LOVED the film overall, but I did feel a smidge of something "missing" and I think what that was was the mystique of the first one, being in fact, the first one.
It felt, like the sequel that it was, even tho it was the "better" film, that feeling never left me.
Love the writing/wit/humor. You can tell the cast itself is really close, and they play off each other perfectly with their dialogue. The timing, the jokes all throughout, just made the film that much more fun.
Some of the imagery they had.
The action, CGI, is all top notch, no doubt, but it is starting to wear on me. The San Andreas trailer played before the film. Building falling apart, skyscrapers collapsing, oceanliners crashing thru cities, mass destruction. The first Avengers, battle of New York, same thing. Captain America Winter Soldier, in Washington, same thing. I get it. Cities tear apart. Millions of lives extinguished, instantly, and they tell Language jokes. :\ That's that darkness this series misses on. The Nolan trilogy had it, the desperation, the neverending fear, always on edge.
Despite how bad *** Ultron was, I was never for a second worried. They made it too easy. And for a second, I had hope. The vision they gave Stark, with everyone dead.
That should have been soooooo much more. They should have played that up, BIG TIME. They should have gone with Stark truly, TRULY darkened from that vision. Change the tone completely, to show true desperation. They basically went to a house, licked some wounds, chopped some wood, and went back at it. |I
I get it, the Avengers IS the lighter, fluffier, friendlier, more visual comic series. And they succeed at that. But to have a truly GREAT, ELITE film, you have to have the villain, the tone, the darkness that **** is really ****** up. And they can't get that by tellin jokes for 2 hours. And because of that, they will always be behind the others. To me, Winter Soldier still is the best film of the Marvel verse, to this point, and that film did have it's humor moments. But the threat was SEVERE. And the Soldier himself was a SAVAGE with it. Ultron was just a dime a dozen over and over and over til Vision turned off his router.
Even Loki seemed to be a bigger threat than what Ultron ultimately turned out to be. With all those robots, it was just 10 minutes two different times of all the Avengers Hulk Smashing them. Couple cuts, a bullet wound, meh. 950 robots broken tho.
Individually, they all did really well. They didn't over focus Stark, that was good. Cap was great, Thor was very good, I didn't need all the Natasha/Banner stuff, but I can overlook that. Come to think of it tho, why? Why was that there? There was no inkling of that coming in any of the other films, shows, etc, why suddenly have it? That should have been muted. Hawkeye of course really stepped up this go 'round. The "I have a bow and arrow" quip was perfectly placed, and a great move for him. Quicksilver was a lot of fun, I was a little put off by the accents tho. Witch tho........ man.
I did not expect that. C'mere baby girl. Girl was lookin GOOD in that final clip, well, the whole movie, but especially that last scene.
Solid move havin time for Maria Hill, Falcon, War Machine, and Fury. Didn't overdo it, but let them have a moment of shine here and there to balance everything else out.
When Vision picked up Thor's hammer
Liked the introduction of Vision, they pulled it off well enough, even if we're all taking a leap of faith with the hologram brains merging and not merging, etc.
Hulk v Hulkbuster was outstanding.
The mind bends that witch put on each Avenger, those are needed more and more. I really think they missed an opportunity there, but then again, this all just leads up to Civil War, and I expect to see some of the stuff I've mentioned in those films, especially with Joss stepping aside.
I loved the film, make no mistake, it's way up there in the Marvel universe, somewhere in the 2-3 range, but it's not immediately number 1. Time might help that however, with more viewings and more things discovered. I did enjoy the Black Panther references, and the shield, Klaw, etc.
Solid 7.7-7.8/8. Not a perfect film, but still really enjoyable, true to the comic book feel and roots, but didn't have the serious tone I needed for true greatness. Look forward to another viewing sometime soon tho. I do appreciate how hard it is to get all these actors/actresses on the screen at once, and each have enough time to make their marks. By the way, the 2:20 view time, a breeze. I was stunned when the film was over, didn't feel like 2:20 AT ALL. Really great pace.
