Here’s a FAIL! story:

R and I initially planned to watch this summer’s biggest blockbuster in Commerce Center cinema in Alabang to, you know, avoid the Friday crowd.  Well apparently, half of the population occupying the South had the same idea and all four (!!!) theaters were already full by the time we lined up.  The earliest time the ticket lady could offer us was for the 9 pm show and it was only five in the afternoon.  Plan B was to reserve tickets in Alabang Town Center via sureseats.com but probably because of the Avengers madness, the site was down.  Dejected, we drove to Festival mall where, we were shocked to find, lots of empty seats.

Lesson of the story?  Don’t think like the masses.  Or you know, just buy your tickets as early as possible to save yourself the hassle.

Here’s the round up of Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

The Avengers – Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr. – Chef), Thor (Chris Hemsworth – The Cabin in the Woods), Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo – Begin Again), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans – Snowpiercer), Natasha Romanof/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson – Lucy) and Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner – American Hustle) – team up once again to retrieve Loki’s sceptre from HYDRA.  In the enemy’s secret base, they encounter the Maximoff twins Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson – Kick-Ass) and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen – Godzilla), victims of HYDRA’s human experimentation and gets a whiff of their supernatural powers.

The Avengers defeat both HYDRA and the twins while managing to crack down the gem inside Loki’s sceptre.  Banner and Stark find that there is a sentient entity inside the gem and try to integrate it with Jarvis/Vision (Paul Bettany – Transcendence), in the hopes of perfecting the ULTRON programme – a plan where artificial intelligence  control the Iron Legion to protect the world from alien invaders.  The upload succeeds but destroys JARVIS in the process, creating Ultron (James Spader – Secretary), a being who sees the Avengers as everything that is wrong with the planet and wants to perform a cleanse to reboot evolution.

The Avengers, with the help of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson – Kingsman: The Secret Service), James Rhodes/War Machine (Done Cheadle – Ocean’s Eleven), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders – How I Met Your Mother) and Sam Wilson/The Falcon (Anthony Mackie – Captain America: The Winter Soldier), must defeat Ultron.

THE GOOD:

1. A more balanced story line.  Unlike the first film where clearly Robert Downey Jr – the most popular superhero in the cast – held the reigns, Revenge of Ultron delved into each of the characters’ back stories equally.
   
2. No Gwynneth Paltrow! Ugh, thank God.  I liked Pepper Potts in the first two Iron Man movies but the crap they pulled in the third one where they obviously wrote in a bigger part for Gwynneth Paltrow ruined her for me.
3. Captain America’s finally taking the lead.  My friends who’ve read the comic books told me that Captain America, being Captain America, was the natural leader of the Avengers team.  Sadly, that fact didn’t translate very well in the first movie because Nick Fury was always there to direct the team where they needed to go.  In this film, however, there was a distinct lack of Nick Fury so the Captain had his time to shine.

   

4. So many freakin’ cameos!  I almost shat my pants when I saw Andy Serkis in there (probably as a set up for his Disney directorial debut?) and squealed very loudly when Paul Bettany took on human form as the Vision.
5. Ultron as a villain.  R didn’t like him as much but for me I think he worked because it pushed the team – most especially Tony Stark – away from being overly reliant in technology.
   
6. Not as much action. Unlike the first film where action sequences can last as long as fifteen minutes, Revenge of Ultron keeps it down to a more manageable level.  I personally found the action sequences in the first movie, while entertaining, to be somewhat messy.
   
7. Jeremy Renner finally gets a bigger role.  Sure, the whole story arc of Clint Barton could’ve been cut and the film still woul’ve survived, but it was nice to see Hawkeye finally doing something.

   

8. Chris Hemsworth gets a special shoutout for being the sole bearer of the comedic brunt.  That scene where the Avengers try to wield the hammer – therefore ending the nerd debate worldwide once and for all – was hilarious.

   

9. Incest! Haha.  Elizabeth Olsen said it herself that she and Taylor-Johnson based the twins’ relationship on the Marvel Ultimates story arc.

   

THE BAD:

1. Forced romance between the Hulk and the Black Widow.  Why…?  This is the type of movie where romance is not needed.
2. Pietro’s death!  I cried 🙁  He and Wanda seemed to fit in well with the team and the character’s death felt like it was put there just for the shock factor.
3. Cheap pandering using kids.  Blerg.  It was reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s LOTR where slow motion close ups of terrified children kept on popping up onscreen.
4. The veryNolan-esque philosophical problems.  I understand that this is the natural progression of things because if you open up a film franchise with a film so mind numbingly action-packed as the first Avengers movie, doing the exact opposite and filling the next movie with brain teasers is the next logical step.  Still, asking the audience to contemplate on mankind’s merits and flaws in a superhero movie is just too much.
5. Only one easter egg.  There was only one post-credits scene and while it was an awesome one, I was waiting for another shawarma round table.  It could’ve been their thing, ya know?  #Postbattleeatout could’ve been a trend.

THE UGLY:

1. Revenge of Ultron probably should’ve been the first story arc in the Avengers movies.  My main problem with the film was that it was more organic and the plot too small to be the second in a trilogy where things should go from small to big to large.  Personally I would have preferred if the Avengers got really freaked out over the Asgardians from the first Thor movie and so Ultron was created.  Then the second movie could’ve been all about the ass whooping the Chitaurians received for messing with earth.  Or something like that.

All in all I found Avengers: Age of Ultron to be an interesting and enjoyable watch because the film focused more on delving into the characters’ pasts and fears, which makes most of the struggles internal rather than external.  Perfomances were great all around and a big kudos goes to Joss Whedon for being able to control a cast of superstars that big and making everything look seamless and organic on the big screen.  While I still maintain that this plot could’ve better served as the Avenger’s pilot story, it was still a good second movie in an awesome trilogy.  I so can’t wait for the Infinity battle.

THE VERDICT: 8.5/10

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.