First of all, congratulations to anybody who clicked on this article and began to read it rather than just took a screenshot of the headline to tweet out “NOOOOPE.” Second of all, before any of us gets off on a hostile foot here: I’m not saying that the other Marvel movies are trash. I’m not saying that the first Avengers movie wasn’t a thrilling triumph of action and smart storytelling. I’m certainly not saying that Black Panther wasn’t the transcendent banger of a movie that it was either. That said, especially when considering the relative middling stature it enjoys among observers, Age of Ultron is hugely underestimated for its near-perfect balancing of everything that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has set out to do, and that in the context of such a mission statement, there is absolutely a case to be made that Ultron is the most successful MCU project.
To begin with, we should probably examine that middling reputation. Like every film in the MCU, Age of Ultron got good reviews. No MCU movie has ever been rated “rotten” by Rotten Tomatoes, after all. But at 75%, Age of Ultron is the fourth-lowest scoring MCU movie, only outpacing Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and the much-maligned Thor: The Dark World. There hasn’t been one that low-rated since. [Insert caveat about Rotten Tomatoes being an imperfect barometer of actual quality.] Meanwhile, on lists ranking the MCU, its placement varies — Vox puts it at #7; EW ranks it 13th; both Esquire and Variety rank it a lowly 17th — but the consensus isn’t great. [Insert caveat about ranked lists being a fun thing we all do from time to time but are in no way legally binding. Yet.]
In a lot of ways, Ultron fell victim to Marvel fatigue: the 11th MCU film in 7 years, and more importantly, the one that showed the first signs of strain on the filmmaker involved. Joss Whedon has pretty much been anointed god-emperor of geekdom after he landed with the first Avengers movie; here was a beloved genre figure getting to play in the biggest sandbox in the world, with the best toys, and brought in a massive audience to pay to see it. And while there was always going to be Marvel fatigue, it was significant that it came in the form of conflict with both Whedon and critically-beloved director Edgar Wright (whose removal from the soon-to-be-released Ant-Man had already soured many). At the time, Whedon had revealed in interviews that he’d burned himself out on the MCU, and that clashing with the Marvel brass (i.e. studio head Kevin Feige) over what had to be included in Ultron for the sake of MCU continuity had been a particular factor. It is no shock, then, that Age of Ultron was given a certain amount of side-eye before it ever hit a theater. It was the baby whose mother died in delivery.
Looking back on Whedon’s tales from the making of Ultron with a little hindsight, the conflicts feel less catastrophic than they seemed back then. Whedon had to fight to keep the (excellent) farmhouse scenes in the film, as well as the Scarlet Witch-induced dream sequences, and in order to keep those in, he had to trudge his way through filming Thor’s hunt for information about the Infinity Stones. And in the interest of getting on with it, let’s stipulate a few things:
The scenes with Thor in the pool hallucinating about the Infinity Stones via an animation that looks like it was created for a trailer are dumb.
The Infinity Stones are dumb.
Nobody cares about the Infinity Stones.
The Infinity Stones scenes in Ultron actually don’t take up that much time, and no one who’s being honest can say those scenes ruined the film for them.
Joss Whedon directing the Avengers films isn’t the same as Joss Whedon producing Cabin in the Woods or directing Serenity. This was a collaboration with Feige and the greater Marvel battle plan, and he knew it.
Joss Whedon can be a bit of a drama queen.
With every bit of hindsight we can get, Whedon’s production complaints seem more and more the typical director-studio stuff and not the death of independent artistry that they might have seemed then.
Here’s the thing, though: if the slavish demands to the interconnectivity of the Thanos Gauntlet of Gold movies is what vexes you the most about MCU, do I have a movie I think you will love; it’s called Avengers: Age of Ultron. This is a movie that tells a complete story, narratively, thematically, emotionally, and gives it a beginning and a definitive end. So much so that Marvel needed to tack on Thanos himself into the post-credits tag just to remind the audiences there was more story to tell. If it makes you feel better to fast-forward past Thor in the pool and that incredibly brief Thanos tag because you’re allergic to franchise connectivity, by all means, do so. You’ll lose literally nothing from the story. And the story, as it turns out, is a good one.
Ultron, the artificial intelligence born when Tony Stark’s considerable technological advancements were combined with the unstable and uncontrollable magicks of Loki’s scepter, is a classic Frankenstein’s monster tale crossed with the usual killer robot/alien invaders conundrum (“Pathetic humans, look what they’ve done to themselves, we shall save them by destroying them”). Ultron downloads the entire awful history of the world and all of Tony Stark’s particular personality defects in the span of nanoseconds? Yeah, no wonder he’s got a warped view of humanity and a raging Oedipal mecha-boner for killing his creator.
That Whedon/Feige/whomever went for this particular story type isn’t what makes it remarkable, what makes it remarkable is that we see it begin, progress, complicate, and end. Ultron recruits the Maximoffs, begats the Vision, alienates the Maximoffs, loses control of the vision, and rather poetically, is done in by not the Avengers proper, but by first Wanda (on the bus) and then Vision (in the field). And then he’s gone. No post-credits tease. No hints of a resurrection. James Spader and his marvelous blend of persnickety malevolence won’t be reprised. In a series that increasingly found it necessary to dangle more and more loose ends, Ultron was a remarkably closed circuit, and it’s all the better for it.
So what were the other Avengers doing while their newest recruits were busy killing the bad guy? They were saving people. The MCU films — the Captain America films and the Avengers films specifically — have done a pretty good job of sticking to the over-arching theme that essentially keeps asking, over and over again, “What good is a superhero?” What do we have them for? Is it about killing the giant alien space-snake, or is it about protecting the puny, scurrying humans on the ground? Falling down on one job often means a bigger, meaner job waiting for you down the road. It may sidle up to the “corny” side a bit too uncomfortably for some, but the decision that Cap, Natasha, and the rest make to stay on the rising rock of Sokovia and clear out every last citizen means this is more than just some dumb Transformers movie. The themes aren’t that complex. You’ve got other movies for that. But there are consistent character dynamics at play, and that is especially true of Age of Ultron.
Will it make you regret that click if I’ve waited nine-odd paragraphs to tell you that my favorite sequence in Age of Ultron involves Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye? Well, too late, because it does. Not down on the farm with his surprise wife and kid, either, although those scenes offer a necessary and welcome change of pace and perspective for the story. Instead, though, it’s the scene where he gives Wanda the big Avengers pep talk. It’s two characters in way over their heads, and one of them is a bit further down the road in being able to process and accept that, and even though the other one isn’t quite there yet, and even though she tried to warp his mind earlier on, he’s gonna lay it out for her: they’re on a floating city, she’s scared to death, and he’s armed with a bow and arrow. And now all that’s left is to fight.
It’s classic Joss Whedon Buffy hero talk, and it’s played perfectly by Renner and Olsen, and it’s absolute catnip to my eyes and ears. And then when Wanda does take that step outside, becomes an Avenger, and uses her red misty magic (with Elizabeth Olsen doing that A+ witch-finger acting that she never gets credit for) to lay waste to those Ultron copies, it is truly the best of what these movies can do in terms of characters preceding action. (That Civil War takes care to keep up with the bond Hawkeye and Wanda share is but one of the reasons I’ll ride for MCU continuity.)
What else is there to say in “defense” of this unfairly maligned movie?
The scene where everybody tries to lift Thor’s hammer is good team-building fun, and leads perfectly to Ultron’s first attack
we get the first MCU mention of Wakanda
Marvel
Steve Rogers ripping a tree log in half with his bare hands in frustration is a fine precursor that scene of him gripping the helicopter and the building in Civil War, and I give it four fainting hankies out of five.
Natasha and Banner’s romance is genuinely sweet even if she keeps forcing him to become a killer rage monster against his will
Hawkeye and Pietro’s bro-y rivalry is also fun, and … okay, look, let’s all accept that Hawkeye is the lowkey MVP of this movie. He’s a character everybody loves to hate on because he has no powers and he’s played by an actor who’s hard to like very much, and fair enough. But credit where it’s due. Joss Whedon finally nailed down his Xander character.
The entire Sokovia action sequence is a high-quality thrill ride right through to the end. It got crap at the time for the waves-and-waves-of-robots thing, but each and every Avenger is accounted for at all times, we know exactly where the action is flowing, and that slow-mo brawl scene with them all together is very cool-looking, and sometimes that’s enough.
Different Marvel movies scratch different itches. You’re in the mood for silly space adventures with the Guardians or government-spy intrigue as Captain America takes down Hydra or for the cool Shane Black-iness of Iron Man 3. It’s too insulating to simply leave it at “Age of Ultron scratches that itch for me,” though it certainly does. But it also delivers on the promise of the Avengers more than any other film in the series, telling a complete story that nevertheless evolves the Avengers as a unit in crucial ways, delivers a memorable villain and a good handful of thrilling action sequences, and only lets Tony make one classless joke about prima nocta. You take your victories where you can get them sometimes. Age of Ultron was a victory, even if we’re all still coming around to it.
Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
