Avengers: Age of Ultron

     Probably the ultimate just-back-from-theater review I’ve done! My sister and I saw this at a very packed theater (we were lucky we found good seats!!) but very excited theater this afternoon. After 3 years of waiting and it seems like Ultron was making up for all the anticipation that the first movie left us in. One thing I’ll say, I am so glad I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier before I saw this or I would have been very confused!

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The Avengers

Top (L-R): Steve Rogers//Captain America , Bruce Banner//Hulk, Tony Stark//Iron Man
Bottom (L-R): Thor, Natasha Romanov//Black Widow, Clint Barton//Hawkeye

     After three years of searching for Loki’s staff and a year of tracking down the last underground faction of Hydra, the newly independent Avengers initiative have finally found both in Sokovia. Dr. Baron Straker of Hydra has been using the gem of the tesseract to manipulate and manufacture into weapons. While the Avengers’ have a brief awareness of this fact, they are unaware of another weapon (weapons) he has possession of. A set of extraordinary twins, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, both with unique natural powers of mind control and speed that he has trained for his own use.

     Upon finding the tesseract staff, Tony Stark has an unexpected run-in with one of the twins who gives him a vision of the future, a future of death and destruction of which he is the only survivor. Afraid of this vision coming true, Tony talks Bruce into researching and using the powerful energy to create an artificial intelligent life form that will protect the earth from any impending future danger. For three days the men work tirelessly until they awaken the energy inside and find it to be completely alive and adaptable to programming.

     Using his own program JARVIS as a model for the new intelligence system, Tony believes that this could end any premonitions of disaster. Only, that’s exactly what happens. The new energy temporarily shuts down JARVIS and takes over his system becoming one powerful artificial intelligent machine called Ultron, who has plans for a new world age. The first step is to destroy the Avengers, using Stakers brilliantly gifted twins. The second is to create his own race of machines.

     One by one, the members begin to fall into rapid mind control that makes it hard for them to distinguish fantasy from reality. Natasha returns to her life in Russia and training as an assassin in The Red Room, Steve dreams of coming home from WWII to find prosperity and Peggy waiting for him and Thor is back in Asgard, where Heimdall tells him of his failures as a king. Thankfully Clint is spared from this and is the only person that gets them to safety where his own secret is revealed to the rest of the team.

      Now with Ultron making plans of world ending with his highly advanced machine in the making, the Avengers must either separate or assemble to bring him down. To do that, they must first understand what they’re going up against.

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Sequel Assemble

Top: Pietro Maximoff//Quicksilver, Wanda Maximoff//Scarlet Witch
Bottom: Vision, Ultron

     Pietro Maximoff//Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff//Scarlett Witch: Orphaned at the age of ten by a Stark bomb, Sokovian twins, Pietro and Wanda, sign on with Straker in hopes of bringing down S.H.I.E.L.D. Pietro has extreme speed and agility, while Wanda possesses mind control, telekinesis and energy creation. When the Avengers take down the last Hydra compound, the siblings find themselves in league with Ultron, who promises them that the Avengers will suffer for the destruction of their lives and their country.

     Wanda uses her mind control to implant past or present memories in several of the Avengers to emotionally weaken them, which works until Barton knocks her out (after all, he does know a little about that). While waiting for Ultron’s new machine to be created, Wanda looks into his mind and doesn’t see the end of the Avengers, but the end of the world. The Maximoffs’ must decide whether to align with Ultron or to aid the Avengers (even if it means having to put up with S.H.I.E.L.D.) and if avenging the world is worth dying for.

     Ultron: Part machine, part computer, Ultron is a highly intelligent system that destroys anything that stands in his way. His life force comes from a powerful stone, only known about in Scandinavian legends and without the stone, he is rendered useless. Ultron believes that in destroying the world and humanity, he can rebuild a newer, better and stronger world, made of machine and run by fear. First he must create those machines using broken robots and his own mind to generate them. When his only creation is stolen by the Avengers of which they proceed to give him an artificial life (using JARVIS), Ultron meets his creation for world destruction that may end up being his own destruction.

     JARVIS//Vision: Since 2008, JARVIS has been highly advanced computer system coming in the form of a calming voice that has aided Tony Stark in every way imaginable, from helping create the Iron Man suit to ordering pizza; after a while, you begin to feel like he’s your guardian angel. So, when Tony uses JARVIS’ system to create an artificial life that appears in a completely human form, it’s unbelievable. JARVIS becomes Vision. A system created by both Ultron and Stark, but has the unusual ability of free will and choice. An extremely powerful weapon that is gifted with insightful wisdom, Vision is exactly what you would want a human JARVIS to be. 

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     This is probably the most complex MARVEL movie I’ve seen so far and as much as I wanted to do separate character profiles, it was just easier to do an overview that doesn’t risk giving to much away. That being said, I enjoyed the movie. Like most sequels, it was darker and more serious, but there was still the strong bond of companionship found within the Avengers that made the first movie such a hit. Unexpected love, family loyalty and sacrificial loss are the primary components that really balanced out the more serious overtones of the story; as well as the addition of the Maximoff twins was great and it was fresh to see younger faces in the more seasoned group of fighters.