.
And please don’t say the
team of the films can’t be blamed, since their base material is the comic
series. Heard of evolution, anyone?
The entire cast is efficient,
as are the leads whose inability to rise above mere efficiency is a fault of
the inconsistent writing and not their acting talent. Ruffalo as Banner, Andy
“Gollum” Serkis in a memorable cameo as a criminal in South Africa and Bettany
as Vision are the only ones who deliver nuanced performances. To be fair, they
are the only ones with characters of substance.
Avengers: Age of Ultron has some good patches. Unfortunately,
they have not been stitched well enough together. Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye,
Black Widow, Thor and Captain America remain as physically strong here as they
were in the 2012 film. Cinematically though, they’ve waned with the passage of
time. This is a film that takes the committed fan for granted.
Rating (out of five): **1/2
CBFC Rating (India):
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U/A
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Running time:
MPAA Rating (US):
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143 minutes
PG-13 (for
intense sequences of sci-fi action, violence and destruction, and for some
suggestive comments)
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Release date in US:
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May 1, 2015
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Good review Anna. It's still fun. However, by now, I am starting to feel a little winded with all of these superhero flicks. Especially now that they seem to be a lot like the others that come before them.
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