This weekend I got to see Avengers: Age of Ultron at the
IMAX. It was a great experience and a good movie. While the film captured the
spirit of an Avengers Marvel Comic and the characterizations of the heroes and
the villains were spot on, it’s the little nuances when it comes to filmmaking
and screenwriting that writer and director Joss Whedon missed that kept it from
becoming the great film it could have been.
Avengers: Age of Ultron is just like a comic book come to
life. The opening sequence in the forest on the way to Baron Strucker’s hideout
on the quest for Loki’s scepter are just like a splash page of a comic book. From
the action transpiring in those opening scenes I thought I was watching George
Perez’s art come to life. That inciting incident introduces us to the Avengers
assembled on the quest to take down Strucker and his henchmen on the quest for
Loki’s scepter. On the journey to discovering the scepter, Tony Stark (who
takes off his armor for some reason) runs afoul of Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet
Witch. Interestingly enough, one of Wanda’s “Hexes” leads to Tony Stark getting
the vision to create a shield to protect the earth from evil. Unfortunately who
will protect us from the heroes and their ideals? A question I thought should
have been answered in the story, but this is never explored.
With the fall of SHEILD in Captain America: The Winter
Soldier, Tony Stark starts getting idealistic about bringing peace to the world
on his own. While he’s given Thor’s trust to analyze Loki’s scepter he starts
abusing that trust to achieve his goals through ulterior means. Instead of
analyzing Loki’s Scepter he works with Dr. Banner to create a technological shield
to protect the earth. Together Banner and Stark create the artificial
intelligence known as Ultron. And While the heroes are taking a Wolfman/Perez New
Teen Titans moment to hang out and party, Ultron is born and is discovering the
world. After he takes down Jarvis, it lets itself be known to the Avengers by
attacking them through Tony Stark’s own Iron legion robots. Ironically, the
shield that Stark used to defend the world is now out to attack the very humans
that created it!
With his prototype body destroyed, Ultron goes back to
Strucker’s labs and creates himself a new one. There he discovers Maximoff
Twins and recruits them in his master plan. The misguided orphans want revenge
on Tony Stark and The Avengers for the destruction of their homeland and their
family, Ultron just wants to destroy humanity. An evil version of Tony Stark,
Ultron is out to replace the world’s chaos with his own order. Typical comic
book story.
The Avengers discover Ultron is on the quest for Vibranium
and track him to the African coast. We get a lot of great Easter Eggs in this
sequence where the Scarlet Witch’s hexes take the team down. Unfortunately a
lot gets lost in this sequence story wise. And while we’re distracted by the
montage of images in the characters’ pasts by a big Iron Man Vs. a mind
controlled Hulk sequence that ends the first act, a lot winds up unexplained.
With the Avengers beaten, and Ultron making off with the
Vibranium, the heroes have to deal with a publicity backlash after the Hulk and
Iron Man demolish most of a downtown African City. The defeated heroes get in
their Quinjet and head to Hawkeye’s farmhouse and spend some time resting and
recuperating all while planning their next move. There’s some great character interaction here and But when
Tony Stark goes into the movie starts falling apart. The unevenness of the
story starts to show once Nick Fury pops in to give Tony and the Avengers
advice.
After Fury gives the heroes a pep talk we learn that Ultron
isn’t out to create a new Vibrainium body for himself, but to evolve. He heads
over to Dr.Cho’s with the vibraninum to find out about the synthetic flesh used
to heal up Hawkeye to create a new body for himself made up of flesh and vibranium
with the mind Gem. The Scarlet Witch reads Ultron’s mind (PLOTHOLE) and
realizes he’s not out to protect humanity but to destroy it. Cap, Hawkeye and
the Black Widow go on a quest to get the body from Ultron. They get it, but the
Black Widow winds up getting captured.
With the body back at the Avengers Tower The Avengers debate
whether or not to upload Jarvis into it. There’s a bit of a battle, but Thor
fresh from his bath comes in and charges up the body and gives us an expository
plot point about the Infinity Gems. But that plot point gets lost as the Vision
is born. The android shows he’s ready to fight for good by picking up Thor’s
hammer. With the Vision activated, the Avengers go to fight Ultron in the final
battle in Slorenia.
There they find out that Ultron plans on using all the
remaining vibranium to lift the city city up into the sky and using it as
meteorite to destroy all life on earth. The Avengers fight to save lives of
citizens and stop Ultron. The story really starts to unravel as Nick Fury and a
Sheild Helicarrier and War Machine pop in as Deus Ex machinas to save citizens.
In all the mayhem Ultron is defeated, the city is destroyed, and the heroes
save the day. The Hulk, Hawkeye, and Tony Stark leave the team and the Avengers
Assemble at their new compound in Upstate New York. And Shawn is left wanting
more due to all the unexplained and unresolved story points.
Avengers Age of Ultron is a fun comic book movie. Yeah, it’s
an entertaining movie, but not a satisfying one. There’s a lot going on the
surface, but not much depth and substance. When you look at the movie from a
story perspective it just comes across as a bit flat and one-dimensional. And
the main reason it’s so flat and one-dimensional is because it tries to do too
much onscreen. Less is more, and I wish Joss Whedon would have given us less
flash and more substance.
I’ll say that Avengers: Age of Ultron is stronger in its sum
than in its parts. And its strength is being just like the comics its based on.
Many of the action sequences are just like comic panels come to life. Again, I
saw the spirit of George Perez’s art in many of the cinematic sequences. And
the characterizations of all the heroes definitely captures the spirit of their
comic book counterparts. Every actor not only looks like the heroes in the
comics but their “voices” sound just like the ones in our heads when we’re
reading a comic book.
Another strength of the movie is that it does have a fun
energy about it. What I liked most about it is that and that in spite of all
the destruction that transpired Earth’s Mightiest acted like Heroes. They fought to stop the bad guys. They made
every effort to protect and preserve human life. In spite of their personal
issues and their flaws they all remained heroes to the end.
There was a great sequence where Hawkeye talks to the Scarlet
Witch about being the guy with only a bow and arrow in incredibly dangerous
situations. That one scene OWNS everything the CW tried to do with its pathetic
Arrow Show over the last three seasons. THAT is the spirit of who Green Arrow
is and what he’s about. Fighting for the little guy because he is the little
guy. And making a big impact with small actions. The scene where he goes to
save the boy who was left behind in the city was one of the most powerful
statements in the movie about being a hero. We needed more scenes like this. Now
if Quicksilver had lived to understand the motivations for Hawkeye’s heroics
the scene would have been absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, Whedon had to kill
him the same way he killed Anya in the series finale of Buffy, an ancillary
death that was just there and had no real emotional impact on the story.
Unfortunately being just like a comic book has its fair share
of disadvantages as well. Cinematically being just like a comic book is
actually one of the things that holds Avengers: Age of Ultron back from being
the great film it could have possibly been. I believe the first plot point was
telegraphed to the audience in that Hulkbuster Iron Man Vs. Hulk battle scene. Yeah,
the fight was exciting, but like the end of the first issue of a three issue
comic arc, but from a screenwriting perspective I saw it coming a mile away.
And all the unexplained story points and unexplored concepts led to a very
uneven story that remained very rough in quite a few places. There wasn’t much
craft when it came to the screenplay for Avengers: Age of Ultron and it showed
onscreen in the pacing and story points. It’s these little nuances that make a
screenplay a tight, well-crafted story and I didn’t see much of that rock-solid
screenwriting he used on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer applied when adapting the
story for this sequel. Yeah, Whedon captured the spirit of Earth’s Mightiest
Heroes in his script, but he violated the letter of too many basic screenwriting
rules to get there.
The other big issue I have with Avengers: Age of Ultron were
the special effects. There were JUST TOO MANY OF THEM. There was so much going
on in some of the fight scenes it was like the movie had Michael Bay level ADHD.
Some scenes were Michael Bay Transformers level crazy in terms of business. It
was impossible to keep up with everything that went on in some cases. A special
effect enhances the story and shows us something about the actions that define
the character or moves the story forward. Unfortunately when there’s too many
things going it gives you a headache. Advice for Mr. Whedon next time: LESS IS
MORE.
The third issue I have with Avengers: Age of Ultron is that
it just tried to cram too much story into one movie. Avengers: Age of Ultron
feels like over 200 issues of Avengers Comic books crammed into one three-hour
film. We go from the creation of Ultron, the introduction of the Scarlet Witch
and Quicksilver, the creation of the Vision and the introduction of the
Avengers Academy all in one movie. It was like having ten movies worth of story
in one film and in some cases it was a bit overwhelming to take in all these little
details. Again, LESS IS MORE.
Joss Whedon says he was under a lot of pressure to top the
first Avengers film. Well, here’s some advice from Shawn James the writer:
Don’t try to top yourself. All that’s going to do is make you crazy and
anxious. Don’t try to meet or exceed someone elses’ expectations, just tell
your story and the audience will appreciate it.
What I’ve learned from my two decades of experience writing
serialized stores like the Isis series and The Temptation of John Haynes is to
take each story as its own. Yes each story connects with previous ones, but
each story is its own entity with its own beginning, middle and end. Once a
writer applies this approach their lives will be a whole lot easier. Continuity
doesn’t have to be drum tight, but easy enough for a child to follow the basic
details.
And another thing I’ve learned is that less is more. Smaller and
simpler often has a bigger impact on the audience than big and elaborate It’s
the little things a writer puts in a story that stays with them and allow them
to connect with the characters. Stories are about people. Unfortunately it was very
hard to connect with any of the characters in Avengers: Age of Ultron on a
human level because so much was going on and so many characters in a single frame.
People were there, but it was hard to care about any of them.
Again, I’ll say go out and go see Avengers: Age of Ultron.
It’s a fun entertaining film with a fast pace and lots of action. I wasn’t
going in expecting anything but an action movie and that’s what I got to see, a
good, not great action film. When it comes to these Marvel Studios movies I’d just
like to see a little more craft on the screen. For the big budget movie I
didn’t expect to see so many rookie mistakes in the screenplay and the special
effects. I’m hoping for Avengers 3 or the rest of the Phase 2 and 3 Marvel
Studios films everyone starts to understands that less is more and focuses more
on making the plots tighter and better developing the characters. People go to
the movies to see people and I’d like to see a bit more humanity in these
Marvel Super hero movies.
Shawn,
ReplyDeleteYou failed to comment on the most important aspect of the movie.
Its complete lack of respect for ANY of the Black characters.
Sam Jackson as Fury, Don Cheadle as Rhodey Iron Man, and Anthony Mackie as Falcon, and Idris Elba as Heimdall all get less than 3-4 minutes COMBINED in the film.
This movie is White Supremacy film making at its finest. White People saving the world.........
Even the Hulk/Iron Man battle in Wakanda Africa was racist....
When they showed the Wakandan cops/military ..... the camera focused near exclusively in the White one. ....giving the message that even in AFRICA, the whites are in charge and most important.
From a racel perspective this movie was HORRIBLE.
The director then had the nerve to introduce 3 more "WHITE" characters:
Scarlet Witch, her brother, and VISION..............and English speaking "robot" who looks like a white man painted red.
Terrible.
Great points and great assessment overall. If you're not a professional movie critic, you SHOULD be. Your narrative is better than 99% of them out there.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the first comment, but of course it's no surprise that bigoted Hollywood disrespects the black man! I don't even waste my time and money to go see any movie from hollyweird!
ReplyDeleteVideo was up about Falcon, War Machine and the lack of screen time for Black heroes: https://youtu.be/2HZg8z96PjU
ReplyDeleteI didn't have time to write a second blog on the subject.
Thanks. I used to write movie reviews on Amazon back in the day. Maybe I should do this professionally.
Yes !
ReplyDeleteI think they are talking about my race analysis Shawn......
ReplyDelete