Avengers: Age of Ultron thoughts

Big Thanks to my friends that hooked me up with the ticket to watch this movie

Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, the Shaman of Animation back again with some more Superhero talk. Last night, I saw Avengers Age of Ultron and needless to say, it was AWESOME!! I had to get my thoughts on the movie out. No worries people, I will keep this as spoiler free as possible.

After a mission to retrieve Loki's scepter from the first Avengers movie, Tony Stark gets a crazy idea and with the help of Bruce Banner uses the scepter in an attempt to create artificial intelligence in an attempt to have in Tony's words: "A suit of armor around the world". The end result of this experimentation is Ultron, who wants the same thing that his creator does, to help the world and keep it in peace. Except Ultron's idea of helping the world is to completely wipe out human life as we know it; and The Avengers ain't having that and now they have to stop this machine.

In the weeks building up to Age of Ultron, I definitely felt there was some pressure on Marvel to deliver. After all, the first Avengers movie is three years old and the novelty of seeing these characters come together has worn off; there needed to be something there to shake things up. Combine that with the fact that this movie introduces three new characters to the MCU (Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and The Vision) and that it also needed to be something that helped foreshadow to Marvel's Phase 3, you'll see that there was a LOT of stuff that could have gone wrong in this movie, but luckily AOU is a movie that fires on all cylinders.

A lot of the stuff that you loved from the first Avengers movie is still here in the sequel: the comedy and witty banter is there and better than ever, the visuals are still great, and the fights just make love to your eyes (Hulk vs Hulkbuster...Yes...). The movie manages to do all that and more as it dives a little deeper into who these characters are. We see more of the team's personal lives, we get to see their fears and we get to see them challenged in a way that they weren't in a way they were in the previous film. To add to this little tidbit, to everyone who thought Hawkeye was lame in the first Avengers movie, AOU does a great job of redeeming him.

The New Kids on The Block

The new heroes in the movie to join the Avengers are Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and The Vision. There was a lot of concern in regards of how Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch would be portrayed in the movie considering they are both X-Men characters...and the rights to the X-Men belong to fox, meaning that these characters histories were changed to fit in the MCU. Despite all this, these two were fun to watch on the screen. Their origins fit in perfectly with what the MCU wants to do with them. Both Scarlet Witch's and Quicksilver's powers looked great on screen and while The Vision didn't have a lot of screen time in the movie, he definitely left a great first impression. I'm very excited to see where all three of these characters go in the future.

And now let's talk about the big bad himself...

From the trailers of the movie, I had the impression that Ultron was this big bad menacing villain, and while he still was, the movie's portrayal of the character was something I wasn't actually expecting. In a lot of instances, the character feels a lot like he's an ordinary person and he believes in his mind that removing the Avengers and humanity itself is what's best for the world in order for it to move forward. In a way he's like the Kingpin from the Daredevil Netflix series, except he's nowhere near as developed as the Kingpin, but he's still one of the best villains we've seen from Marvel.

 It's been confirmed that Joss Whedon was stepping down from Marvel and The Avengers movies while the Russo brothers (The guys behind Captain America: The Winter Soldier) will take care of the two part Infinity War movies. If Age of Ultron was Whedon's final hurrah with the MCU, he definitely went out with a bang. Avengers: Age of Ultron, like the rest of the MCU, to me represents why we all love superheroes and superhero movies: you have a bunch of guys in colorful skin tight suits trying to stop an army of robots from trying to destroy the world. Does it sound silly? Yeah, but it's also a fun experience, one that screams to your inner child and action movie lover and I think the guys behind the movie understand that and they made the best movie possible that celebrates what superhero stories are at their core. It's a must see movie for everyone.

Til Next time folks, I'm The Shaman of Animation, and I'm patiently waiting for when Spider-Man shows up in the Avengers movies.

Everyone reading this get #IronSpiderSuit  Trending on Twitter. I want to see that sh*t in a movie!!

Take Care...