Avengers: Age of Ultron stays strong but falls flat

I finally saw the latest Avengers installment over the weekend. Being a fan of any superhero movie (especially Marvel and DC), I was curious to see how it stacked up. I

As with many others, the trailer made the movie look better than it actually was.

I heard mixed reviews about the movie, but here’s how it breaks down (warning, spoilers ahead):

The entire plot centers on the Avengers cleaning up Tony Stark’s selfish mishap in creating Ultron, an artificial intelligence ideally used to keep the peace. Ultron turns into a sentient being whose ultimate goal is world destruction, using the small fictional place of Sovokia as the destruction point.

The movie also introduced three new characters: Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, twins that were experiments of Hydra, plus the fan-favorite android Vision. Scarlet Witch has neurological powers, able to control the minds of her enemies, playing to their weaknesses.

This proved to be a crucial element in the movie, as the Scarlet Witch mentally destroyed the Avengers, making them see the worst parts of their past, present and future.

We did learn more about the Avengers themselves, but it wasn’t stellar character development. It was more focused on defeating Ultron and saving the world from destruction.

Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. made a guest appearance, resurrecting the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s good name by helping the Avengers by saving the citizens of Sokovia, what they were originally meant to do.

Towards the end, we figure out that the stone controlling Ultron is part of a series of six Infinity Stones, the most powerful objects in the universe.

The film hints that there is someone who is orchestrating all the recent disasters the Avengers have faced thus far. In the mid-credits scene, we see a new villain (Thanos), who seems to want to take action into his own hands to retrieve the rest of the stones.

By the end, we have a whole new group of Avengers (including War Machine, Falcon, Scarlet Witch and Vision), and we know from recent reports and forthcoming solo movies that Spiderman, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange and Ant-Man will be hooking up with the group soon.

Overall, a decent film, featuring everyone’s favorite Marvel superheroes. I’ll be interested to see what the next installment will entail, and the newest batch of Avengers.