Avengers: Age of Ultron Is Still a Frustrating Movie Despite Setting up Better Things

Every episode of Marvel and Disney+’s WandaVision has gotten stronger in terms of its storytelling and connection to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Without getting into spoilers, the latest episode has only made it clear how Wanda has grown as an Avenger, but the series has also done something else. It has helped make Age of Ultron an important piece of the MCU canon.

As much praise as Marvel’s movie universe gets as a whole, there are notable missteps, and one of them includes Age of Ultron, the second Avengers crossover film directed and penned by Dollhouse creator Joss Whedon.

The film introduced Vision, Wanda Maximoff, and Pietro Maximoff. It also started the Hulk/Black Widow romance angle that I am still trying to forget, gave Hawkeye a bland-ass family, had Tony make a rape joke about “bringing back” primae noctis, and made me disappointed in the long-awaited Less Than Zero reunion between Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader, to name a few of its sins.

What makes Ultron so frustrating for me is how it feels like a setup movie for more personal conflicts that are to come in the future, when it should be the pinnacle of previous conflicts. Avengers was a bringing the team together and watching the clash of personalities find balance to save the world. Loki was also an agent of Thanos bringing the ultimate Big Bad of this entire arc into focus. It all made sense together. Plus he was the first villain they faced in the comics, so it was a good homage to that.

Ultron‘s story feels incomplete because, if we look at the events leading up to the film, it isn’t entirely clear why Tony would make the choice to make Ultron now. Following the events of Iron Man 3, Tony gives up aspects of being Iron Man, but then Ultron puts it on and just goes fully into old Tony Stark mode. His invention of Ultron, along with the assistance of Bruce Banner, is different from the comics, where he was created by Hank Pym and then mind-wiped to forget it happened.

Instead, they took one of the biggest, most popular Marvel villains and made him a one-shot villain who only serves to provide setup for other stories. Ultron should have been teased and set up because he is supposed to be part of Hank’s own ego. Instead, they take Tony’s trauma and PTSD and weaponize it into this dark place that feels really unfulfilling after Iron Man 3.

Wanda herself is handled in such a messy way that it seems she is more of an extension of Summer Glau’s performance as River Tam in Firefly than the actual character who has existed in comics since the ’60s. What the film does establish is that Wanda is a character dealing with a lot of trauma, and when she acts in response to that, it can lead to making rash choices.

Infamously, the film compounds that loss by killing off Pietro, because Joss Whedon likes to do stuff like that in his work reasons. It is a lot, and not in a fun way. (Justice for Wash.)

When talking about Wanda’s powers, he described it as making the Avengers “trip balls,” and that reduction of her character has allowed her to be a plot device ever since—a tool to be brought out for other people’s stories. WandaVision is the first time Wanda has been allowed to be Wanda in the fullness of a character who should have been given better in her debut.

Yes, in the end, Age of Ultron has delivered several big payoffs, but those pay offs do not make this movie less frustrating to watch as a whole—especially with the villain it had, the character journeys we’d been on, and the places they would go in the future.

I’m glad that Captain America can wield Thor’s hammer, but that doesn’t make this movie good—at least, not to me. Let me know what you think down below.

(image:Marvel Entertainment)

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