Avengers: Age of Ultron

Hello dear reader, well here it is. The only film review that matters. The only opinion that counts and the only ego that has yet to discover humility, how to be humble and more importantly prescription medication. Here in all its glory is my appraisal of what will probably go down in history as the second biggest box office draw of the year. The first being a long time ago in a galaxy far far away…

So it’s been a while since the first Iron Man film back in 2008 and a lot of water has flowed under the Marvel Cinematic Universe Bridge since then. We've had ten films, eleven including this one, and we've seen everything from Black Widows to Pepper Potts and a one eyed leather clad leader who didn't like the idea of dying too much. So, for those of you who aren't fully versed in what the hell has happened and how we got to where we are now you have two options. Firstly you can give up a weekend, sit down and binge watch all that has come before or you can go for option 2 which basically requires you to just sit back, follow my advice and read the following sentence. ‘Please comply with the instructions in Option 1.’

Right, now hopefully everyone is now up to speed and I don’t have to spend the next ten thousand words telling you about story arcs, who now loves who and why the Hulk seems to look different every time I watch him in a film. So, if you’ll permit me, I’ll get down to business.

When Joss Whedon went to Comic Con in 2013 and played a short teaser trailer that announced the title of the second Avengers film would be called ‘Age of Ultron’ two things happened. Firstly the assembled masses ‘lost their shit’ and secondly it broadcast to the world that Marvel penultimate film of phase two was going to be a big one. Ultron for those that are not aware of his back story is a sentient robot that was created by Scott Lang or Ant-Man as he’s better known to the world in the comics. However in current Marvel ethos Ultron is the creation of Tony Stark. An experiment gone wrong if you will. Ultron has similar traits to the Terminator. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop until he has completed what he believes is necessary. However instead of being voiced by an Austrian Oak that has about as much acting charisma as breeze block, Ultron is voice by James Spader. An inspired piece of casting from Mr Wheedon and apparently the only actor he wanted for the role. Mr Spader does do dark and menacing very well. For those of you have seen the TV show The Blacklist you’ll know exactly what I mean. He apparently got a standing ovation from the rest of the assembled Avenger actors after completing his first scene on set. For what is basically a motion capture and voice performance its right up there with Andy Serkis and his Golum. Who, by the way, also gets some screen time as a rather annoying weapons dealer with a very suspect South African accent. That’s Andy Serkis you understand, not Golum. As far as I’m aware Disney haven’t bought Marvel the rights to go and play in Middle Earth, yet. 

So, Age of Ultron starts with the whole gang chasing down the last remnants of Hydra and has them attacking a strong hold in Eastern Europe. Inside is Loki’s sceptre but more importantly and unknown to the good doers gang, also the twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are hidden within its walls. Now for legal reasons these twins cannot be referred to as X-Men. Do you understand that? Under no circumstances are you to even think about calling them X-Men. They are ‘Enhanced’ humans and do not bare any resemblance to any characters you may have seen in the Twentieth Century Fox franchise that’s been around since 2000 or any Marvel Comics you may have come across over the previous decades. (They are X-Men, just mention it in hushed tones). The twins, are played by Aaron Taylor Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, which is a little uncomfortable on the eye as they played husband and wife in last year’s Godzilla. They are the linchpin that holds the movie together and without them all the protagonist angst would fall squarely on the shoulders of the nine foot tall robot with the anger management issues. Scarlet Witch has the ability to manipulate people’s minds and their thoughts. This causes problems for all of the Avengers she comes in contact with and ends up driving wedges between them. Very big wedges in the case of Iron Man and the Hulk. And of course Quicksilver, as we saw in last year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past (please remember that their not X-Men) runs around faster than Usain Bolt after a six pack of Red Bull.

Age of Ultron is a complicated film. Its storyline is very much one of those blink and you’ll miss something. At a hundred and forty one minutes it is currently the longest film Marvel Studios have unleashed into the world but at times it does feel like there are bits missing. Whereas the first film Avengers film seemed to be very well balanced and cohesive, Age of Ultron doesn’t seem to be the sum of its parts. It suffers from the same problem that other superhero films have had in the past. There’s just too much going on at any one time. Apparently the first cut of the film was just north of three hours long and for a long time the IMDb page for Age of Ultron had Tom Hiddleston rocking up as Loki and being part of the fun and frivolity. However his name is now absent and although Idris Elba turns up as Heimdall in a very odd dream sequence thingy you do get that feeling that if Mr Whedon had been brave enough to go the full ‘Peter Jackson’ on this film and actually release the longer cut it may, in the long run, have been the better option.

Honourable mentions in the supporting cast category should also go to Don Cheadle returning as War Machine, Cobie Smothers as Maria Hill and Anthony Mackie as Falcon. The latter being criminally under used but that maybe something that is rectified should the longer cut ever make the light of day. The other actor that’s worth a mention is Paul Bettany. For those of you in the know, you’ll appreciate as I do that Mr Bettany has been paying his dues, and then some, in the previous three Iron Man films and in the last Avengers film as the AI Jarvis. In Age of Ultron he actually gets physical things to do. Now I’m not going into spoiler territory here as it’s a big deal but it turns out that Paul Bettany is a rather large gentleman (quiet at the back there, this is a smut free blog). He towers above Robert Downey Jr who as it turns out is on the shorter side of the superhero height scale. I do fear that Mr Bettany maybe on a hiding to nothing with his new role though. In the Avengers universe his new existence does now seem to be reliant on an infinity stone. A stone that I’m pretty sure is going to end up in the infinity gauntlet at some point in the not too distant future. I hope I’m wrong but my get tells me I'm not.

I would like to go on record and say that I really liked this film. It is fun when it needs to be and has a script that is full of the witty one-liners you’d expect from a Joss Whedon script. As you've probably seen from the numerous trailers, there is more than enough action to shake a stick at and Ultron is a great baddie that (spoiler alert) we could well be see again cropping up in the not too distant future. But the main problem is that its a four star film when Kevin Feige and everyone else at Marvel Studios were probably hoping to knock it out of the park with a solid gold five star bat. As I mentioned at the start Age of Ultron will almost certainly make the kind of money that would even make Bill Gates look up and pay attention. The first Avengers film is currently the third highest grossing film of all time, clocking in at an impressive 1.6 Billion dollars and it’s probably made as much again in merchandising (A little hat tipping required there in the direction of George Lucas).

But cinema goers are an odd breed. Just when studio executives think they've got their audience figured out they go and do something inexplicable and throw in a curve ball in from the cheap seats. For example, the most recent Fast & Furious film broke through the one billion dollar mark in seventeen days. That’s faster than Avatar, Titanic and the first Avengers film did it and it currently occupies the number four spot on the all-time top grossing films chart doodah after just five weeks on release. And at the time of writing this shows absolutely no sign of slowing down anytime soon. 

In closing I’ll say this. We've known this film has been coming for a while now. Hell, we've known exactly what the Marvel Studio film release schedule is going to be like for a while now. They've mapped out their entire superhero calendar up until the beginning of 2020. Which now includes a two part Avengers 3 film split over the summer of 2018 and 2019. My issues with Age of Ultron are that this is a flag pole ‘event’ movie that needs to stomp its footprint down in a Marvel Cinematic Universe with authority and conviction. However its footprint is not a giant leap for superhero kind, more of a washed out imprint in the sand as the tide comes in. 

Again I think I should add more to the plus column that I've not mentioned yet. There are strong female characters here that with a few exceptions are written very well. There's a great scene early on in the film where Tony Stark and Thor are playing a fun game of 'Who has the best girlfriend'. Sadly both Pepper Potts and Jane Foster are missing in action. I can only hope the reason for their omission wasn't based on money. The Stan Lee cameo is actually quite funny. The Hulkbuster suit is something I want to put on my Amazon wish list, there are definite and positive steps being taking to come up with fresh ideas for the future and there are already tensions in play for next year’s Captain American: Civil War.

I do however have some concerns over what happens next. I’ve had this nagging doubt for a while now that keeps on chipping away at the back of my brain that I may be getting slightly bored with the whole superhero film franchise and what could be an fatigue and over saturation problems with the entire genre. My much bigger concern is that maybe everyone else is as well. If there are bumps in the road ahead for the entire ‘get cape, wear cape, fly’ and spandex brigade then this could be disastrous for DC  and Warner Brothers as they've only just got their Justice League ball rolling in the direction of the silver screen. There is a distinct possibility that next year’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice movie could well yet evolve in to what they call in the wrestling world as a ‘triple threat’ match that has a much more powerful adversary to deal with, the Audience. And if that happens there will only ever be one winner.

In the Red corner…

Twitter Review:

Good but not good enough. Long but not long enough. Buy into Marvel's Avengers but please check the sell by date.

#FeedMeMore

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395427/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr5rzSMNmRM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqkR0SwFN_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI3ncqDE5Do

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=137804

The Dark Knight Rises

Are you siting comfortably?  Good, then I shall begin.
There was a time, an eight year period, from 1997 to 2005 when anyone working for Warner Brothers would have been hung, drawn & quartered for even daring to whisper one word. A word that was deemed so abhorrent and vulgar that it could have not only dispatched the unlucky someone who uttered it to the unemployment line. It would have also certainly cost them a pound of flesh, their soul and their Blockbuster video membership card. What word could provoke such a harsh reaction I hear you ask? What utterance could have been responsible for having someone publicly shunned, pointed at and HR asking for their desk to be cleared? No not “Belgium”, not even a word spoken by the loose lipped, devil may care hard core types. The sort of people that wouldn’t even think twice about using the word “flange” in conversation would baulk at using this word within earshot of the general populous. This two syllable word was beyond the pale, never to be spoken without first checking over your shoulder and making sure the coast was clear.
The word in question is Batman….

So how did this come to pass? How did we end up with a franchise that had George Clooney, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman to name but a few had in its last film and it have been regarded as a failure? There are two simple reasons for this a far as I can tell. Firstly it was the only Batman film that failed to recoup its budget at the box office. Secondly and I hope I don’t lose anyone here with terminology or by being too geeky or in depth, it was shit.
Tim Burton’s first Batman outing back in 1999 been seen by most as an “Event” film and Jack Nicolson as the Joker had been inspired casting. The problem was that the bar had been raised and set to a very high standard and the three films that came after just seemed to be progressively inferior from the film it followed. The casting of George Clooney as Bruce Wayne in Batman’s forth film outing had “sure thing” written all over it. He was riding high on the crest of a popularity wave, due in no small part to his success on ER. How could he not pull the job off as the Caped Crusader? Good looks, chiselled jaw and his CV was faultless. How can anyone who’s been asked to commit to celluloid the following line of dialogue “That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen a tomato do” (IMDB 1988, look it up) not be right for the part!
However flop it did and with some style. There’s a line from Batman & Robin spoken by Mr Schwarzenegger where he says “A freeze is coming”. It was quite prophetic as it would be nearly a decade before anyone was allowed to take Gotham’s finest out of the fridge.

Credit must go in some small part to the heroic employee of Warner’s who thought that the time could have been right to bring Batman back. It was never going to be an easy sell but thankfully someone bought into the idea. In late 2003 enquiries were made to find a prospective director to reboot the Batman franchise and thankfully a man was found who had an original idea on how to do it. An up and coming British director who had had critical and more importantly I suspect for Warner’s, Box Office success with Memento and Insomnia came up with a premise that had never been dealt with before. Why not make Batman real? Instead of transporting us to his universe why not base him in ours. Ground him in reality and use real cities not sound stages as the backdrop for the story. This stroke of genius was the premise for which the now completed trilogy was based and it worked to perfection.

For those not in the know and to bring everyone up to speed and singing from the same hymn sheet I will give I quick rundown of the first two films and how we got to the start of “The Dark Knight Rises”. The First film, “Batman Begins” Has an English Director, Christopher Nolan. A Welsh Batman, Christian Bale and two Villains played by Irishmen, Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy. It is what the “Kids on the street” would describe as “Top Banana” and also introduced the world to the coolest Batmobile the silver screen had ever witnessed. The second film again has the same English Director and if you will a “Taffy” Batman but this time they threw in a rather good Australian thespian to play the quintessential bad guy “The Joker”, Heath Ledger. A role that he was so good in that it earned him an posthumous Oscar for best supporting actor. A first for a film based on a comic book and I would speculate an accomplishment that will be a long time in equalling.

The Dark Knight Rises starts eight years after the climactic finale of last film, The Dark Knight and See’s Bruce Wayne as a broken man and a self-exiled recluse. His Alter ego Batman has taken the fall for Harvey “Two Face” Dents crimes, an act that he commits for the greater good and to keep the streets of Gotham safe, Bruce spends his days wandering around the recently rebuilt Wayne Manor with his only contact with the outside world being is his ever faithful butler Alfred, played by Michael “Charlie Croker” Caine. The only other resident of Gotham who is aware of the sacrifices Batman has made is Police Commissioner Gorden, portrayed by Gary Oldman. Gorden is racked with guilt and has had trouble with his conscious keeping this secret covered up. However on the eighth anniversary of Dents death Commissioner Gorden attends a party at Wayne manor where he intends to read a speech he has written revealing the true facts about that fateful night.
This party is where we are given our first glimpse of Selina Kyle, Anne Hathaway. Who’s there with her own personal agenda, theft and from what we are shown she’s very good at it. From the very first to the very last the Cat Burglar steals most of the scene’s she’s in. Although Interestingly Ms Kyle is never referred to as Catwoman by any other character throughout the entire film. 

Where do you even start with The Caped Crusader adversary Bane? He has never been the main villain of a Batman film before and only those of you who have read the DC comics would probably even be aware of Banes existence prior to this film. There was always going to be a lot of speculation about how Christopher Nolan was going to top the performance that Heath Ledger gave in the last film. What character was he going to use and who would play them? Most people, myself included had the Riddler down as the next Gotham ASBO friendly citizen. As I mentioned earlier there has always been a sense of realism about these stories and I think The Penguin may just have been the bridge to far. So when Bane was announced as the outlaw that would finish the trilogy off back in early 2011 the next big question was who would play him? The easy thing to do would have been to get someone from The MMA world (Mixed Martial Arts for those not in the know). Someone who already knew how to be physical and has the body to go with it but to Nolans credit he hired an Actor to play the part, Tom Hardy. This was inspired casting. Tom’s Bane is brutal and every equal to Batman mentally and superior to him in strength, agility and hand to hand combat. The First time Batman and Bane encounter each other is in Gotham’s sewers and Bane’s treatment of Batman is both ruthless and ferocious, ending in Batman’s “total” defeat.
Then there’s the voice. Much had been made of the unintelligible voice Bane had when The Dark Knight Rises prologue was released last year, attached to the start of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Work has obviously been done in some form or another as when Bane speaks it’s now clear and with purpose. Not only that but he gets given some imposing dialogue too. “Let the games begin” is spoken as though it’s being delivered at a packed coliseum with its occupants baying for blood.
I won’t give too much of the rest of the story away as there’s no real way to do it without heading over to a little town I know called “spoilerville” but I will say this. The Dark Knight Rises clocks in at an impressive two hours and forty five minutes long but it won’t feel like you’ve been parking your posterior in a cinema seat that long at all. This film is stunning in its action and in its narrative. The set pieces alone are worth the price of admission. Just a quick note to say that if the purse strings allow it this film should be seen on an IMAX screen. Nolan shot over an hour’s worth of footage using IMAX cameras and it shows. It’s the equivalent of HD for the cinema and even though the technology for it has been around nearly forty years, nothing else even comes close to it.

As with most films I do have a few niggles with some of the plot but without going into detail I can’t really justify my arguments here. I will say this though, once you’ve seen the film ask yourself these questions. Why do ALL of Gotham’s Police Force (Including every single officer who’s off duty) conveniently go underground? How does Bane eat and am I the only person who thinks that the ending has similarities to The Avengers???
So where does Batman go from here? Director Christopher Nolan has been quite clear along with several other actors in the series in saying that this is the last film in the Bruce Wayne chronicles and I believe he won’t be back behind the camera in Gotham again. However the previous two films made just south of 1.4 Billion at the box office and The Dark Knight Rises has just had the biggest ever opening for an non 3D film in history at 165 Million. So Warner Brother will not be scared to utter the B-word with their hallowed corridors anytime soon. What form Batman’s return takes, whether it’s in the mooted Justice League film, a reboot or even someone brave enough to try and continue the current story on from where it’s been left, one thing is certain. It won’t be eight years before Bruce Wayne and Batman grace the big screen again….

Twitter review:
Dramatic & Spectacular ending to the Nolan Gotham stories. The most consistent Superhero trilogy committed to film. 
#TheDarkKnightRose

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GokKUqLcvD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8evyE9TuYk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk2IteR2QxQ