"Avengers: Age of Ultron" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It doesn't tell me anything that I don't already know, but yeah, I liked it. It does a good job of letting you know that Marvel really means business with Infinity War.

[Avaitor]

I'd put it right in the middle of Phase 2. And if you consider that I like The Dark World more than most, that should give you an idea of how much I ultimately enjoyed the thing.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I had problems with both in terms of some seriously dumb bits of writing, but overall I still enjoyed IM3 and TTDW quite a bit. There was no bad or even sub-par P2 film so far, IMO.

I might as well update my current MCU ranking for the movies:

1. Captain America: The First Avenger
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. Iron Man
5. Avengers: Age of Ultron
6. The Avengers
7. Thor
8. Iron Man 3
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. The Incredible Hulk
11. Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 is the only MCU film to date that I downright dislike. Hulk was an early MCU film and suffers from things that plagued many earlier superhero movies in general, but ultimately it was still pretty fun on a brainless level.

Everything else ranges from fairly good to excellent.

[Spark Of Spirit]

If we're going to rank them:

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2. Captain America: The First Avenger
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. Iron Man
5. Avengers: Age of Ultron
6. The Avengers
7. Iron Man 3
8. Thor: The Dark World
9. Thor
10. The Incredible Hulk
11. Iron Man 2

As a whole I think they're getting better. I expect Ant-Man to probably rank around the Thor movies. Good, but not my personal favorites.

[Avaitor]

One of the major problems people seem to have with the film is Black Widow's characterization, which for the most part I don't get. I don't see why Natasha flirting with Bruce was such a problem, since she wasn't weakened as a character otherwise. She still kicked ass throughout and was still mostly her own person, just while being attracted to someone else. It's not like she was only referenced briefly and contributed little, like Pepper and Jane,

I do agree with the criticism against Natasha calling herself a monster as she can't have kids anymore. That was messed up.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I thought it was pretty clear in Winter Soldier that she had deeply embedded personal issues that she never brought up. Seems to me someone like Bruce who had the same problem on a more in your face level would really relate to her. And they did. I didn't see any problem with their relationship because they really did mesh well together.

As for her flirting . . . Uh, it's kind of her thing. She's done it since her first appearance.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I didn't interpret it that way at all. It wasn't the fact that she couldn't have kids that she considered to make her a monster. It's what they put her through to get to that point during her training as an assassin that she seemed to be referencing, from what I got out of that scene.

And yeah, the people who are complaining that Natasha having romantic feelings for someone else devalues her character are really stretching on that one.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

One criticism that I do agree with is that the ending, while spectacular in terms of set-piece moments, was bloated in terms of story and characters. It was really rushed, and if you knew absolutely nothing about Vision going into the movie, you'd wonder who the hell he was supposed to be and why he was such a major player for the final battle with Ultron. Granted that, there were still plenty of things that I personally really liked about the ending of the movie, but it did start to feel a bit reminiscent of how unfocused IM2 was (though nowhere near as bad as that film got with its sub-plots).

I also have to agree with GregX that this movie justifies why Infinity War needs to be split into two parts. People complained that it was unnecessary and was just a move to make more money like with those YA adaptations splitting up their final movies into two parts or The Hobbit being split into three parts, but if you just look at how much happened in AoU,  it's easy to see that this is clearly not the case. The cast of these crossover movies are HUGE, and you need more time to properly develop the characters and story. Now, for the most part I still hold the opinion that AoU managed to do this just fine without much blunder, but I do hope to see a director's cut release on DVD/Blu-Ray with the 3-hour cut of the film that contains all of the other important scenes that were cut for time. While I completely understand why the movie had to be shortened, I do honestly feel that it could have benefited from more screen-time (one of the rare cases where more actually is more).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, a friend of mine who I talked to saw the movie and actually agrees eith me that despite its problems, it's better than the first (or at least he likes it more), but that he's also not surprised by people being disappointed by it for two reasons:

-The hype for this movie was unrealistically high from the get-go, but since this movie didn't have the luxury of being the first major crossover of its time, people wouldn't be as forgiving of its faults as they were for the original, which makes a lot of sense to me.

-The marketing for this movie made people expect a darker and more serious film, which it really wasn't, and I have to agree that it was very misleading.

Still, we both enjoyed the hell out of the movie for the many things that it got right, and I'm happy to see at least someone else with a similar opinion to mine.

[Daxdiv]

The film was fine. I enjoyed everything about it and had FUN watching it. Pretty great action sequences and some funny dialogue to boot. Also got a good bit of a laugh during the part where Cap was able to lift/budge Mjolnir. Also, good to see Hawkeye have some more development in this movie compared to the first one.

I didn't interpret it that way at all. It wasn't the fact that she couldn't have kids that she considered to make her a monster. It's what they put her through to get to that point during her training as an assassin that she seemed to be referencing, from what I got out of that scene.

That is also my interpretation of that scene/line as well. Especially if those spooky visions were anything to go by where it did look like she went through some training from hell.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Captain America is officially the most popular Avenger, according to the world: http://www.ibtimes.com/avengers-age-ultron-numbers-reveals-captain-america-most-popular-hero-latest-marvel-1909294

Of course this only makes sense, since he's the best Marvel character of all time. I now have faith in humanity again.

Iron Man can go suck it.

[Spark Of Spirit]

As it should be.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I remember reading articles suggesting Marvel initially wanted to downplay Captain America's presence in the MCU due to fears that international audiences would hate his patriotism. How ironic.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Though, to be fair, this movie is being sandwiched in-between two big Captain America movies, since he was the last Avenger to have a solo movie in Phase Two (just a little over a year ago) and will also be starring in the first movie of Phase Three, so he's much more prevalent in the public consciousness right now than any other MCU character.

That said, he's still the best, so he deserves his time in the spotlight.

[Spark Of Spirit]

His patriotism has never bothered me. I liked him as a kid, too.

The character is just very admirable and likable, and it doesn't hurt that his movies were really good on top of it.