Movie Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

I saw the first Avengers movie many moons ago, a movie I loved so much I gave it a 10/10 on my blog, the only movie to have earned that coveted ranking. Now the sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron is upon us. The 1992 Ultron card was one of my first comic-book cards as a child, so this is especially cool for me. Here we go...

The Plot

Soon after the defeat of one of the last known HYDRA outposts, Avengers Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) decide to create a peacekeeping program to handle the responsibility of protecting the world. Unfortunately, said peacekeeping program transforms into the malevolent, genocidal AI named Ultron (James Spader), who takes control of Stark's Iron Legion (think a bunch of autonomous Iron Man suits under the control of the computer JARVIS) and plots to destroy the Avengers in alliance with a couple HYDRA science projects, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch...

The Good

*The movie starts out with a bang, with the Avengers attacking the last major HYDRA base. All of the Avengers, including a Hulk who's much more in control of himself than usual, are absolutely devastating. It's a hoot to watch. There's a good tie-in with Agents of SHIELD in the form of the evil Dr. List, one of the HYDRA villains from the current season.

*I liked how at the Avengers' victory party, there are lots of elderly WWII veterans. Steve Rogers hasn't forgotten his war buddies, those still left. :(

*James Spader does an excellent job as Ultron. I have never seen a genocidal AI who is that much of a smart-aleck, nor one that shows occasional moments of pathos and, well, humanity. Given how on some level he's Tony Stark's "son," the snark is to be expected. He's got some really good lines--I'd never seen a robot actually exasperated before. And although he's a monster, he's a very lonely monster based on a couple comments he makes and his relationships with a couple human characters. He's also incredibly physically powerful and dangerous, plus he makes Biblical allusions. :)

*A new character who's kind of a foil for Ultron is introduced in the film as well, and he's pretty cool. I liked his interaction with the other Avengers and with Ultron. I like the good and bad side of the artificial-intelligence coin they both represent.

*The movie spends a lot of time on Hawkeye, who was a borderline extra in Thor and didn't do a whole lot in the original Avengers. We meet family members and learn more about his relationship with Romanoff. It's funny and sweet and, when you combine it with my next point, rather poignant. I'd gotten a distinct vibe Hawkeye and the Black Widow were an item (based on their interactions in The Avengers and her wearing an arrowhead necklace in Winter Soldier), but this situation is a lot less cliched.

*The movie provides more detail on Romanoff's back-story as a product of the Soviet "Red Room" espionage program, which just got a fair bit sadder.

*Although Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are imports from the X-Men--in the comics they were the estranged children of Magneto--they work just as well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the products of HYDRA experimentation. The rare willing products, I might add.

*There's some good foreshadowing of Captain America: Civil War (shooting now in Atlanta) and the upcoming Infinity War duology in both the events of the film and some characterization our heroes--in particularly Captain America and Iron Man--get. There're also some nods to the events of Winter Soldier.

*Although this movie isn't nearly as funny as the original and significantly darker, there are still some good jokes in this one. Not going to give away my favorites...you'll just have to see.

*War Machine, who wasn't in Winter Soldier, is back and ready for mayhem.

The Bad

*The movie gets kind of slow toward the end, before everybody returns to Sokovia for an epic throw-down.

*The first one functioned just as well as a comedy as an action film, but there're a lot fewer jokes this time around. That might be an artistic choice on the creators' part -- according to one review I've read, the first film is about how great it is to have superpowers and the second is about how isolating these powers are. That last bit would apply especially to the Hulk I imagine, given the events of the film and some things we learn about him.

*The Incredible Hulk and The Avengers imply that Banner has learned how to control himself as Hulk and we see him fighting as a functional team member early on, but he still for some reason needs the Black Widow to calm him down like some kind of hot lion-tamer. There's a romantic subplot involving the two of them that this helps set up, but it's still a continuity problem.

*Where's Banner's girlfriend Betty Ross? Given the romantic plot with Romanoff, that's a bit of an elephant in the room.

The Verdict

Not as good as the first film, but a darn good movie. 9.5 out of 10.

How I Would Have Done The Mandarin ("Iron Man III" Spoilers)

A week or so ago, I went and saw Iron Man III with my friend David. Overall, it was a really enjoyable, interesting movie, and Ben Kingsley's performance as the Mandarin (or, more specifically, a drug-addled British actor hired to play the Mandarin in al-Qaeda-esque terrorist videos) was really funny.

That being said, the Mandarin is a character with an old and venerable tradition in the Iron Man comics. He's Iron Man's greatest foe and his appearance is foreshadowed by the not-al-Qaeda villains of the first Iron Man film calling themselves "The Ten Rings" and seeking to build a pan-Asian empire. For those of you less familiar with the comics, the Mandarin is a Chinese noble (of sorts) who has ten rings made from a fallen alien spacecraft that give him superpowers. Finally unveiling him as Tony Stark's most dangerous enemy yet would have been glorious. However, due to the incestuous freaky coupling of Hollywood's political correctness and Chinese investment, we end up with yet another white male military-industrial complex villain like Obadiah Stane in the first film and Justin Hammer in the second. Apparently for all its vaunted power, the MIC hasn't got a lobbying group or the ability to unilaterally deny Hollywood access to 1.5 billion customers.

I am not so insensitive that I can't see how the Mandarin could be perceived or depicted as some racist "Yellow Peril" cliche. However, it is possible to have a powerful Asian male villain who isn't some stereotype with foot-long fingernails, dragon robes, and a goofy-accented evil laugh whose mouth movements don't line up with the soundtrack.

So here's how I would have done him...

The comics' Mandarin was born apparently in the last days of the Manchu Dynasty of China. However, since Iron Man's Vietnam origins have been updated to Afghanistan, the Mandarin's can be updated to World War II. Instead of being the son of a Chinese noble and a British woman, he could be the son of a Chinese resistance fighter and a British woman he rescued from Japanese rapists. He grows up to become Communist China's super-villain (much like how in the Captain America film, Red Skull was Nazi Germany's) and to make things more fun, have him playing a part in the death of Tony's father Howard Stark sometime during Tony's childhood. All Tony knows is that his father left the family, but that might not be the whole story.

However, with China and the United States growing closer economically, the Mandarin becomes a liability. Hunted by his former masters as a dangerous loose end, he wanders off into the wilderness and finds a crashed alien spacecraft like in the comics. He gathers this technology into his own hands and begins assembling a following, intending to use the Ten Rings terrorist organization and various technological goodies (Stark Industries' weapons, captured Chitauri and Asgardian gadgets) to once more make China the center of the Earth. As the member of my alternate-history forum whose handle is Cambyses the Mad put it, he can be a competent, intelligent foil for Tony rather than some "HAHAHAHAHA" kung-fu movie cliche and to make things better, he can be played by an esteemed Asian actor. And as the movie Mandarin damned the United States for the Sand Creek Massacre, so my Mandarin could complain about the Opium Wars, China's division into spheres of influence by the Western powers, etc. and wax poetic about how China is one of if not the oldest civilization on Earth, the treasure fleets, etc. And if the Mandarin's scheme is foiled but he survives, he can show up for future Marvel Cinematic Universe adventures.

I'm not the only one who's willing to propose an alternative suggestion rather than simply complain. This fan here has plotted out his own Iron Man III story, which makes the Mandarin an especial bastard who gives Tony a very good reason to want to kill him and brings in the Hulk as well.

What do you all think?

Movie Review: "The Avengers" (2012) (SPOILERS)

Saw The Avengerslast night.  The movie absolutely rocked. Here's my review telling you why:

The Good

The best part of this movie is Joss Whedon's script.  It's so well-done that the movie functions just as well as a comedy as a superhero film without being unintentionally funny (the danger with this kind of thing) at all.  The funniest part is when Loki tries to browbeat the Hulk into submission and the Hulk absolutely destroys him.  The entire audience in the theater I saw it in broke out in cheers, laughter, and applause.  There are also a lot of other hilarious lines, to the point I can't list or remember all of them.  Here's a selection:

*When Nick Fury chats with the imprisoned Loki and in response to Loki rambling about ultimate power, basically shuts him down and tells him to call when "ultimate power" wants a magazine or something.

*When Tony Stark refers to Hawkeye as "Legolas."

*The Black Widow Natasha Romanoff's reaction to being ordered to recruit Banner.  Bozhe moi, which is Russian for "Oh my God."  I thought it was a bit more obscene, but either way it works.

*Loki's comment upon seeing the lightning that he's not fond of what (or who) happens next.

*Thor defending Loki against the other Avengers and when they reveal just how many people he's killed, Thor admits he's adopted.

*Iron Man's "Shakespeare in the Park" line to Thor, especially the part about wearing drapes.

On a related note, the chat between Loki and the Black Widow reveals just how much of a total monster Loki has become since his sympathetic depiction in Thor.  He gets really psychotically, spitting-on-the-glass enraged, calls the Black Widow a "mewling quim" (according to TVTropes, "quim" is synonymous for a word that begins with "c" and rhymes with "bunt") and the way it came off to me (especially the "intimately" part), he was threatening to have mind-controlled Hawkeye rape and torture her to death, then free his mind long enough for him to realize what he's done and then kill him.  Damn it, he needs to die.

The movie also has some nice shout-outs to the earlier films, including a reference to Stark Enterprises no longer making weapons.  The impression I had from the first Iron Man is that Stark was shutting down the weapons line temporarily due to Stark weapons ending up in the wrong hands, but given how Stark makes references to being the leader in green energy, maybe he had the company totally reorient.  Meanwhile, Captain America discovers lots of loot from the HYDRA villains of the Captain America movie.

I liked Captain America's old-fashioned values, including belief in self-sacrifice, his politeness (referring to Romanoff as "ma'am"), and his line to her about how there's only one God and He doesn't dress like the Asgardians do.  In many films, the depiction of someone with a pre-counterculture value system serves as an excuse to show that this value system is wrong.  In this one, however, Captain America serves as a good example to the point of inspiring greater self-sacrifice on the part of Iron Man and becoming the de facto leader of the Avengers.

I also like how they elaborated on the Black Widow, including giving her a back-story and some character moments during the confrontation with Loki.  A lesser film would have made her just eye candy, the token female character, or (most insultingly) a damsel in distress, but this was just so much better.  And as TVTropes points out, in one scene, she outsmarts the God of Lies.

The Bad

Only a few problems I can think of with the movie, and they're pretty minor.

Firstly, the Chitauri should have really seen the end of The Phantom Menace.  Never make it so that if your command ship gets blown up, your entire army shuts down.  Not only did the aliens' flying cyborg monster things drop dead, but so did their individual soldiers.  With the portal closed they were doomed anyway, but this is a major flaw on the aliens' part.  In real life, if an aircraft carrier were destroyed, did all the aircraft shut down and all of the sailors die?

The TVTropes article suggests the aliens didn't trust Loki with command of an army, but did they trust him so much they were willing to risk an entire army of their own people dying in the event of treachery?  If the aliens had some kind of "in the event of treachery" plan, something like Order 66 from Star Wars (in which the clones turn on their Jedi commanders and kill them) would have been better.

Secondly, when Banner first turns into the Hulk the first time, he's totally out of control and destructive much like one expects the Hulk to be.  However, when he deliberately transforms to defend New York from the aliens, he seems to be in total control, with the exception of smacking Thor upside the head after a particular fight.  The end of the second Hulk film depicts Banner deliberately inducing the transformation in to the Hulk and grinning as he does so, which implies he's gained some control over it.  However, if the cause of him being uncontrollably destructive the first time is Loki's staff rather than the nature of him being the Hulk, this could be shown onscreen.  Say, cutting between Banner "hulking out" and the mini-tesseract in Loki's staff pulsating while ominous music plays.

Thirdly, I didn't like the anti-weapon/technological theme about the tesseract.  When Captain America reveals to the team that SHIELD is manufacturing weapons based on HYDRA's tesseract research, most of the Avengers get all moralistic and whiny about using the tesseract to make weapons even though Fury stands his ground on why this is a good idea.  As he pointed out, a minor alien invasion leveled a small town in Thor and as we later learn, there are other hostile alien races out there.  After the Chitauri invasion, we see Fury telling the World Security Council (the UN?) that he put the tesseract safely out of human reach and we see Loki and Thor taking it back to Asgard.  I would think that after seeing an alien invasion trash Manhattan, the team would a bit more accepting of the need to arm up.

(Although to be fair, the main reason said invasion happened is because Loki offered the tesseract to the Chitauri in exchange for them helping him take over Earth.  Maybe some kind of mixed message where they return the tesseract to Asgard--since it's technically theirs anyway--but insist on the need for the derived gear?  After all, it wasn't the tesseract that caused the events of Thor.)

The Verdict

Probably the best movie I've seen this year.  10 out of 10.  This is the first time I've given this great a review.  There's a good chance I'll see this one again and I'll definitely get the DVD.

By the way, in addition to the "stinger" depicting Thanos, apparently the U.S. version features another post-credits stinger depicting everyone getting shwarma.  I missed that one.