AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

As early as March of 2012, when filming of The Avengers wrapped, Joss Whedon was mulling over plans for the inevitable sequel. “I want to know what makes them tick, what makes them flawed, what makes them fight - and ultimately, what makes them awesome. I go to these movies for those moments when the heroes define themselves, either through action or deliciously overwritten speeches,” he said.

But by the time Disney confirmed a sequel in early May of that year, Whedon had become uncertain about returning as director, having found himself preoccupied with TV’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. By August, however, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that Whedon was back on board as writer and director for the sequel to be released in May of 2015, then known only as Avengers 2.

The first obvious clue to the nature of the film came with the announcement of the title, Avengers: Age of Ultron, in late July 0f 2013. Whedon added his own details, “We’re doing our own version of the origin story of Ultron. Ultron has been their chief villain when I read the book. He’s been the Avengers villain. I was amazed anybody was surprised it was going to be him in the movie. Since before I even took the job of making the first one: ’I don’t know if I want to make this movie but the second one should have Ultron in it.’”

Whedon’s other statement should have been a clue. “It’s a little bit darker than the other film since Ultron’s in the house,” he said. “It’s got a sci-fi element to it that’s a little bit stronger than the other film. Getting the team together was so rousing. But seriously, keeping the team together is a completely different problem.”

Indeed, Avengers: Age of Ultron is darker and more cynical than the first teaming of Marvel’s finest. Sure, there was much carnage and mayhem in the first film when a band of invading aliens attacked New York, but that movie never forgot that it was all in good fun, as any Avengers movie ought to be.

            There is far less sympathy here in the moments of destruction. By this time, the series is warming up to Marvel’s Civil War era (the next Captain America movie is already being cheered on for carrying those two words in its title) where, as all fans know, the actions of superheroes can no longer go unregulated.

            Watching Avengers: Age of Ultron it isn’t hard to understand why. The villain is not only Ultron, a robot bent on bringing mass extinction to the planet, but his foolish creator Tony Stark who, much like Dr. Frankenstein, plays with something he knows nothing about and gives birth to a monster. Stark does not get off easy in this movie.

            Whedon admitted to being inspired by Shelley’s horror classic. “It’s our new Frankenstein myth,” he said. “We create something in our own image and the thing turns on us. It has that pain of ‘Well, why was I made? I want to kill Daddy.”

            “In the Marvel universe, there’s a lot of Frankensteins. Steve Rogers himself, one of the better-looking Frankensteins of our era,” he added. “Yeah, there’s always an element to that.  There’s a lot of people, whether they’re trying to do good or bad, who think they have the next big idea.  And the next big idea is usually a very bad one.”

 His team holds him accountable while far away in Easter Europe Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen) still hold a grudge against him for manufacturing the missiles that flew into their home ten years earlier, killing their parents.

            Of course, Ultron was designed as a bringer of peace, but once the program develops a mind of its own it breaks free and by the end of the movie at least three cities have been crushed (Seoul, where a battle with Ultron causes a commuter train to derail into a populated area in a scene reminiscent of the more exciting train fight in Spider-Man 2, a city in southern Africa, the filming was done in Johannesburg in February of 2014, where the metal Ultron wants for his outer shell is manufactured, and Sokovia, a snowy town in Eastern Europe the villainous android uproots from the ground and takes to high altitude with the intention of dropping it like a deadly meteor). Along the way, the band of good guys cause some damage of their own. In a chase through Africa, for instance, Hulk and Iron Man wreck a dozen buildings, an elevator, and the downtown area.

Producer Jeremy Latcham thinks of this as a sort of global protection, saying, “The Avengers saved New York, but the Avengers aren’t just about America. They’re here to protect this blue rock that we all live on.”

            The movie does address that many of the supposed beneficiaries of the Avengers’ heroics may not be exactly approving of the cost of the team’s involvement. If the Avengers are a mirror of how Americans see themselves in a global context (as infallible world liberators), the Maximoff twins start out as something a little closer to reality, speaking for many of the recipients of our intervention.

            Even Latcham conceded as much. “The story that Joss put together with these two kids is really sweet and poignant, and you really understand why they would start on this side of the line. It's a great journey that they go on, from being these rough and tumble kids in Eastern Europe who blame the West, and the Avengers for the plight, the power structure of the world that keeps kids like them down. Over the course of it they realize maybe the Avengers are here for good reason.”

            But the movie brushes off this level of complication with naïve, some would even say irresponsible, simplicity. Elizabeth Olsen’s description of Wanda Maximoff’s character treatment is particularly revealing as to the film’s attitude toward self-inspection.

            “Our characters have a lot of anger, especially towards Tony Stark, and we want revenge,” Olsen said. “We meet Ultron, and he's someone who preaches peace and… believes what we believe, which is that the Avengers create destruction and that Tony Stark's bomb is responsible for killing our parents. My character ends up really having to deal with her ignorance. A lot of problems that happen towards the end of the film are her responsibility.”

            Superhero movies should not be begrudged their moments of darkness. The Dark Knight trilogy set a new precedent because of them and the best action of the superhero movies (most of the Iron Man movies and the two Captain America movies) carried a dose of sadism than many of the lesser ones (the Thor movies) took seriously. There is a certain gusto in the way action heroes maintain grace under pressure and that coolness in the face of death kept the first film afloat toward the end. But the brutality, even at its grimmest, should always add to the excitement. Christopher Nolan’s first two Batman movies had little cheer, but were thrilling because of colorful villains. The final act was a dud largely because of a humorless villain and the unrelenting somberness of the overall screenplay.

            The meaner a foe the higher the thrills usually are, but it’s never fun to further dampen the mood in between the scenes of terror with stark glumness. After all the Michael Bay influence on Joss Whedon, shouldn’t Avengers: Age of Ultron have some fun with its cast of heroes? But all is dark and dreary with none of the first film’s sense of humor. Even Robert Downey Jr. whose wit proved an asset in all four movies where he previously played Iron Man is as lively here as one Tony Stark’s empty armor suits. This problem may have originated early on in production while Joss Whedon was still bustling through the screenplay. As optimistic as Marvel Studio co-president Louis D’Esposito sounded about Iron Man’s contribution to the movie, his statement to IGN indicates that, at least in the early stages, there was some uncertainty about what to do with the character.

            “It's hard for me to say what he's doing what his emotional mindset is, but you can see where it was where we left it at the end of Iron Man 3,” he said. “He's in love with Pepper, he's made a grand gesture to blow up the suits at that point — but in the end, he couldn't help himself. He'll go back to tinkering. That's what he does.”

            The action scenes are fragmented awkwardly into the main fabric. What story there is outside of them stops temporarily and for the whirlwind of explosions, crashes, and smoke and then we’re back to the gloom.

Marvel President Kevin Feige was hopeful for these moments, saying, “There are a lot of scenes that you should be getting excited about. I think I said a long time ago when Joss first did his six-page or 10-page outline for Avengers, there was a lot of work and the movie’s adapted quite a bit since then, but there were like six or seven signature things just in that. I said ‘Joss, even if we don’t do anything else. Just do these seven things, that’s enough for the movie. Now let’s get to work and put it all together.’ Those things are in the movie and are amazing, of which that sequence [where Iron Man and the Hulk destroy an African city] is one.”

  But they don’t feel natural or even organically necessary. Neither is there much to enjoy when the film does settle down to catch its breath. It is a dry spell of a blockbuster with little joy or vigor.

            Ironically, what Age of Ultron does better than its predecessor is give each of the Avengers their time in the spotlight, though much of it is a waste of an interesting character. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is used to best advantage and has the most fun. He is at the center of the film’s best moments, including the one time the film really repeats the fun of the original in an after party scene where each of his teammates tries and fails to lift his hammer.

            Hemsworth also saw the change in his mythological character. “He’s loosened up a bit. I think we lost some of the humor and the naïveté and the sort of fish out of water quality of Thor from the first film into the second one. And there were things I loved about what we did in the second one too, tonally. But that sense of fun was -- I would have liked it to be there a bit more. Joss, I think, felt the same way. So there's more humor in Thor and because he's been on Earth, he's a little more accessible now. He's off Asgard now so he doesn't have to be as regal and kingly as he is in that world, which is nice. I enjoy that more. It's sort of a box, which he gets to step out of off Asgard. You know that stuff just looks out of place, whereas here you can have a gag with the guys and he can be at a party scene in civilian clothes, which is nice.”

            Unfortunately, the movie has little use for Robert Downey Jr.’s talent and so Iron Man is a pale shadow of the character we’ve been following thus far. There is, as was promised, considerably more of Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) this time around.

            “We got to do some interesting stuff with Hawkeye which is a different kind of dark," Whedon said. "It's been fun for Jeremy because he was possessed for so long last time – it's interesting to not be a zombie!”

But fattening his part just to have him forsake the team for family feels like a cheat; a calculated attempt at an emotive statement. Captain America’s (Chris Evans) is interchangeable and the two new forces from the Kremlin, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, are simply not seen enough. The same can be said of War Machine (Don Cheadle) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie), though they are set up as successors for the new Avengers. Some interesting insight is given into Dr. Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) as they contemplate an attraction that can never bloom, but it never amounts to any tangible narrative strength.

Who this shortcoming can be addressed to is hard to guess, but Whedon seems to have had good intentions for the Hulk early on. “The Hulk, we really held back on him for a long while in the first one,” he said. “There’s something terrible coming that you’ll love.” Which is what makes the Hulk so hard to write is that you’re pretending he’s a werewolf when he’s a superhero.  You want it vice versa.  You want to see him, Banner doesn’t want to see him, but you don’t want Banner to be that guy who gets in the way of you seeing him.  So the question is, how has he progressed?  How can we bring changes on what the Hulk does?  And that’s not just in the screenplay, that’s moment to moment, because even when they are putting in temp mix they have a library of two roars. “Aaarrgh!  Uuurrgh!”  What if he wasn’t roaring?  I’m angry, and I’m not roaring.  I’m being very polite to a lot of reporters and I’m filled with rage.”

Feige said the same about Black Widow, “Widow's part in that is very big. We learn more about her past and learn more about where she came from and how she became in that film. The notion of exploring that even further in her own film would be great, and we have some development work with that.”

            Paradoxically, the best thing about Avengers: Age of Ultron is Ultron himself, though he is a far cry from the best villain action movies have to offer. But the evil robot is not without a sense of humor, of the kind only a monster voiced by James Spader could have. His caustic wit can be hard to recognize in such a monotonic voice, but this metallic fiend is given more charm and sleekness than any of the heroes. Of his human co-stars only Andy Serkis is given such splashy treatment and then in a brief scene as a mercenary arms dealer.

From the start, Ultron (comics is a creation of Ant-Man in the comics, a detail altered here so as not to step on the toes of  Ant-Man, Marvel) was brilliantly conceived for the film, starting with the casting of James Spader in late summer 2013.

            “I knew right away what I wanted to do with him,” Whedon said. “He’s always trying to destroy the Avengers, goddamn it, he’s got a bee in his bonnet. He’s not a happy guy, which means he’s an interesting guy. He’s got pain. And the way that manifests is not going to be standard robot stuff. So we’ll take away some of those powers because at some point everybody becomes magic, and I already have someone who’s a witch.”

            Ultron’s villainy has the sort of cold calculated matter-of-factness that has always been Spader’s most striking characteristic. As chilling as his words may be, they often verge into the comic. Chris Evans described the villain’s appeal perfectly, “A lot of times when Ultron starts talking, it’s beautiful. It’s really intelligent stuff. He’s out to do the things he wants to do because he’s disgusted with X, Y, and Z. You could probably sit down with Ultron and have a really intelligent conversation. He could blow your mind with his views.”

            Kevin Feige was one of the first to realize how perfectly Spader was for the man-made monster. “He's a very unique and incredibly exciting and unpredictable actor,” he said. “And Ultron in the comics is a robot, but what's cool about him in the comics -- and certainly how Joss Whedon is interpreting him for the movie -- is that he is much more than just a robot. That he's infused with much character. And I don't want to say too much, but you can imagine James Spader will be very dynamic in his portrayal of this character.”

            Spader himself demonstrated a firm grasp on the robot’s motivation. “I think he sees the Avengers as being part of a problem, a more comprehensive problem in the world,” he said. “I don’t know, he sees the world from a very strange point of view because he’s brand new, he’s very young. He’s been self-created during the first act of the film, and then he—he sees the world around him from a very biblical point of view. Because he’s been able to upload an enormous amount of intelligence and so on, and that’s also been fed into him as well.

So he’s immature, and yet has knowledge of comprehensive, broad history and precedent, and he has created in a very short period of time a rather skewed worldview. Which is certainly not unprecedented! He’s probably self-absorbed.”

            It’s safe to assume that Ultron was Joss Whedon’s passion project for this movie. “I’m having a blast with Ultron,” he said. “He's not a creature of logic - he's a robot who's genuinely disturbed. We're finding out what makes him menacing and at the same time endearing and funny and strange and unexpected, and everything a robot never is.”

            Villains can often make a movie and it’s not unusual for them to upstage heroes. Had Avengers: Age of Ultron given its bad guys the full force they deserve it could well have limped by running on that single engine. By the final battle, however, Avengers, androids, civilians, heroes, and villains have been meshed into a calamitous, humorless, and soulless mess that, if nothing else, is appropriate for the movie it concludes.