Avengers Age of Ultron reaction post
I feel like I need a few days’ adjustment to take in the new canon.
It was certainly an entertaining film - Whedon’s quippy flair for dialogue hasn’t deserted him, at all, and it makes you like spending time with these people. All these people. Most of whom have their moments. The story mostly worked, the idea of whether this team of monsters could be a team that could defend the Earth from their fears/Stark’s idiocy had resonance. The opening fight scene was a decent enough intro, then I preferred all the character stuff to the fights, which were meh until we got to Seoul and Cap was fighting Ultron and Natasha was being amazing. But there was plenty of character stuff. The fights by the end, give or take the tiiiiime we waited to find out what had happened next with some characters (koff, Natasha, because she is the most important) because there were so many of them to get around, were better.
Yet, I have issues - partly about where this fits into the larger story, I suppose. I felt like going ‘hold up’ - especially about how and when the Avengers reformed after Captain America 2/SHIELD fell. And even though I did ship Natasha/Bruce after the first Avengers movie (not exclusively), I felt that Whedon skipped over a fair bit in the development of their relationship to get to where we were. Onscreen, we’ve seen her relationship with Steve work - and every time they were fighting or standing alongside each other, I was reminded of how much I loved that dynamic. And Captain America 2 gave us plenty of Nat/Steve subtext, while, I thought keeping Nat/Clint open, while Nat/Bruce was an afterthought. I just feel that if this was a serialised TV series, we would have got another episode, but I suppose these films are the big sweeps crossovers, even though Whedon should know that the pay-off comes as the result of the quieter, preparatory episodes. Especially if you’re having Natasha raise whether they’ve lost their moment and, I suspect, most of the audience wasn’t ready for it...
That isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy a lot of the Natasha/Bruce. The scenes of their fears (and especially Steve’s) because of Wanda’s mind-messing were hugely affecting (and at the same time it was great that Clint cut off the brainwashing). Her opening up about the Red Room was huge and heart-breaking - especially because Johansson was probably pregnant when talking about Natasha’s graduation - and more important than the sincere (?) flirting. That the film ended up with her being unable to deHulk him, with him running, whereas she’d chosen for them to stay and fight felt right (she may adore Bruce, but I adore her more for what she did at that point. Ahem) - well, I like the honesty of those problems. I just feel that Whedon skipped a bit to get to this point.
The other headsnapper was, of course, Clint’s secret homelife. Casting Linda Cardinelli helped A LOT. And of course Nat would know. But...Steve and Tony getting to fight over chopping wood and cute butterfly drawings helping Bruce figure stuff out aside. Thematic relevance aside...it was just weird, right? Presumably there’s some comic run somewhere that’s a basis for it.
I dunno.
Oh, but the other thing that I did love was MARIA HILL. I imagine Tony will try to have her sacked because she’s Fury’s (of course she is) and Pepper will tell him not to be silly, because she’s great. And this instalment has moved me from being Maria/Steve friendly to shipping it so much that they’re going to have to work hard at Steve/Sharon. They just bounced off each other so well. I loved her hanging out with everyone and continuing to be competent. And she loser/testorsterone coughed. Which is not the same as having many scenes with women talking, like Agents of SHIELD seems to manage easily, Joss, or having Captain Marvel be prepared for instead of Black Panther, Marvel.
I may have made googly eyes at Steve Rogers for a lot of the film, because there was the dry humour and the trying to do the right thing and still finding his place. and that face. Oh, my Captain, indeed. And HIIII Sam! (More so than Rhodey.)
Wanda and Piotr were totally River and Simon. (And thus Olsen and Taylor-Johnson had way more chemistry than in the dull Godzilla where they were playing a married couple.) And this Quicksilver was fun, but didn’t steal the move like X-Men’s Quicksilver. And he asked ‘didn’t see that coming?’ when he saved old man Hawkeye plus the kid, but I was anticipating that Whedon would kill someone off at that point in the movie (and I had been, frankly, more upset about JARVIS, except like Fury and Coulson - not really dead). But the Scarlet Witch has cooler powers, and I really enjoyed Hawkeye talking her into being a member of the team and their backstory and journeys. She can stay! She needs to.
But there were moments when Piotr, Wanda and Natasha should really have been speaking Russian.
Blah blah blah Tony, science bros, that’s what comes when you don’t talk it through with other people/Steve. I enjoyed beautiful Thor, and I liked the way he was used in terms of the Infinity Stones. I am happy for Paul Bettany that he got to play Vision. What is the next film in this universe? I hope Thor said goodbye to Jane before leaving - how I wish she could do science with Tony and Bruce, and for Darcy to mix with the Avengers (although canon is closing off options for shipping her. Boo.) Obviously Pepper and Jane are both awesome in different ways, like Maria and Natasha are awesome and don’t need to lift any hammers to prove it - although the use of the gag (and a Frankenstein reference among other literary ones) was masterful.
So, it was certainly entertaining, but there were also developments that I’m going to have to take in. It didn’t have anything like the whole bringing SHIELD down moment of Cap 2, but in trope-savvy Ultron (Tony’s son of sorts! Especially visually with the many Ultrons reminding us of the many Iron Men) it had a good baddie. Er, you know what I mean.
UK filmgoers, we only had a mid-credit scene. Nothing at the bitter end.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/170621.html.
It was certainly an entertaining film - Whedon’s quippy flair for dialogue hasn’t deserted him, at all, and it makes you like spending time with these people. All these people. Most of whom have their moments. The story mostly worked, the idea of whether this team of monsters could be a team that could defend the Earth from their fears/Stark’s idiocy had resonance. The opening fight scene was a decent enough intro, then I preferred all the character stuff to the fights, which were meh until we got to Seoul and Cap was fighting Ultron and Natasha was being amazing. But there was plenty of character stuff. The fights by the end, give or take the tiiiiime we waited to find out what had happened next with some characters (koff, Natasha, because she is the most important) because there were so many of them to get around, were better.
Yet, I have issues - partly about where this fits into the larger story, I suppose. I felt like going ‘hold up’ - especially about how and when the Avengers reformed after Captain America 2/SHIELD fell. And even though I did ship Natasha/Bruce after the first Avengers movie (not exclusively), I felt that Whedon skipped over a fair bit in the development of their relationship to get to where we were. Onscreen, we’ve seen her relationship with Steve work - and every time they were fighting or standing alongside each other, I was reminded of how much I loved that dynamic. And Captain America 2 gave us plenty of Nat/Steve subtext, while, I thought keeping Nat/Clint open, while Nat/Bruce was an afterthought. I just feel that if this was a serialised TV series, we would have got another episode, but I suppose these films are the big sweeps crossovers, even though Whedon should know that the pay-off comes as the result of the quieter, preparatory episodes. Especially if you’re having Natasha raise whether they’ve lost their moment and, I suspect, most of the audience wasn’t ready for it...
That isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy a lot of the Natasha/Bruce. The scenes of their fears (and especially Steve’s) because of Wanda’s mind-messing were hugely affecting (and at the same time it was great that Clint cut off the brainwashing). Her opening up about the Red Room was huge and heart-breaking - especially because Johansson was probably pregnant when talking about Natasha’s graduation - and more important than the sincere (?) flirting. That the film ended up with her being unable to deHulk him, with him running, whereas she’d chosen for them to stay and fight felt right (she may adore Bruce, but I adore her more for what she did at that point. Ahem) - well, I like the honesty of those problems. I just feel that Whedon skipped a bit to get to this point.
The other headsnapper was, of course, Clint’s secret homelife. Casting Linda Cardinelli helped A LOT. And of course Nat would know. But...Steve and Tony getting to fight over chopping wood and cute butterfly drawings helping Bruce figure stuff out aside. Thematic relevance aside...it was just weird, right? Presumably there’s some comic run somewhere that’s a basis for it.
I dunno.
Oh, but the other thing that I did love was MARIA HILL. I imagine Tony will try to have her sacked because she’s Fury’s (of course she is) and Pepper will tell him not to be silly, because she’s great. And this instalment has moved me from being Maria/Steve friendly to shipping it so much that they’re going to have to work hard at Steve/Sharon. They just bounced off each other so well. I loved her hanging out with everyone and continuing to be competent. And she loser/testorsterone coughed. Which is not the same as having many scenes with women talking, like Agents of SHIELD seems to manage easily, Joss, or having Captain Marvel be prepared for instead of Black Panther, Marvel.
I may have made googly eyes at Steve Rogers for a lot of the film, because there was the dry humour and the trying to do the right thing and still finding his place. and that face. Oh, my Captain, indeed. And HIIII Sam! (More so than Rhodey.)
Wanda and Piotr were totally River and Simon. (And thus Olsen and Taylor-Johnson had way more chemistry than in the dull Godzilla where they were playing a married couple.) And this Quicksilver was fun, but didn’t steal the move like X-Men’s Quicksilver. And he asked ‘didn’t see that coming?’ when he saved old man Hawkeye plus the kid, but I was anticipating that Whedon would kill someone off at that point in the movie (and I had been, frankly, more upset about JARVIS, except like Fury and Coulson - not really dead). But the Scarlet Witch has cooler powers, and I really enjoyed Hawkeye talking her into being a member of the team and their backstory and journeys. She can stay! She needs to.
But there were moments when Piotr, Wanda and Natasha should really have been speaking Russian.
Blah blah blah Tony, science bros, that’s what comes when you don’t talk it through with other people/Steve. I enjoyed beautiful Thor, and I liked the way he was used in terms of the Infinity Stones. I am happy for Paul Bettany that he got to play Vision. What is the next film in this universe? I hope Thor said goodbye to Jane before leaving - how I wish she could do science with Tony and Bruce, and for Darcy to mix with the Avengers (although canon is closing off options for shipping her. Boo.) Obviously Pepper and Jane are both awesome in different ways, like Maria and Natasha are awesome and don’t need to lift any hammers to prove it - although the use of the gag (and a Frankenstein reference among other literary ones) was masterful.
So, it was certainly entertaining, but there were also developments that I’m going to have to take in. It didn’t have anything like the whole bringing SHIELD down moment of Cap 2, but in trope-savvy Ultron (Tony’s son of sorts! Especially visually with the many Ultrons reminding us of the many Iron Men) it had a good baddie. Er, you know what I mean.
UK filmgoers, we only had a mid-credit scene. Nothing at the bitter end.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/170621.html.