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The Avengers Assemble to take on robotic villain Ultron |
Director: Joss Whedon
Cast: Robert Downey Jnr (Tony Stark), Chris Hemsworth
(Thor), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner), Chris Evans (Captain Steve Rogers),
Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff), Jeremy Renner (Clint “Hawkeye” Barton),
James Spader (Ultron), Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury), Don Cheadle (James
Rhodes), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Pietro Maximoff), Elisabeth Olsen (Wanda
Maximoff), Paul Bettany (JARVIS/Vision), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Anthony
Mackie (Sam Wilson), Hayey Atwell (Peggy Carter), Idris Elba (Heimdell),
Stellan Skarsgard (Erik Selvig), Thomas Kretschmann (Baron von Strucker), Linda
Cardellini (Laura Barton)
The Marvel Cinematic Universe: with the wrong director, it
can be top a heavy mess, but Whedon showed with the first Avengers film that the right writer/director can weave the competing
plotlines into a story that win overs an audience and leave them thrilled and
entertained. His problem here was repeating that trick with the sequel.
After (it seems) finally defeating HYDRA, the Avengers relax
at last – little knowing that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) is using
multi-film-macguffin Loki’s staff to explore the possibility of creating an
intelligent army of robots to defend the Earth. Instead, he creates Ultron
(James Spader), a deeply flawed robotic version of his own personality, who
grows to believe the best way to save the world is to wipe out mankind. Time
for the Avengers to saddle up once more!
The greatest nemesis the Avengers faced here was that the
first of these superhero smackdown films (2011’s Avengers Assemble) was far better than anyone had a right to
expect. It was witty and had a plausible script, a very good villain in Tom
Hiddleston (much missed here), and a winning structure that saw our heroes
initially far apart and later drawn together into a family. On top of that, it
gave all the jaw-dropping action and geeky thrills of watching iconic
characters fighting together (in every sense of the word) that the fans expected.
It worked so well that, consciously or not, Whedon ended up imitating it its
structure here.
Both films open with a piece of shady alien tech: it’s
stolen, and our heroes’ noble intentions for its use which backfire. The villain is an outcast with a
personal (familial) connection to one of our heroes (Ultron is, to all intents
and purposes, Stark’s son). A first attempt to take on the villains ends in chaos
as no-one works together, leaving the gang disheartened. Hulk is unleashed,
causes chaos and needs to be restrained. A pep talk from Fury perks the gang
back up. They head back into a battle over a city, against overwhelming odds,
where they finally work together and turn a weapon of mass destruction into
their salvation. With some small thematic twists and some adjustments to the
plot they are fundamentally the same movie.
This might be connected to the greater studio interference Whedon dealt with. This conflict of visions results in a wonky balance between pay-off
from past films and build up to future ones, and several plot lines being poorly
developed. Most obviously most of Thor’s sub-plot ended-up on the cutting room
floor. What was meant to be a series of revelations about infinity stones turns
into essentially Chris Hemsworth sitting in a puddle. Whedon confirmed that the
studio instructed he delete either this sequence or the sequence set at Barton’s
log cabin (the emotional heart of the movie) so it’s not surprising that this
paid the price. Needless to say, not a frame of the terrifically dull and
overextended Iron Man vs. Hulk battle was allowed to hit the cutting room
floor.
This confused cutting down of ideas is present throughout
the movie. Villain Strucker, introduced with fanfare at the end of the last
movie, is unceremoniously bumped off off-screen. Andy Serkis pops up to serve
as an introduction to a future movie. The creation of Paul Bettany’s Vision is
only vaguely explained. Ultron is never really given time (despite a pitch
perfect performance of cold smarm from James Spader) for his plans to fall into
shape, or for the audience to really understand him as a character. A backstory
for Natasha is fitfully sketched out – but with hardly any time to explore it, the
final product was so clumsily done that the film drew heavy (unfairly personal)
criticism from the Twitterati, claiming Whedon was denouncing any woman choosing
not to have children (“I’m a monster” says Natasha remembering her brutal
education, which included GBH, murder and her voluntary sterilisation). He
clearly isn’t, but as the plotline is rushed, it becomes easier to read an
unintended message in it.
The area Whedon does handle well is juggling the huge number
of characters he needs to keep tabs on at any one time – with careful plotting
and some decent, fleet-footed scripting, he manages to allow each of the heroes
a moment in the sun and a chance for the actors to breathe and perform. Those
moments where the film takes five and doesn’t worry about the explosions and comic
lore are the ones that work best – and also, perhaps, the ones most warmly
embraced by the fans (never the best judges of what they think they will like –
in advance they would probably have named the bland Iron Man-Hulk battle as the
movie’s big sequence).
There’s a reason why most people would probably remember
sequences like the party scene, where our heroes playfully take it in turns to
lift Thor’s hammer: they feel real and they deal with emotions and friendships
that we can understand and relate to, in a way we can’t with a giant robot man
hitting a big green guy for no real eason (can you tell I didn’t like that
bit?). It’s why the sequence Whedon fought so hard to keep in the film –
Barton’s log cabin – feels genuinely rather sweet and moving. These are
sequences where our characters behave like human beings, and they are the
sequences that make us connect with the film.
Anyway take a look at these two scenes - which is more interesting and engaging? Make up your own mind!
The best Marvel films have always had an eye for the
incongruous insertion of our heroes into a real world. And by placing Barton
(an empathetic Jeremy Renner) front and centre as the moral cornerstone of the
film, contrasting his (albeit well-trained) normality against the Gods he
fights with, Whedon allows elements of relatability to anchor the film. Renner
makes an awful lot of Barton’s wistful longing for something away from
Avenging, while his relationship with his wife (who “fully supports your
Avenging”) is one of the first relationships in these films that feels like it
could be from a regular movie.
It’s strengths like this that Whedon brings to these films.
It’s not directorial vision – at heart Whedon is quite a televisual director,
using simple camera set-ups without much visual flair. The action the film
provides is entertaining enough, but in truth we’ve seen all this super action
before, and few of the set pieces are really memorable. Even a few days away
I’m struggling to remember them all. Which is not to say they are badly staged
at all – they’re just nothing new or special, and in many ways just higher
budget developments of things from the first film. Whedon’s real visual
strength is in his instinct for a comic beat or sight gag – and the film
delivers several of these.
Whedon also crucially forced through (against studio
objections) the death of Quicksilver. Marvel strongly urged a cop-out final
shot of Quicksilver either in a hospital bed or in recuperation, but Whedon
wisely stuck to his guns. It was an important struggle, as it forces a sense of
peril into this world and gives the viewer the sense that sometimes things
might not always turn out well. This is particularly important, since Stark’s
entire plot about his fears would make no sense in a world without stakes or
consequences. It also allows Whedon to do some very neat audience misdirection
with Barton – how many of us, watching Barton solemnly promise his wife that
this will be ‘one last mission’, were expecting him to bite the big one later
in the film?
Avengers: Age of
Ultron is a compromised film, but still a decent one. It’s not in the top
five Marvel films, let alone the top five superhero films, but it’s entertaining,
has some decent action – and, above all, Whedon manages to put a bit of heart
in heart, enough for us to care about the characters. It’s this factor so many
of these films miss out on – and it’s a reason that, while Age of Ultron is flawed, it’s not fatally so, and will continue to
entertain for a good many years yet.
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