My AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON review

The press tour for Avengers: Age of Ultron has been notable for many reasons, some relevant to the film, some not. Amid the social-media-ready tempests like actors putting their foots in their mouths and interviewers asking inappropriate questions has been the unmistakable sense in every Joss Whedon interview that the writer/director was completely broken by this film. Whedon sounds like a man who's just come back from war. If you've ever had a conversation with someone who's given off a weary, "I am so over this" vibe when discussing their job, you have a good sense of how Whedon is coming off. It feels like a combination of exhaustion from the work and exasperation from dealing with the politics of studio filmmaking.

After seeing Age of Ultron, I totally get it.

In terms of scope and complexity, this is by far the biggest Marvel movie attempted, and in many respects, the biggest tentpole movie attempted. Just to use Michael Bay's Transformers films as a contrast, as big and sprawling and exhausting as they are, as much post-production as they require, the stories are pretty straightforward and they have a much cleaner throughline. You have a human hero, his girlfriend, a wacky sidekick, good robot, bad robot, and usually two or three prestige actors in small "payday roles." And the easy part is, there's little obligation to flesh them out equally.

An Avengers film is a different beast, as it requires balancing the egos of three heroes with their own film series, a further three who've been core members of the team - all of whom generally should be given some equal weight. Add to that a main villain, two additional antagonists AND a number of cameos from other supporting heroes... and you have a character roster designed to drive any writer nuts as he crafts a story that not only gives them each some face time, but also makes them integral to the story. The worst thing would be for the audience to leave feeling like, "I don't think the Hulk really needed to be in this one."

Adding to the complexity is that with most of these characters establish - some of them WELL established - there's less freedom to bend their characterizations to serve the story. Do this sort of thing wrong and you'll be sniffed out as a fraud. Oh, and you have to do it while topping already gargantuan expectiations that this'll be more spectacular than the first film.

How does Whedon manage? For the most part, he gets his lasso around this beast.

The core story - and I'm gonna drop a lot of big spoilers ahead, so be warned - springs from a Tony Stark artificial intelligence project gone awry. Ultron was supposed to be a project to keep the world safe, but due to a combination of poor programing on Tony's part and (I think, this is a bit muddy) some interaction with the gem in Loki's staff Ultron breaks free of his programming, commanders several robot bodies after building himself an imposing new form, and sets out to end war... by ending humanity.

By his side are twins who've gone through Hydra experimentation and emerged with powers. Scarlet Witch has vaguish magical powers and the ability to mess with people's minds to draw out their biggest fears. Quicksilver is superfast, though a secondary power of his seems to be to use his superspeed in less interesting ways than his X-Men: Days of Future Past counterpart last summer.

That's the A-story. Branching out from all of this comes all the various character threads. Many of these draw from what we've seen in the intervening films, such as the collapse of SHIELD in The Winter Soldier. At times, the transition is less smooth. The end of Iron Man 3 implies that Tony has hung it up and is done. Two years later, he's fighting with the Avengers as if it's business as usual.

Tony's whole arc in this is a bit jittery. Even ignoring the end of Iron Man 3, his Ultron project is exposited in a somewhat clunky fashion. We learn about it almost literally seconds before its corrupted, which feels like a slight miscalculation in pacing. It's as if Pandora opening her box was preceded only moments earlier by "Here. Take this box. But don't open it. It's bad."

Even though Tony's mistake is the event that puts everything into motion, it feels like his character is less featured in this film. Near the end of the film's second act, the plot requires Tony to virtually repeat his earlier mistake. This sparks a brief fight with Captain America and a few of the others. It's a point where we have a very, very surface-level understanding of the motivations involved.

Then at the end of the film, Tony ends up driving off into the sunset, leaving superheroing behind. There's just enough for us to connect the dots, but it's not totally satisfying in its own way.

More than any entry so far, this feels not just like a Marvel comic but one of those big summer crossover issues that's just overstuffed with characters and incidents. This is like a House of M or Secret Invasion miniseries, where it's fair game for every character to show up. As with those sprawling storylines, there are moments where one gets the impression that the less-explained moments of the epic get fleshed out in individual tie-in issues.

A good example of this is Thor's storyline, which sends him off on a brief tangent that plays out like an under-explained vision quest. This is one subplot that was more obviously trimmed to the bare bones. When Thor shows up to suddenly move a major chunk of the story forward and bring along a great deal of exposition about the Infinity Stones, it's hard not to imagine an editor's caption "*See more about Thor's vision quest in THOR #239!"

Captain America also gets short-shrift in the drama department. It's fortunate that this is a script from someone like Whedon, who's able to get a lot of character moments wedged into idle banter within the interactions. He and Tony have some verbal sparing, some playful, some not. The main conflict between them feels like a warm-up for the next film, though. Chris Evans makes the most of what he's got, but Cap isn't driving the plot like he did last time.

The good news is that everyone gets screentime and at least one or two great moments that are uniquely theirs. An early highlight is a party in the Avengers Tower filled with cameos and these large personalities bouncing off of each other. It's here where Whedon reminds us he's the master of the set-up and payoff as more than one seemingly-extraneous bit of fun here turns out to be a seed planted for bigger moments later in the film.

(One of them - it's the moment involving Thor's hammer - had its payoff come about in a slightly unexpected way. SPOILERS. The party scene underlines that only someone worthy can lift Thor's hammer. What follows is a display of egos as Tony, Banner and eventually Cap try to pick it up. Cap gets it to budge. Slightly. I assumed this was set-up for a third-act bit where Cap would need to wield the hammer. Instead, it's paid off in a different way. Following the introduction of a new character, the team debates if they should trust this new arrival. That matter is handily settled when this person easily wields the hammer. Perfect instance of "show, not tell." "How do we know we can trust this guy?" "Well, he's able to lift the thing that only really, really good people can handle.")

It's a very full movie, but fortunately it hits more than it misses. The opening set-piece is a lot of fun despite some so-so CGI and the promised clash of Hulk versus Iron Man in his Hulkbuster armor might be my favorite action sequence in the film. It's the perfect blend of tension, comedy and violence.

That sequence also ends up introducing something that is initially refreshing - the notion of the heroes actively trying to minimize human casualties. MAN OF STEEL really got hit for this, with a vehemence that seems out of proportion considering the first AVENGERS barely raised an eyebrow without doing much more to show the heroes going out of their way. And don't even get me started on the total cop-out of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY's "We've evacuated the city" as some kind of quick-fix to make the third-act ending battle more acceptable.

(I almost literally heard Rob Lowe's character from THANK YOU FOR SMOKING in my head during that scene. "It's an easy fix. One line of dialogue...")

The Hulkbuster sequence deals with this by having Tony's armor seek out a building with no people inside. There's also a sequence involving a runaway train where shielding the civilians is a priority. But by the time we get to the final action orgy, there's something very... I hesitate to say... "corny" about the film's insistance on aggressively reassuring us the civilians are taken care of. It called to mind how Saturday morning cartoons adhered to violence restrictions by always making sure that when bad guy planes were shot down, every single one of them was shown deploying their parachutes and apparently surviving.

Don't get me wrong. The goal is laudable, but I wish Whedon had found a way to moderate it just a little bit. more. A nice touch is that we get the impression that the lives lost in that battle haunt Banner.

As the end approached, the comparisons with crossover maxi-series again came to mind, as the finale plays less like the end of a story and more like a launching pad for several new series. Tony going off on his own works, but probably had more material supporting it in longer cuts, and the showcase of who remains in the team for the next film is done pretty well.

AGAIN MORE SPOILERS

But Hulk's fate is maddeningly open-ended. The last we see of him, he's on a quinplane that's flying off into nowhere. He even apparently cuts off communication with Black Widow of his own accord and allows the jet to fly off into the unknown. It's a weird way to set up that loose thread, made even more discordant by a follow-up scene where Nick Fury says they're sure the plane crashed, but they can't find it. His almost nonchalant "He'll turn up" is a weird note to leave that scene on. It might have played better for me if Fury said it like he was trying to be blase about it, but deep down was concerned they might never find him.

Obviously he'll turn up, but the film doesn't seem to know how it wants to play the emotion of him being missing in action. On the other hand, these movies have seemingly killed so many characters who later came back fine, perhaps Whedon's muting of the character reactions is in reaction to the criticism of these fakeouts.

Hawkeye's departure makes a little more sense and I generally like how he's used in this. Fans who were pushing for a Black Widow/Hawkeye relationship are probably going to be thrown for a loop after seeing he's been married long enough to have two young kids. A neat consequence of this is it forces the viewer to revisit the supposed sexual tension between Natasha and Barton in the first film. It's kind of nice to see them showing a functional male/female relationship that doesn't necessarily end in paying off sexual tension.

Pairing her with Banner is one of the film's surprising choices. We're not shown much about this flirtation, which amounts to little more than a tease. Though has anyone noticed that when it comes to dynamics with each of the other characters, Black Widow might be the most fleshed out? Black Widow/Thor might be the only under-explored dynamic in her relationships. Tony is close behind, with only Iron Man/Hawkeye being a total tabula rosa.  Cap really hasn't been given a great deal of interaction with Banner or Thor - two characters who are mostly distant from at least half the ensemble.

It can't have been easy to craft this story in a way that allowed character to shine as much as action and plot. After one viewing, I feel like Ultron was enjoyable, but not quite as good as the first film. However, it's easily the most ambitious and even though it's not immune to the "now our moment of synergy to promote future projects" that's marred several of the films, it feels less intrusive here. The ending tag probably would have been more effective if GOTG had managed to establish Thanos beyond being "Evil Dude who sits on a throne a lot."

Still, I'd put it in the upper 25% of Marvel films. I'm a bit afraid that this movie will pull an Independence Day on me and somehow plummeted massively in enjoyment on a second viewing. For now, this has me eager for next year's Captain America: Civil War. That's being directed by the Russo Brothers, who'll follow that up with Avengers: Infinity War Parts I and II. I shudder a bit to think what a more massive Marvel movie than this will look like. If just one of these movies exhausted Whedon so much, have a few hugs ready for the Russos come 2018.

A review of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

It's going to be very interesting to revisit the current era of superhero films in about twenty years and dissect what they say about the culture and politics of the early 21st century.  While plenty of them are escapist in nature, there are some like the Nolan Batman trilogy that make some very pointed statements about our post-9/11 world.  When that thesis is eventually written, you can bet that Captain America: The Winter Soldier will certainly have a featured role.

It's interesting to see the progression we've taken in the more than a dozen years since September 11th.  We've gone from wondering if audiences will ever take city-wide destruction scenes as mere eye candy again, to seeing the 9/11 imagery become the standard look for third-act skyscraper destroying battles, to seamlessly incorporating the "security vs. liberty" issue into an escapist comic book blockbuster.  It's hard not to wonder if what feels dead-on relevant today will hopelessly date the film down the line.

The Winter Soldier is as much a sequel to The Avengers as it is the first Captain America.  Enough time has passed that Captain America is now regularly running missions for Nick Fury's S.H.I.E.L.D. with Black Widow, but not enough time that he's fully assimilated into the 21st Century.  Cap's a soldier and a patriot. He does what he's told, but his 70 years-removed perspective means that he's got some misgivings about Fury's latest project.  The launch of three Hypercarriers (the floating aircraft carriers from Avengers) is imminent and Fury boasts how they'll be a major tool in becoming more pro-active in taking down threats to national security.  The good Captain snarks that they usually wait for people to actually commit a crime before taking them down, and is reminded that they deal with the world as it is, not what they wish it to be.

Fury expresses a lot of pride in his new toys, saying that at last his organization is in a position to do some good and "after New York" it was clear the old ways just weren't enough anymore.  He's referring to the alien assault on New York depicted in The Avengers, but it's really hard not to read that as a reference to 9/11.   In the Marvel Universe, the invasion was their equivalent of the attack on the World Trade Center and the measures Fury pushes for in response are fairly analogous to the Patriot Act and Bush Administration views on national security.

Here's my usual warning about spoilers.   I'm going to blow a lot of surprises in this review, so don't say you weren't warned.

Before long, Fury is killed while Cap and Black Widow have reason to believe that everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. is a possible traitor.  While on the run, they uncover a disturbing truth - since its founding post-WWII, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been infiltrated by Hydra, the fascist organization once headed by the Red Skull. 

With sleeper agents at the highest levels of the organization, they're at last poised to reveal themselves and seize control.  Fury's Hypercarriers will combine with a new A.I. to instantly identify and target individuals who will be a threat to Hydra's agenda.  How are they identifying their targets? Basically through all the surveillance means at their hands - phone records, credit card purchases, internet postings. 

They'll have the ability to carry out 200,000 simultaneous assassinations and seize control before anyone is able to formulate a response.  Even the President of the United States is on their hit list, and Cap and his allies have only mere hours to stop the Hypercarrier launch before Hydra's victory is assured.

This perhaps isn't quite as compelling and ballsy as it could be.  While the film raises the question of if it's worth sacrificing some individual liberties and privacy for extra security, any real debate is nullified by making all of this a Hydra plot.  It's compelling when we see Fury spouting platitudes that probably make Dick Cheney's pants feel a little tight, but the script doesn't allow us to see much merit in his approach.  It's not totally a strawman position, but it's close.

I couldn't help but think of The Dark Knight, which had the guts to put its hero in the driver's seat of a massive Big Brother operation and presented it in such a way that a number of right wing viewers came out of there feeling it supported their agenda.  By making the dichotomy into Team Captain America and Team Hydra, The Winter Soldier takes a far more black-and-white view of the situation.

The other issue I have with revealing all of this as a Hydra plot is that it's hard not to equate Hydra with the SS.  So to my mind, within the Marvel Universe, anyone who's actively and knowingly a member of Hydra had to make the mental leap of, "Yeah, maybe the Nazis DID have a few things worth co-opting."  Even among modern fascists, you won't find many intelligent people looking to Hitler as their patron saint.  So would all of these Hydra sleepers really associate themselves with the Red Skull?

To my mind, the more compelling way to develop this would have been to make our high-ranking Hydra officials genuine patriots who believed that what they were doing was right.  Fury's the only "good guy" shown supporting these plans.  Everyone else involved is just using the plan as a feint for world domination.  And Hydra's plan can ONLY be cartoonish super-villainy world domination.  You're not going to kill 200,000 people at once and hope it slides under the radar.  Hydra isn't out to gradually subvert the government and keep a large populace unaware.  This is going to be a bloody, violent coup.  Because of that, it feels like a failing of the film not to show us what Hydra's next move is five minutes after they eliminate every force for good.

Just think of how much more chilling it would have been if the plan was to eliminate all of those threats quietly and under the radar.  What if instead of "At last Hydra will rule the world!" the leader of this operation made a compelling argument that all this spilled blood would ensure no further wars,  no more terrorist attacks, no more assassinations.  It's probably not fair to penalize the film for NOT being more of a political thriller, but it is a little frustrating that it walks right up to some truly compelling questions and then makes the conflict too easy in the end.

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy the film.  I enjoyed it a helluva lot.  It's not only the best Marvel movie other than The Avengers, but it's got some really great action scenes.  The third act lacks the thrill of The Avengers and I'm really starting to weary of the orgy of CG battles that has become the standard for superhero films.  We're at the point where Avengers 2 is going to have to bring something new to the table because three superhero films a year is starting to make the once-impressive into the mundane.

I haven't talked much about the eponymous Winter Soldier.  In a way he feels forced into a plot that doesn't totally require him.  His connection to Cap is the source of a lot of angst for our hero, but that particular plot is left unresolved by the end of the film. By now, Marvel and the audience both have the assurance that there will be future chapters, so the dangling thread doesn't feel like the cheat it once might have.  I do expect that that will be one aspect of the film that will seem less compelling on repeat viewings, though.

The real delight of the film is the interplay between Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson.  I've seen the cries of "Why can't Black Widow have her own movie instead of being a sidekick here?"  Trust me when I say that Black Widow is more of a co-lead than a sidekick.  She's such a good foil for Cap that I vastly prefer the notion of her being in this film than I do sending her out on a solo mission.  There's fantastic chemistry between the two, which allows both actors to shine in their scenes together.  The movie might as well be called CAPTAIN AMERICA & BLACK WIDOW and it would be a horrendous mistake to break up this partnership in future films.

The film also finds room for new addition Anthony Mackie as The Falcon. I was worried that we might be in for another Iron Man 2, where the new additions only cluttered up the film in the name of Marvel synergy, but the character is used well here and is another one I wouldn't mind seeing return in a later film.

Samuel L. Jackson is finally given more to do than just being the glue that ties most of the Marvel movies together.  Fury's a character who's probably more effective the more mysterious he remains, but I like that this movie peels back some of his mystique just a little bit.  And who would have thought we'd ever see Robert Redford pop up in a Marvel movie?

Overall, I came out of the film largely satisfied and impressed that it used S.H.I.E.L.D. in a more compelling way in two hours than Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has pulled off over most of the season.  The ending of this film is going to force some major changes on that series, as the world it inhabits is pretty much upended.  I have the hope that whatever the TV show becomes now is what it was always meant to be and the meandering quality of the first season has been due to them being forced to mark time until the movie facilitated a relaunch.

But more than that, this film made me really anticipate the Avengers sequel being released next summer and the Captain America movie that will follow in 2015.  Most of the Phase One Marvel films varied wildly in quality, but if they can maintain this level, Phase Two will be a helluva ride indeed.

"Everything you EVER wanted to know about about THE AVENGERS movie"

My friend Clint sent me this fantastic (and very long) article that serves as a breakdown of THE AVENGERS.  It's a great examination of the film scene-by-scene, breaking down structure, character motivations and plot development.  Todd Alcott does a wonderful job as our guide through the film.


The Oscar nominations were announced the other day. To no one’s surprise, the screenplay for The Avengers was not among them. That’s a shame, because the screenplay for The Avengers is a startling model of precision, density and propulsion. It manages to juggle no fewer than ten wildly disparate main characters in its ensemble cast and give each of them weight, clarity and purpose. Dear readers, I’ve worked on many a comic-book movie, none of which ever got near production. To get one superhero narrative to work is damn near impossible; The Avengers soars with seven. 

We begin with a blue cube on a black screen. That’s the Tesseract. What is the Tesseract? Well, assuming the viewer has not seen Thor or Captain America, the answer is “Who knows?” But the Tesseract is the very first thing mentioned in The Avengers. It is, of course, the maguffin of the movie, the object around which the narrative revolves. That it has been mentioned in previous movies doesn’t matter. In a lot of ways, and this is an important concept, what the maguffin of any narrative is doesn’t matter. It is “an object of consequence,” and that’s all you need to know.

Read the rest here.

Tuesday Talkback - Agent Coulson and Boba Fett: Inexplicably popular characters

Spoilers for The Avengers below:



I don't get it.  What's with all the love for Agent Coulson?

I'm inclined to attribute this to his being martyred in The Avengers.  (And I'll give Joss this, he gave Coulson a few nice moments that were designed to make his death sting a little more.)  But I saw the Cult of Agent Coulson springing to life in the weeks leading up to release, and I just don't get it.  The guy's barely a plot device - he's basically just there to be some connective tissue between a few Marvel films.  We barely know anything about him, and until The Avengers, he really didn't get to do anything cool.

(Even the impact of his death was blunted by the fact I saw it coming almost from the instant we met Maria Hill, who bore all the telltale signs of being groomed to be Coulson's "replacement" as the Marvel Corporation's Synergy Player.)

While I'm sure his portrayer, actor Clark Gregg, is a nice guy I never feel like he has any presence.  He's got a milquetoast voice and delivery that often threatens to send me off to Dreamland no matter what he's saying or doing.

So what do you all like about him?

This is probably a good time for me to go all-in and confess that I never got the fan obsession with Boba Fett either.  For those not in the know, Boba Fett is the "badass" bounty hunter in The Empire Strikes Back who tracks Han Solo to Cloud City, then rats him out to Vader and lets the Empire do all the heavylifting of capturing him.

I've never watched Dog the Bounty Hunter, so tell me, is it normal for these "fearsome bounty hunters" to follow at a safe distance and then call the police to make the actual arrest?

When next we see him in Return of the Jedi, this fearsome bounty hunter is hanging out in Jabba the Hutt's palace.  Because nothing says "tough guy" like hanging out in a gentleman's club, hitting on the dancers.

Yet for some reason, Fett made such an impression on Star Wars fans that they've complained since 1983 about Fett going out "like a punk."  During a battle on the Sail Barge, a blind Han Solo accidentally triggers Fett's jet pack, which results in him falling into the Sarlaac Pit to be digested over a thousand years.

Of all the minor characters to get elevated to demi-god status by the fans, why Fett?  You might as well start a fan club for Sy Snootles or Salacious Crumb!

So are any of you fellow "non-it-getters?"  Or are there perhaps other film or TV characters whose popularity astounds you?

Avengers - making introductions and re-introductions more than just exposition

It's been a while since I've discussed the importance of introducing characters in an interesting way.  I think sometimes weak openings comes as a result of the writer's inability to put themselves in the audience's shoes and recall that THIS is the moment that makes the first impression.

After all, the writer has lived with their character for weeks or months, so in their mind, this first scene just has to get the character on-screen.

I couldn't help but think of this during the opening half-hour of The Avengers, which has the task of introducing nearly a dozen major characters who have previously appeared in other Marvel films, either as headliners and supporting characters.  But the filmmakers would be wrong to assume that everyone buying a ticket to this film would have seen all or even ANY of the other movies.

And obviously, it's to the film's financial benefit that the movie appeal to audiences beyond the core Marvel fans.  So that forces the movie to introduce these characters as if it's the first time the audience has met them - without completely boring those viewers familiar with the earlier movies.

It's harder than it sounds, but I think the script did a pretty solid job of telling us everything we need to know for the sake of this movie.

First, there's a scene at a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. research center.  Here we introduce the Tesseract (previously an element in Thor and Captain America) and showcase that it's basically a mysterious and powerful form of energy.  Sure, we could trace the whole history of this thing, but it's really not that important.  In other words, screening the prior two films is unnecessary.

Loki shows up, and it's obvious that he's the villain of the piece.  He puts a few characters under his mind control spell and blows up the base, with Nick Fury and Agent Colson among those who get out in time.

So in the first few minutes we have: Villain, MacGuffin, Heroic Mastermind, Sidekick, and Brainwashed Hero.  Do we know Loki's full history or everything that Fury's got his hands in - but we know enough and they were introduced in a context that allows the audience not to feel lost.

Director Fury decides to activate the Avenger Initiative, which necessitates a series of scenes in which each member is met in turn.

- Black Widow is given a great sequence in which she appears to be a prisoner, only to turn the tables and kick ass without breaking much of a sweat.

- Then, Black Widow tracks down Dr. Banner in India, where's he's been living below the radar.  The exposition here is more dialogue-driven than visual, but the dialogue takes a turn that's either cryptic (if you're ignorant of Banner's "Hulk" alter-ego) or foreboding (if you know what they're referring to.  Either way, a couple important points are made: Banner's being recruited for his smarts, BW is very concerned about his temper, and that concern led her to bring an entire special forces team with her.

- Captain America admittedly gets one of the more mundane introductions, in addition to one of the more dialogue-laden ones.  The exposition here is more than made up for by the time we see him in action though

- And of course, Tony "Iron Man" Stark makes his debut while finishing up some technical doo-dad that we're told will turn his tower into a source of clean energy.  A lot of points are made here, including showcasing Tony's armor, reminding the audience of his relationship with Pepper Potts, and establishing both his "billionaire genius philathropist" persona.  There's also a fair amount of Tony's cocky showboating.  And of ALL the characters, I feel he's the most firmly established via just his intro scene.

Why do I say this? Because while you might argue that some dialogue given to other characters could be easily transposed to another character, there's not a single line of Tony's that could be swapped out to someone else as written.  His "voice" permeates everything he says.  If someone else would have to say something given to Tony, the rewrite would need to go further than just changing the character name above the line.

Other than Captain America, pretty much every character gets a opening scene that either conveys their function in the story, or the conflict that will define them throughout the script.  (In a few cases, we get both.)  Better still, most of those moments are entertaining scenes in their own right, either through comedy or tension.

In the wrong hands, the first half-hour could have been a bore while the viewers of previous films waited for the new audience members get caught up to speed.