Avengers: Age of Ultron

It’s one thing when a film is so hilariously bad, like Glen Gruner’s THE SKID KID, that you almost want to thank the director for going full Nic Cage and reveling in the disastrously awful.  It’s entirely another when a director, revered by fans as the wunderkind who elevated science fiction to good drama, gives you very little with which to work.

In the first action scene of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, Captain Rogers (Chris Evans) descends in stealth upon the Lemurian Star, a cargo ship owned by S.H.I.E.L.D. where crew and passengers are being held hostage. The scene perfectly sets the tone for a film about intrigue and deception, and the hero’s brewing disillusionment with a clandestine American intelligence apparatus.

In jarring contrast, AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, immediately opens upon heaps of awful computer-generated bombast, and slow-mo more gratuitous than the unnecessary shots of Black Widow’s (Scarlett Johansson) cleavage. It’s like a title card that goes on for several more minutes than it should.

Ultron (James Spader in possibly his hammiest incarnation yet) is a form of artificial intelligence conceived by Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) which, like all A.I. in science fiction, turns against its creators. The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. Stark and Banner have been conceptualizing Ultron’s practical applications for some time. Of course, writer/director Joss Whedon and his predecessors didn’t use any Marvel screen time in the umpteen films preceding this one to set it up for those who don’t have the backstory from the comics. Additionally, Stark’s motives are too clearly selfish both because of his established character and the director’s execution of the story.  This isn’t interesting and it doesn’t provide a meaningful setup for the  arc that spans the next three or four films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, AVENGERS: INFINITY WARS parts 1 and 2.

Mr. Whedon seems to rely heavily on forced jocularity in lieu of substantial character development. Every joke put forward has the same setup and punchline pattern: 1. Character seems to do something outside his or her nature. 2. Character then reverses course to score laughs with the audience. One of my disappointments with Mr. Whedon’s first Avengers outing was the bland characterizations of Captain America as this peculiarly grumpy old man in spite of being in stasis for seventy of his ninety years. Likewise, in ULTRON, we have Black Widow’s reduction to a love interest for Bruce Banner, a.k.a. The Hulk, and later she winds up a damsel in need of rescue. This is the same Natasha Romanoff who’s supposed to be a crack assassin, and we get no scene of her staging an escape.

I’m unsure whether Mr. Whedon cares about the franchise, resents the critically-lauded take on CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER,  or is just an unobservant writer.  In that installment, brothers Joe and Anthony Russo characterized Natasha as someone heavily preoccupied with erasing red from her ledger.  She has to start with a clean slate when Senator Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) threatens to expose her past to the public.  Instead of tugging on that story thread a little more, exploring the repercussions that would escalate tensions within the Avengers, Whedon marginalizes Ms. Johansson’s role and proceeds haphazardly vis-à-vis the Tony Stark Variety Hour. Never mind the oddities of: Stereotypes abound of African arms dealers and “savage” tribals; Stark confuses feudal English custom with Norse mythology in a crude rape joke; and, best of all, two gifted Romani Jews, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Pietro Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), willingly side with former Nazis plotting genocide.

There will be mixed reactions regardless.  Some fans will dislike that a good fifth of this two-hour and twenty-two minute slog is devoted to a Mark Millar-inspired subplot solely to give Hawkeye and Black Widow even less to do.  Some will love it simply because it’s another go, another fix.  But this isn’t a case where moviegoers are completely oblivious to what they could have: a well-toned story with depth to its characters.  Marvel perhaps already sensed this, with the runaway success of both WINTER SOLDIER and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.  To wit:  Whedon is out.  The Russos are taking over the Avengers sub-franchise; Marvel Writing Program alum Andrea Perlman (GUARDIANS) is teaming up with Meg LeFauve (producer, THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS) to pen the script for CAPTAIN MARVEL.