Avengers: Age Of Ultron Review - A Mid-Range Marvel

Plenty Of Character, Little Development

Oh, make no mistake - there's plenty of character in Age Of Ultron. That same constant banter that made The Avengers such a delight returns, perhaps with more prominence than some expected, with some cracking running jokes tying the various sequences together. And the acting is, of course, top notch. Moreso than any other franchise, the Marvel movies attract a calibre of actors normally reserved for Oscar-baiting prestige pictures. You know by now that Robert Downey, Jr. can play Tony Stark in his sleep and that Chris Evans is wholesome-yet-conflicted as Captain America, but there's some real surprises in here. After several movies as a token female supporting role, Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow gets her torturous past unveiled, while Paul Bettany is great as surprise-not-surprise new member Vision. But as well-defined as the characters are, there's no real development or change to them. The group's central trio - Iron Man, Captain America and Thor - get very little in the way of story arcs, their involvement in the plot feeling totally script-mandated (Tony Stark does create Ultron and appears to be going a bit Victor Frankenstein at points, but it's so fleeting and immediately forgotten that it's hardly worth including). Anyone expecting the divide between Cap and Iron Man, which will be the centre of next year's Captain America: Civil War, to begin here will be sorely disappointed. Supporting players fare better (Andy Serkis is great in a foreshadowing cameo), with Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye getting more growth than the rest of the returning heroes combined; after being completely sidelined in the first movie (he spent the first half brainwashed and the second perched on the side of building as Iron Man and co. got into the alien invasion action proper), the audience is finally given a reason to care for a hero hitherto known only as Archer Man.