8 Reasons Avengers: Age Of Ultron Is The Beginning Of The End For Marvel

7. The Formula Isn't Going Anywhere

Marvel's formula works. That's how they've managed to get this far without even a whiff of diminishing returns; the hero facing their own hubris, the threatening, yet not upsetting, villain, the MacGuffin driven plot, all tied up in a CGI finale is fair groundwork for a summer blockbuster. But, as you start to enter double digits of entries in a franchise, some variety is needed.

There's nothing wrong with having a set of guidelines to follow - Bond's been operating for over fifty years ticking the same boxes every time - but when it's as inflexible as Marvel's has become you wind up with films that aren't anything special from each other. After all, even though Bond still sips shaken Martinis and beds women with interesting names, each iteration of the character has found something to different to twist (with varying results, but still). Marvel, on the other hand, are all about repetition; Guardians Of The Galaxy, for example, was delightful in its confidence, but that it eventually spiralled into familiarity stopped it being a knock-out.

There was a real hope that Age Of Ultron would shake things up; a movie that played with convention and had some real consequences. Instead it was just more of the same, with any changes to the formula woefully insignificant. This approach has already led to some average movies (see Thor: The Dark World), but this time it's going to have a more lasting impact; like the first Avengers, which popularised so much of the formula, the sequel is going to act as a blueprint for the movies going forward. So expect even more of the same, more tiresome each and every time.