Avengers: Age Of Ultron (and Thor's weird cave bath) showed us a studio's growing pains
Film Features The Marvel Moment
“Really, really unpleasant.” That’s Joss Whedon discussing his chats with the suits behind Avengers: Age Of Ultron, a movie that’s not a failure so much as a two-and-a-half-hour growing pain. Did the studio ever think they’d make it this far? That the connective tissue would pile high enough that its films would begin doubling as story and central axis from which to launch future stories? Ultron is a living document of a studio learning how to sustainably grow a franchise that’s more than just a series of sequels, as well as a filmmaker struggling to balance the needs of his story with that of the brand.
That’s not to say Ultron is a dud. Its tale of AI gone wild is blessed by Whedon’s giddy, winking blend of action and personality, even if it’s not as present as it was in his first go at the tentpole. But the gang trying (and failing) to wield Thor’s hammer is a charming, character-driven dose of humanity in a cartoon world, while the surprising reveal that Hawkeye is a Midwestern dad with a life outside S.H.I.E.L.D. serves as a soul-warming stabilizer in a maelstrom of hifalutin lore. These, however, are only blips in an otherwise overstuffed film, one with too many characters, too many action sequences, and too much sentimentality, the likes of which—Black Widow and Bruce Banner’s budding romance, specifically—Whedon just doesn’t have the space to lace with pathos.
There’s perhaps no greater illustration of the film’s issues, though, than Thor ditching his pals to take a dip in some nondescript cave pond, one that apparently helps him understand the infinity stone lodged in Vision’s forehead. Or something? Viewers wrinkled their foreheads at the scene in theaters and Whedon eventually revealed that what was shown was just one piece of a much larger sequence. He was also candid about how, over time, test screenings, studio interference, and ultimatums found the scene sliced, diced, excised, and eventually reinserted in its opaque final form. He’s said that keeping it was better than simply explaining what happened—here’s a primer—but the cave scene serves not only to kill the pacing but also to further confuse what’s already a labyrinthian narrative. As such, the infinity stones remained inscrutable, a featureless MacGuffin.
Consider also, though, that Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was initially meant to appear in the sequence, but was excised because audiences couldn’t grasp him as anything but a villain. “[I]n test screenings, audiences had overemphasized Loki’s role,” Hiddleston explained, “so they thought that because I was in it, I was controlling Ultron, and it was actually imbalancing people’s expectations. So Joss and Kevin were like, ‘Let’s cut it, because it’s confusing people.’” The studio was still learning how to make these films, yes, but the audience was learning how to watch them. Can you imagine those same people encountering something so sprawling as Infinity War?
Ultron is a mess, but the good news is that everyone seems to have learned from it. With Civil War and Infinity War, Joe and Anthony Russo have proven themselves to be efficient puzzle-assemblers, having coherently paired story beats with teasers and fan service. That could change, though. Endgame’s set to be the franchise’s most ambitious offering yet, with arcs to conclude, superheroes to resurrect, characters to fold in, and series to tease. They’re gonna need every second of those three-plus hours.
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Remember when this movie turned Ultron into a neutered quipster? Good stuff.
Much better stuff, I’d say, than anything Thanos (whose big “complex” villain motivation is basically Ultron’s, but uninteresting) does in Infinity War.
I found Ultron’s pathos much more engaging than Thanos. But Thanos was presented as the bigger threat. The biggest mistake of AoU, was not presenting dire enough stakes. Which is weird since the world was in danger, but you never really felt like the plan was gonna succeed.
I think one of the major mistakes Infinity War makes (and maybe some reading of these movies makes) is the “stakes” thing. Stakes, stakes, stakes! What are the stakes, you gotta have stakes! The more stakes, the better the movie! I dunno, because these movies wholeheartedly don’t commit to making actual major changes in the status quo of their world, I’d rather have less emphasis on how dire and world-ending the stakes can be, and more emphasis on characters beyond “will this character die?!?!?”There’s no character work basically anywhere in Infinity War. No one does anything interesting or surprising in the whole damn movie.
I think the whole Thanos-Gamora-Nebula family dynamic qualifies as character work, however effective you think it was. Thanos’s most affecting act of villainy isn’t really the snap – it’s being an abusive jerk of a father who has a chance to do better but throws it away (literally, and off a cliff) because of his monomania.
Does he really have a chance to do better, or does he just have a chance to not kill his daughter? I guess it’s sort of the flipside of the problem folks have with Ultron, that they never felt like he was really going to win. Thanos never really feels like he’s going to fail. The surprise to me isn’t that he succeeds (in killing Gamora or his snap), but that the movie is trying to sell that as its ending when it’s really just a story stopping in the middle.
Nobody assumed Ultron was ACTUALLY going to win, but I can tell you for sure that I was in that “this seems hopeless, how are the characters going to get out of this one??” space while watching it, same as I was at the end of The Avengers.
But what’s surprising about the moment isn’t that he’s willing to throw Gamora off the cliff – that’s cackling supervillainy 101. What’s surprising, and adds shades to his character, is that it’s a heartbreaking sacrifice for him. Now, put Ultron in a similar situation, and he would have booted her off with a smirk and a “have a nice trip, see you next fall” groaner.
The movie does not develop Thanos enough as a character for me to ever believe that it’s a heartbreaking sacrifice for him. I haven’t seen the movie in a while (and will be rewatching before I see the new one), but there’s barely a moment of real hesitation, at least not that I believed on any kind of emotional level.
but there’s barely a moment of real hesitationI’d disagree with this. When Thanos realizes what he has to do, he pauses for a long while as Gamora starts taunting him and celebrating his “defeat” because Thanos loves nobody but himself (her words).You make it seem like Red Skull told him “You gotta chuck Gamora off the cliff” and then Thanos was like, “Lol, yeet!” and threw her off in a second.
He doesn’t ever really seem to consider not doing it, though. My read was that he listens to her thinking, no no, you’re wrong, this is hard for me! And then does what he was going to do all along.
…which, again, doesn’t change how hard it is for him.He’s a man on a mission, willing to sacrifice literally anything to accomplish his goal (drawing an explicit contrast with Peter, and Cap), but that doesn’t make the sacrifice any less devastating for him.He’s a man who will annihilate half the universe without thinking twice, but is heartbroken that he had to sacrifice Gamora to do it.
I don’t know if the blame is on Brolin or the effects team or the screenplay or the Russos or everyone, but the CG single-tear effect did not sell me on the Heartbreak of Thanos.
Then the reading of the line “I’m sorry, little one” should have.It’s not quite Riley screaming “You guys need me to be happy but I can’t!”…but it’s a fair sight above Rose declaring her love for someone she’d met 2 days earlier in terms of earned pathos.
I mean, honestly, if you add it up, I’m pretty sure we spend more actual screen time with Rose & Finn together than we do with Gamora & Thanos. The movie doesn’t really do the work to complicate Thanos. It’s kind of mind-boggling to me that people found a father killing his adopted daughter but preceding it with an apology heartbreaking instead of just purely loathsome.
And yet we’re all still waiting for any spark of even *friendly* chemistry between Tran and the raw ball of sexual charisma that is John Boyega…while two scenes perfectly conveyed everything that needed to be said between Thanos and Gamora.
I’d have also settled for “LoL, YOLO” because I love literal punnage.
“and then Thanos was like, “Lol, yeet!” and threw her off in a second.”Fuck, now I want to see this version lmao
Eexactly. Unearned emotional response. We got no real substantial content of his relationship with Gamora outside of whatever scenes preceded the cliff push. Too little and much too late, in my opinion.
Thanos literally breaks down into tears when confronted with what he did to Gamora later. Mantis says he is in pain and is shocked by it. You really do need to rewatch the movie.
I am definitely rewatching it before Endgame. But I can’t imagine having the same emotional reaction (or even a fraction of the same emotional reaction) as I did to, say, Kilmonger’s scene in the meditation sand (or whatever it is) in Black Panther. One character saying another character is in pain doesn’t really do it for me, filmmaking-wise.
I don’t think one would ever be as emotional as the other. One thing is a reaction to a tragedy that… society? racism? questionable public policy? caused. The other is a reaction that the character in pain deliberately caused to happen himself. It’s not that the audience will feel empathy with Thanos, they just might be surprised that he has feelings like that to begin with.
Not necessarily. I agree that Ultron was far too broad in his comedy, but he did show genuine affection for Wanda and Pietro, especially at the end with Wanda. I think it would have been the same in this scenario.
Jesse, your refusal to acknowledge the Peter/Tony, Quill/Gamora. Gamora/Thanos, Thor/Rocket, and Wanda/Vision beats in this film reminds me that you are the AV Club’s Chilly, the Elf Who Cannot Love.
Peter/Tony is just tear-bait! Nothing changes or evolves about their relationship except that a perfectly good ending to the Spider-Man movie is thrown out.Gamora/Thanos has nothing surprising or affecting about it; it’s Emotional Depth in Theory. Quill/Gamora shows almost no evolution from the events of the previous Guardians movies. In some ways, it’s a step back.Wanda/Vision is based on a relationship that has happened almost exclusively off-screen.Thor/Rocket is an entertaining pairing. I wouldn’t call it insightful character work.
I could argue each of these points (though I’d concede that the Wanda/Vision one is fair), but I think it’s largely a question of how well you think the movie sold these moments in relation to what has gone before, which is a little too subjective to build a consensus on. But I find it hard to believe that anyone could argue with the fact that we gained more insight into Thor in one conversation in Infinity War than we did in all five of the films in which he previously appeared.
It may be the only Avengers movie where he’s not underused, I’ll give you that. But I think we learn more about Thor as a character (or at least this interpretation of him) in Ragnarok; it just doesn’t get the credit because it’s a sillier version of him.
Peter/Tony is just tear-bait! Nothing changes or evolves about their relationship except that a perfectly good ending to the Spider-Man movie is thrown out.Tony knights him as an Avenger and actually treats him as an equal rather than a work-experience kid? Peter’s dusting is a lot more than just tear-bait also I’d argue; it actually brings an event in Civil War full circle, where Spidey was out of sorts (after a good showing) and Tony told him his stint was over, coming to recognise this his obsessive feud with Cap was putting other people in danger – a teenager no less. That time Peter got away with a black eye, this time, not so lucky. Now Tony has to properly live with that guilt… at least for most of the next film.
But half of the world was dusted regardless of whether Peter happened to be there, so it’s hard for me to take Tony’s guilt over Peter (if they actually explore it!) very seriously, or think of it as “full circle.” Did anything in Civil War or Ultron *cause* Thanos to want to do the thing he wanted to do? It all seems a bit flimsy to me, emotionally speaking.
I believe just because half of the universe was snapped regardless, doesn’t absolve Tony of the responsibility he feels for Peter (I mean, rationality and emotional response rarely align), though we’re yet to really see that explicitly play out on screen, other than his initial reaction to his passing – which I think RDJ did great with. I think there’s been enough of a bond formed between them and enough points where you’ve seen these more paternal instincts/reactions peppered since Spidey’s debut across three films that I’m not fanwanking too hard. They certainly make me believe these things, and therefore I bought their relationship as presented on screen.
As for Thanos, I feel that’s a different ballgame? I may not be following on that thread.
Yeah, I mean, all that really says to me is:It’s sad for Tony when he sees Peter die because he’s been a mentor/father figure to him, so it makes his loss to Thanos sting particularly hard.And it’s true! It does! But rather than deepening a relationship from the previous movie with Stark and Parker, it just kind of exploits it. I don’t think their dynamic in Infinity War is all that interesting; it just fast-forwards past the stuff that Homecoming was explicitly about deciding to stay focused on (your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, as it were). And of course Holland and Downey are good in that moment; they’re good actors, playing very well-realized characters that we’ve come to know and love. But is the movie really doing anything with that love? I’d say it’s not. Obviously others felt differently but throughout Infinity War I felt like it was getting a lot of credit for good stuff that other movies actually worked on.
I do agree with a lot of that, especially that Infinity War in general was a film more about knocking pins down than setting them up, but I still don’t feel the last moment with Peter and Tony wasn’t unearned, or exploitative either. I feel it’s a pretty important beat for both characters. If the groundwork wasn’t laid elsewhere, then yeah, it’d feel pretty hollow. And I guess that segues into your issue in that the problem is just that, a lot of the foundation of their relationship was established elsewhere. But I do think this was an important keyframe in their relationship, which will play into what happens next for their dynamic.
I guess the thing is that overall it’s hard to look at this film of itself in a vacuum, because so much informs it (and surely it’ll go on to inform future films to various degrees) – though Thanos’ journey seems to be largely self contained (inversely, not much of Thanos’ past appearances do inform much about his mission or character here, except that he’s the big bad with naughty plans).
I guess it’s a matter of how you view long form storytelling across films, of which I don’t think there’s many other series to draw comparisons from to such a degree – versus self contained storytelling. I think I already saw your answer to my question of where you stand though, haha.
Yeah, whether you think this is a good thing or not, ‘Infinity War’ is the perfect example of a film that exists in relation to all the films that have come before it, and particularly the film that’s about to follow it. A lot of the character work has already been done and this story is the result of that. A lot of the characters are not going to change significantly because they’ve already been through the changes that have gotten them here, and who they are now, for better or for worse, are the people who have to face the threat that is Thanos.
Eh, I think the “No one does anything surprising” schtick is an impressive extension of his love for the prequels and TLJ – if every other scene that a character’s been in during a greater film series doesn’t justify the director’s decision, it’s now a feature, rather than a flaw, because the director’s doing something surprising.
I would more argue that a movie like Infinity War is wholly unconcerned with anything but assembling a monument to its own fan-wanking importance, and if I want to see a feature-length unboxing video, I’m told there are a lot of them I could string together by watching three hours of YouTube.
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The Thor/Rocket conversation? Thanos showing that he really did love Gamora in his twisted way? Strange sacrificing the time stone?
I don’t agree that there’s no “character work.” I think there are plenty of fine character moments. The scene between Rocket and Thor, where Thor gets choked up explaining how he has nothing left to lose, I think that’s a great moment that shows softer sides of both characters in a way that surprises a little. There are dozens of moments like that in Infinity War. They’re small moments, and if you want to say they’re swallowed up in the setpieces then I wouldn’t argue.
I would say more that they don’t add up to anything. No one really goes through a notable change in the movie, which is fine for a movie that’s purely a fun ride, but I also don’t find any of the action scenes in the movie all that satisfying, either.
You’re right, Thor talking about all of his family being killed off and being actually visually depressed about it wasn’t interesting or surprising at all. And nope, him flying to Nidavellir and literally withstanding the power of a star, nope, not interesting. And this is my Thor comment.
Well, my problem with Age of Ultron is the lack of *emotional stakes* in the central conflict. Which is weird, because the subplots are brimming with emotional stakes. But the central plot of Tony creating a monster is completely hollow because at no point does anyone seem to care that he’s done this, least of all Tony. They all react as if he shrunk their clothes in the wash.
Doesn’t Thor grab him by the throat? Isn’t there a long argument scene with the whole team?Honestly, that reaction from those characters makes more sense to me than “your friend from 80 years ago killed my parents while brainwashed and you didn’t tell me?!?!? I’M GOING TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU”I’d say the main conflict in Ultron isn’t supposed to be, everyone is mad at Tony because he accidentally made a murderous AI. It’s much more about how Ultron, basically Tony’s more monstrous side run amok, winds up making the other Avengers confront their own monstrous sides (without even necessarily trying to).
“your friend from 80 years ago killed my parents while brainwashed and you didn’t tell me?!?!? I’M GOING TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU”Uh what? His goal was to kill Bucky not beat up Steve. Steve was in the way
But he’s willing to beat the shit out of Steve for not letting him murder Bucky (and they keep at it for a good long while). It just all feels a bit over-lathered to me.
See that’s the problem. You can’t establish world-ending stakes if you don’t follow through. I’d have preferred Ultron use all of his incredible computing power on simply destroying the Avengers. Imagine how much scarier and more personal that story would be. He had an interesting point, calling them out for being World Police, and a personal tie to Tony; then he switched to his world ending plot and I’m snoring already
I’m just super disappointed that he has the ability to replicate himself thousands of times, and confines the fight to one place. If he’s going to criticise the Avengers for being World Police, why not spread his army of Ultrons across the world and watch as the Avengers, dividing their members, fail to contain him as a threat. Admittedly, I don’t know how that scenario ends, but I think it has more weight to it.
I’ve seen AoU a couple times now and I still don’t fully get Ultron’s motivations or plan. There were a bunch of potentially compelling ones in there, but it all became a jumbled mess. Does he want to destroy the Avengers? Destroy humanity’s faith in them? Cause humanity to evolve? Wipe out humanity? He expresses each of these goals at least once in the film.
I think maybe those involved in Infinity War had the benefit of hindsight and possibly learned from that lack of direness. Although I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Eh Thanos worked well for what he did I think. He was much more interesting in Infinity War compared to his brief appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy.
Yeah, the whole non-human villain destroying humanity thing was so much more interesting when Whedon invented it whole cloth. Ultron in this movie is a lame Moore Bond villain who couldn’t come up with his own plan and instead had to steal from Superman Returns.
I don’t recall Ultron having his eye on any coastal real estate!
You think a robot who wants to save people/then kill people/then betray his creator/then be the new God is a more interesting and concise story than “half of everything must die for the rest to live”? You are the problem.
I think Ultron’s behavior—how he thinks, how he talks, his relationship to Tony Stark—is more interesting than anything Thanos does, before I even get to “half of everything must die for the rest to live” being an extraordinarily dumb line of thinking. I know we’re not supposed to agree with what Thanos is doing, but even the idea that it’s thought-provoking is just insulting.
I agree that Infinity War’s story is extremely concise, which is why it’s weird that the movie itself is 160 minutes long.
Never understand all the “Thanos was right bruuuhhh best villain ever” takes.
Has anyone actually been arguing that Thanos’ motivation is “complex?”
I was really excited when I heard James Spader was going to be voicing Ultron. Few actors do sneering contempt as well as he does.Turns out we got snarky, shade throwing James Spader instead. Not nearly as compelling
The problem is that Ultron works far better as an idea – Tony Stark’s broken, bitter robot son! – than he ever does in the execution. He’s never given a moment of pure menace that isn’t immediately undermined by some weak joke.
It makes sense in film at least, since Stark is basically Ultron’s ‘father’ and Ultron seems to have a personality that’s patterned on Tony’s (see how upset he gets when this is touched on by Klaue, to the point he rips the poor guy’s arm off). But overall, yeah, it’s a disappointing avenue to go with the villain, who could have been a lot more scarier if treated like a genuine all encompassing threat to humanity.
What annoys me is they set him up as “Tony’s twisted robot son!” and that turns out to be … him making a few jokes and being upset when someone says he’s like Tony? I don’t remember the two of them even having a confrontation at the end, but Ultron does get one with Wanda and Vision. It leaves you feeling like they just forgot what they were doing with the character halfway through.
In the comics Ultron was basically a manchild with a massive Oedipal Complex towards Janet Van Dyne, even once hijacked Tony’s armor to turn himself into a nude duplicate of her.
Busiek and Perez knew what to do with him.
Yup. “Ultron Unlimited” was such a good story arc. I really, really, REALLY wanted Thor to say “Ultron. We would have words with thee.” in this flick.
I’m still dissapointed we didn’t get that one.
I think you’re underselling the insanity of that plot.
I’m still hopeful we get a proper, actually menacing Ultron somewhere down the line. Having him beam his consciousness out into space as a “hail mary” gambit, only to infect some other race as he did in Annihilation: Conquest, would certainly allow for a lot of character rehabilitation.
Done right, any sort of Annihilation adaptation is going to make me happy as hell.
As a dark reflection of Tony Stark’s psyche, I thought he was characterized perfectly.
They made him a blend of Tony’s self-loathing insecurities and Bruce’s simmering rage. It wasn’t comic accurate, but he might be my favorite MCU villain.
I’m still pissed that this wasn’t in the movie:
Damn, foiled. I was thinking it would be Hawkeye’s big speech/scene in Sokovia.But, then, I think I’ve leaned too hard on the “good” moments that make the movies work, so far, rather than the moments which illuminate the cogs and gears of the machine behind them all.
No, that would have been an entertaining, plot-relevant scene.
I do believe Clint’s speech is also part of those cogs and gears, now that we’re moving into the next gen Avengers. It’s the first time we see the Avengers themselves laying out who gets to be an Avenger.
You’ll get no argument from me, there.I can only assume that the AVC thought it was more storyline-based, rather than “nuts and bolts of the franchise”, which is why they went with highlighting this particular moment/area instead.
Given the irrational hate-on for this movie – and, in particular, this scene – that the AV Club has always had, there was no way it wasn’t going to be the one they chose.
I do love Clint and Wanda’s relationship in AoU and Civil War, as well.
He’s definitely “cool Uncle Clint, the bad influence” in Civil War, especially when compared to Mr “sweater vests will make me seem more human” Vision.
“You were pulling your punches”
having coherently paired story beats with teasers and fan serviceThat this represents filmmakers supposedly learning from the “mistakes” of a much better movie than either Civil War or Infinity War is extremely depressing to me.
You really think AoU is better than Civil War or Infinity War?Well, to each their own, I guess.
Yeah, it’s a pretty nuclear taek.
Pretty sure this fellow also loves the Star Wars prequels so take from that what you will.
Wait . . . Jesse Hassenger is Richard Brody?!
Like not even close. It’s overstuffed and definitely bears the mark of filmmaker/studio struggle (as Randall goes into in such exacting detail above). But Whedon has a better eye than the Russos, a better ear for dialogue, and more on his mind. Civil War is fun enough, but it devolves into MCU soap opera with a deeply stupid villain plot that the movie treats like it’s Dark Knight or something. Infinity War is barely a movie; it’s just a bunch of fan-service piece-moving wankery that benefits from a bunch of very good actors playing very endearing characters [established by lots of better movies].They both have great moments. Civil War in particular, which I just rewatched last night, has some great action sequences, nice character moments when it remembers to be a movie about Captain America, and it moves along at a good slip for a 150-minute movie. But I’ve been deeply disappointed by the Russos after Winter Soldier, which is excellent. I’m kind of baffled that Ultron developed a rep as one of the “bad ones.” The weirder touches in it–the farmhouse scenes, as Randall mentions; the dream sequences; Ultron himself–are so much more distinct than like 80% of these movies.
Dinstinct doesn’t mean good. And I’ve seen AoU twice now (once a couple months ago) and it just feels rather disposable. I’m of the mindset that all the MCU movies are enjoyable, and AoU works for the most part, but few of the emotional beats feel earned (like they mostly do in later films).
I didn’t feel that any single emotional moment in Infinity War meant anything. It’s all just awwww isn’t it sad that we killed this character you like?
IW was more of an event than a movie.
You just seem to value different things in these movies it seems. Coherent plot which fits into the larger universe would be number one on my list and the Russos nail that in their event movies while AoU is a mess.
It’s more that I don’t think “coherent” plot and “smart” or “interesting” plot is necessarily the same thing. The plot of Civil War includes a villain who mounts a full-on terrorist attack in order to frame a brainwashed super-soldier on the assumption that it will get said super-soldier captured, which he can take advantage of to impersonate a member of the U.N., all so that he can extract enough information from this supersoldier to lead two superheroes to a remote base where he… shows them a video tape (that reveals information I’m not 100% clear on how he knew would be there). Clearly, there is no other way he could have gotten Tony Stark to find out that the Winter Soldier killed his parents.
The plot of Infinity War, meanwhile is: Thanos wants to do this thing. He encounters mild opposition from some superheroes, but he does what he want and things go according to plan and the superheroes are sad. Intricate!
Jesse, did you forget that these movies are based on comic books? Also, Zemo’s plan wasn’t originally to lead them there. Pitting them against each other was something he made up on the fly. He wanted to kill the super soldiers but when Tony and Cap and Bucky showed up, he used the knowledge he’d gained about what Bucky did to drive a wedge between them. If they hadn’t shown up he would have taken the tape and gone back to civilization and leaked it to them.
I mean, all of these movies are based on comics, but they’re not all convoluted or stupid. I don’t know that “it’s like a comic book!” is an excuse on its own. My own picks for this-is-a-feature-not-a-bug employment of comics being kinda wackadoodle would be Aquaman or X-Men: Apocalypse. Civil War thinks it has gravitas.So wait… Zemo is defined almost entirely by this tragedy he experiences in Sokovia, and characterized by a thirst for revenge for these horrors he experienced, which he explicitly blames on the Avengers…but his plan was to kill super-soldiers that went on a lot of missions in the 20th century? And then was going to expose Winter Soldier’s murder of the Starks as like… a side hustle? That he gets to do a little bit early because the heroes track him down? Even though he has to be stopped from killing himself a few scenes later?
I concede it’s entirely possible that I’m missing a key detail here, but what that loses in abject stupidity it gains in utter confusion. Why is Zemo mad at the supersoldiers if his whole backstory is what happened in Sokovia?
He didn’t care about the super soldiers. Cap and his team did.The soldiers were a just a bonus to his plan. He doesn’t like “enhanced” people. So, he killed them when he discovered them.He was after the file at that bunker, not the soldiers. Dirtside’s analysis is wrong.
OK, so I’m not as off-base as I originally thought. I still don’t think his plan makes a lot of sense (and to be clear lots of supervillain plans are nutty, but at least provide some kind of fun hook to them). He wants to tear the Avengers apart, and he’s convinced this tape will do that… even though there are a ton of Avengers, that tape only really concerns Cap and Iron Man, and the reason that tensions between the Avengers are high are because of their divided stance over signing the accords. Does Zemo know this? Does he assume it? He knows the accords are being signed because he stages a terrorist attack around it, but it’s not as if Cap releases a statement saying he refuses to sign (and it’s not as if he’s privy to the conversations about it, which are the only places you really see the Avengers arguing about it; publicly, it seems like they’re going to sign it or not, and even not signing it is more of a tacit agreement to retire, as Ross implies). It’s a bizarre assumption, anyway, that “your friend killed my parents while brainwashed and now you won’t let me murder him in turn” would be incredibly divisive between Stark and Cap — a bizarre assumption that the movie shares, and isn’t anywhere near the kind of complicated dilemma the movie makes it out to be (not least because according to Cap, he didn’t know it was Bucky who killed the Starks, at least not for sure). I’m also still not clear why Zemo knows to look for that tape. He knows Bucky killed Stark’s parents, but needs to prove it? Why does he know that? Doesn’t Cap only know that a supersoldier killed Stark’s parents because of info he got in Winter Soldier from a living computer-man?
I don’t think Zemo knows about the accords, or even cares. He just wants that file. The terrorist attack was unrelated to the accords. he just wanted them to capture Bucky. Although, if they killed him on sight that probably wasn’t a good idea.
Zemo found that journal or something at the beginning of the movie and spent months decoding it and discovered the existence of the file in there.Cap and Stark are basically the heart and soul of the team. Cut off the head and all that. Cap knew they were murdered by Hydra but not who. Though, i am sure he had a really good guess. He didn’t tell Stark for reasons.And Bucky wasn’t just his friend, they were practically brothers growing up. AND he just got him back after 70 years.
It’s just all so convoluted for what amounts to the same “hero’s collateral damage hurt me/my family/etc.” beef that a bunch of these villains have. I don’t have trouble believing Cap would do what he does in the movie so much as I have trouble with the notion that this is supposed to be a breaking point for the group.The two of them having a major philosophical difference in terms of how to regulate superheroes, to me, is much more interesting, even though I’m sure the idea was to make it more personal/emotional.
I think that if we were just dealing with one of these things, it probably wouldn’t be an issue. Sure, the Sokovia stuff is a wedge but they could work through it. And maybe the Bucky thing, while worse in Tony’s eyes, could be worked through as well. Just sit down and have a discussion about it.But, both of these combined has a major effect on them, especially Tony with his PTSD and guilt over Ultron.That being said, the stuff Zemo managed to pull off is pretty far fetched. If it wasn’t for Sokovia accords it wouldn’t have worked and he had nothing to do with that. Then again, if it wasn’t for Sokovia at all, Zemo wouldn’t be after them.I am saying I agree with some of your points but not all of them.
‘The two of them having a major philosophical difference in terms of how to regulate superheroes’Problem is that Cap was basically right: Being that basically everything that was discussed in that scene was one way or another the fault of Tony Stark, it’s more that Stark needed to be regulated, not superheroes in general.
Hell, he probably knew damn well that Bucky was the guy who killed the Starks…which is exactly why he never told Tony.
I’d say he was about 90% sure it was Bucky, but he had that 10% hope it wasn’t.
I think the mistake you’re making when thinking about Zemo’s plan is that you’re assuming he concocted a whole elaborate plan in advance and expected it to go off perfectly, like a traditional moustache-twirling supervillain who is only foiled at the last second when the heroes save the day. That isn’t Zemo’s approach at all; he’s winging it.Being Sokovia special forces, he probably had heard about the Winter Soldier program, and possibly even a rumor that it had been a Winter Soldier who killed Howard and Maria Stark. Bucky (now publicly known to be the Winter Soldier, owing to his public D.C. battles in Winter Soldier—and let’s not forget that Black Widow leaked all of SHIELD’s files to the public) had resurfaced a couple of years earlier, so Zemo guessed that if it had indeed been Bucky who had killed the Starks, he could potentially find proof of that and use it to drive a wedge between the Avengers, since he’d also studied the Avengers and knew that Bucky and Steve had been friends back in the day (there’s an exhibit at the Smithsonian showing that Bucky and Steve had been in the Howling Commandos!). So his plan is to get Bucky captured by false-flagging a terrorist attack as Bucky, so that he can know where Bucky will be and get in to see him. Probably the most “elaborate supervillain” part of the plan is the psychiatrist/EMP bomb bit; he would have to guess in advance that they’d bring in a psychiatrist to examine Bucky, so that he could intercept the guy and kill him and impersonate him.
He knows there’s a division between Rogers and Stark because Rogers gets arrested for violating the Accords in Romania, and later Cap et. al. have a huge fight with Stark et. al. at the airport in Leipzig, which would have been all over the news. Zemo’s in Russia at this point and heads off to Siberia to see if he can find the facility and some proof of the Starks’ murder at Bucky’s hands (we don’t know what Bucky told him in Berlin; it certainly would have included “I was sent to kill the Starks and retrieve super soldier serum,” but it could have also included information that there was video evidence of the murder). His plan at that moment is to find the evidence so that he can leak it to the Avengers and further deepen the divide, which, again, is already public knowledge at this point.
He gets there, finds the other super soldiers, and kills them. He finds the videotape. Then the Avengers show up, and he says, ah, I can just show it to them now. Which he does.
OK but does the movie in ANY WAY portray him as winging it?!? Just poking around, seeing what he might find, no master plan? As you say, the EMP (which he’s seen working on early in the film) and the U.N. disguise require plenty of aforethought. The movie has him explicitly talk about how he wanted revenge on the Avengers after Sokovia. Concocting an elaborate plan to sow discontent between two people he doesn’t actually know or have much contact with ON THE FLY is even weirder than doing it meticulously, because… doesn’t he want it to happen? I don’t think we’re given any evidence that he’s just screwing around; the movie very much portrays him as doing these purposeful, calm things in the midst of all the Avengers running around. So either it does a poor job of communicating what’s being done on the fly, or his plan really is that elaborate, and either way it features a lot of bizarre leaps of logic that make me think, OK, if he knew to do all of this, wouldn’t there be an easier way?All of this kind of stuff is forgivable silly-comics-movie plotting if it does something interesting or affecting. The Joker’s plans in The Dark Knight don’t always make a lot of sense, either, but the character is really compelling, and that’s what matters. In Civil War, it’s a long way to go just for this nondescript guy’s confession to Martin Freeman at the end: You see, I wanted to tear them apart from the INSIDE! Like we’re all supposed to be like, whoa, devastating! That’s my whole problem with the movie; it’s doing something really, really silly that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and dressing it up as this gravitas-filled exploration of divisions and fractured friendships.
He’s only winging it after a certain point. I mean, this is already his Plan B, his original plan was to wring everything he needed out of the Hydra colonel who let himself drown rather than talk. But Plan B was going along nicely until Cap stopped Bucky from taking that helicopter and slapped him back to his senses. If Bucky escapes, or kamikazes that helicopter into a bridge or suicides by cop, or whatever Zemo told him to do, then Zemo’s in the wind. He’s gone, nobody knows who he is and nobody knows where he’s going. He can run to Siberia, find the tape and anything else he might be looking for, clean the place out; and then dump everything he finds on the internet at his leisure.Unfortunately for him, Cap throws a wrench in that plan, and Zemo sees it from the airport before he gets on his plane to Moscow, the news report about Barnes, Rogers and Wilson all being missing in the aftermath of the breakout. What other conclusion can there be but that Rogers and wilson have Barnes, and whenever Bucky wakes up, he’ll spill his guts and they’ll be after him. So, he’s on the clock now. But, he has a contingency plan. When he gets to Siberia, he calls in a room service order to his hotel in Germany. Lady finds dead body. Police find evidence exonerating Barnes and incriminating Zemo. Evidence gets sent to Iron Man. So, when the Avengers show up, it’s not just Cap and Bucky. It’s Cap, Bucky and Stark. You can call it a hail mary, but it’s not nonsensical. The movie shows you what he’s doing every step of the way.
But on a basic level, I don’t even necessarily understand why Zemo thinks that this tape is the key to tearing apart the Avengers, because, as someone pointed out, they’re only at a moment of particularly high tension because of the accords, which Zemo doesn’t seem to know anything about, or is at very least only using as a convenient site of terrorism where he knows a bunch of people will be at a certain time. So even if his original plan is to just find out where this tape is, and then leak it… the idea is that somehow just doing that will cause the Avengers to tear each other apart? Even though the accords are about to regulate them further? Wouldn’t that just mean like, one Avengers might leave? (Or MAYBE one would try to kill another, though that seems like a stretch from what Zemo knows.) Which might happen anyway? And if he truly hates the Avengers and wants revenge, would he really find satisfaction in casually disseminating proof of something that, as others have pointed out, was actually noted (if not video’d) in files that were already leaked to the public some time ago?
And is the idea that no one would find that dead body for like, WEEKS if he didn’t call in his breakfast order? Wouldn’t it just take a day or two for the body to be discovered anyway? And he’s sure that chain of events will involve Tony Stark personally going to Siberia, rather than any number of other things that could happen instead?Again, I don’t mind convoluted or ridiculous stories if they’re in service of something really interesting. But I don’t think the payoff is all that sharp or affecting in this movie. Not least because the scenes with Zemo aren’t interesting! They’re not interestingly shot, they’re not interestingly acted, they don’t reveal anything unexpected or interesting about that character or other characters. It’s just someone laboring to reveal soap-opera backstory.
You’re kind of picking nits at this point. He doesn’t even have to release the tape. He can just send it to Tony. Tony’s issues with his parents death are pretty well documented over several of these MCU movies, including Civil War, in which he spends millions of dollars on a hologram therapy machine. And not only is he the one that pays for… well, the Avengers, but a third of the currently active line-up as of the beginning of Civil War, that is to say War Machine and Vision, are only super-heroes because of him. Interesting to note that War Machine and Vision are also the only active Avengers not present for their mission at the beginning of the film. If Tony goes one way on something and Captain America goes another way… as we see in Civil War, that splits the team. War Machine and Vision follow Tony, Falcon follows Cap, and Scarlet Witch and Black Widow are wild cards. All of this is ignoring the fact that if Tony stops writing checks, the Avengers as we’ve known them up until then are finished anyway.Also, what other satisfaction are you supposing he can get? He tells Black Panther flat out that he knew he couldn’t kill them. All I can tell you is that he went over those files for the better part of a year or more, and this was the best he came up with. He seems okay with it. And, jesus, if the files actually said, “Winter Soldier kills Starks on 12/10/1992″ or whenever it was, then he wouldn’t need to go to all the trouble to confirm it, he could have just sent that to Tony. Obviously he finds something that puts him on the trail, but that’s it. The actual proof is in Siberia.I don’t know how long it would take them to find the real UN doctors dead body, but he stuck it in the bathtub, probably filled the tub with ice, he’s a former Special Forces black ops commander, seems like this might be a trick he’s used before. And honestly, it feels like the whole movie takes place in about the space of a week anyway. Of course he can’t be sure that the chain of events will lead Iron Man to Siberia, but Iron Man’s following Cap and Bucky… why would Tony just quit? Who else are they going to send?In the end, if the character and the acting and the cinematography and whatever else it is you didn’t like didn’t do it for you, then they didn’t do it for you. But, I gotta say, it kind of feels like its an issue for/with you, and not an objective problem with the movie. I mean, do you really not get the payoff here? The unexpected reveal, or however you put it? You really don’t get it, or it doesn’t land for you or whatever? The Avengers LOSE, man! At the end of the movie there is no Avengers. There’s Iron Man and Vision and Rhodey trying to re-learn how to walk with Starktech assistance. And they didn’t lose to a God or a Titan, or a global fascist conspiracy, or a super-powerful AI in a vibranium body. They lost to one man with no powers at all.
At the end of the movie, there is no Avengers, except that Steve tells Tony in a letter that if there’s ever another big threat, he’ll come back. And then, in the next Avengers movie, everyone comes back… like to the point where it doesn’t even really feel like an Avengers movie, because every single MCU character of note is there. “One man with no powers takes down Earth’s mightiest heroes” is definitely an interesting idea. But by treating it as a major reveal, and having it all hinge on a bunch of soap-opera business between Cap and Tony, AND by not really having any particular ramifications in subsequent movies because they need to jump over to the next big galactic conflict, it all feels a little cheap to me. I’m surprised by how often these major MCU crossover events wind up feeling rushed. Maybe because the better later movies (Black Panther, Ragnarok, Homecoming) don’t seem that interested in playing ball with dealing with another movie’s fallout, so it sort of lands on the Russo-made movies to clean it all up as needed.
OK but does the movie in ANY WAY portray him as winging it?!?I mean, yes? One of the major elements of the movie is that he uses his special ops skills to get five minutes alone with Bucky so that he can figure out what to do next. Up until he interviewed Bucky he didn’t know what the rest of his plan would be. But he’s an antagonist, so the movie quite understandably doesn’t spend a lot of time showing his emotional journey, doubts, or mistakes.I never suggested he’s “just screwing around.” There’s a difference between having a general goal and figuring out the details as you go (Zemo), and just completely doing things at random (your apparent belief of what I’m claiming??).In Civil War, it’s a long way to go just for this nondescript guy’s confession to Martin Freeman at the end: You see, I wanted to tear them apart from the INSIDE!That’s because while Zemo is an antagonist, he’s not the main antagonist (which is Tony and Steve’s diverging beliefs about how the Avengers should be managed). Zemo was the catalyst that broke them, not the underlying cause. I liked him as an antagonist because he was actually somewhat relatable, and it was a nice change of pace from cackling super-robots and superpowered alien tyrants. His villainy is more or less the Avengers’ fault.
Yeah, the “Mission Report, etc.” was clearly designed around finding the file.
The thing is, Zemo has been studying the Avengers for years (he says so in the film), and knows their ideological weak points. He knows the Accords will be divisive, so that gets most of the Avengers at each others throats and exploits conflicts that are already there. (It’s clear from Hawkeye’s “futurist” rant at Tony that there’s some simmering resentment there.) As far as Tony and Steve goes, he exploits their different fears: Cap worries that there are threats out there that are too powerful and too clandestine for the regular authorities to stop – and based on his experience in ‘Winter Soldier’, he knows that those threats and those authorities can be one in the same – so Zemo feeds him the notion of an army of unstoppable super soldiers that may already be on the move. Iron Man, on the other hand, is all about personal responsibility and guilt. He feels bad for his role in unleashing the Avengers on the world as an unstable force, so he needs to bring Steven and Bucky into line. Then when they all meet up at the Winter Soldier base, it becomes entirely personal, and hinges on Bucky. Zemo shows them the tape of Tony’s parents getting killed, and Tony’s grief comes into direct conflict with Steve’s love for his friend. Zemo has already driven a wedge between the two ideologically; Bucky is just the final hammer blow that splits them apart entirely.
I get all that, but isn’t that just a super-elaborate version of the Bad Guy Who Planned to Be Captured All Along syndrome? That is, how could a bad guy be certain enough that he’d be apprehended in just the right way to make it a step in his master plan?
That combination of a guy who can “study” the Avengers (from what, their paramilitary adventures?!) closely enough to know how their interpersonal relationships will fracture and can also act fast enough when the Accords happen to be introduced (he has, what, 24 hours’ notice? 48?) is hard for me to take seriously. I don’t think it would be if the character was really distinctive or memorable (again, The Dark Knight indulges this kind of thing with The Joker, but because Ledger is so compelling, it feels like there’s a kind of scary nuthouse logic to it, even when it doesn’t *really* make sense).
It’s not stated in the film (which is a failing, true), but I always got the impression that a guy who was in Sokovian special forces would have connections he could call upon to get the information he needs, especially from people who might not like the Avengers either. The Accords must have been in the works in some form or another for a while; if he had inside information that they were due to be enacted, he’d have enough time to get things organised.
There’s footage of the Hulk and Iron Man duking it out in the middle of a city. It does not take a super genius to go “probably the best way to take down the Avengers is to get the Avengers to do it…”
In his first appearance Zemo states he got the info from the SHIELD/Hydra files Widow leaked in TWS.
Hey now…the fact that he didn’t understand the fact that the super-soldiers thing was obviously misdirection that Zemo never gave a rat’s ass about is THE MOVIE’S FAULT! Sure, just about everyone else who has seen the movie understood nearly immediately that Zemo was after the tape the whole time, while Bucky assumed that he could only be after the supersoldiers, but IT’S THE MOVIE’S FAULT that he didn’t!!!!
AND people tend to forget why there was fight at the airport. Cap didn’t recruit people to fight Tony, he recruited them to fight the super soldiers he thought Zemo was releasing. Tony just got in his way.
Tony recruited because he needed help bringing in Cap and found out he was recruiting. He wanted to bring in Cap because he didn’t want Ross to do it.
It was all a misunderstanding!
Yep, Zemo’s “unintelligible” story is:1) Decodes Hydra files released by Widow.2) Figures out Cap’s best friend killed Tony’s parents.3) Goes searching for proof.4) Figures out Bucky’s the only guy who still knows where it is.5) Frames Bucky to flush him out.6) Gets the info from Bucky.7) Goes to Siberia. Finds frozen soldiers there along with the mission report. Kills the frozen soldiers.8) Cap, Bucky and Tony show up. He plays the video then and there, rather than leaking it.9) He goes outside to kill himself, T’Challa stops him.The entire Sokovia Accords stuff has nothing to do with Zemo, or his plan. It just explains why a full Avengers strike force wasn’t there to talk/take down Tony when he goes after Bucky.
Yet the Sokovia Accords business takes up most of the first half of the movie. And is more interesting to me than Zemo zipping around the world in a ludicrously elaborate revenge plot predicated on Cap and Iron Man acting a particular way at a particular time. So saying “you don’t get it, the thing the movie is supposed to be about is just a red herring for this other, far worse story” is not very impressive to me.
You keep moving the goalposts. It’s one thing if you didn’t dig Zemo’s story; fine. But you keep insisting that it doesn’t make sense and blah blah, and then we call you on it, and then you shift to “well I didn’t like it.” Which is fine! But you’re not making any attempt to provide insight or analysis. You’re just yelling about something that makes you mad. Which is also fine, as this is the Internet, although given how many excellent movie reviews we’ve seen you write, it’s a little weird to have you ranting here in the comments with us plebs. 🙂
It’s on my mind because I just rewatched the movie last night. I don’t mean that Zemo’s story is literal nonsense that’s impossible to follow because it’s in a crazy moon language. I mean that his story—including the three or four slightly different versions I’ve heard here that purport to explain it—feels like an arbitrary and convoluted route to a pretty lame destination.
Like below you say:
Up until he interviewed Bucky he didn’t know what the rest of his plan would be.
I just watched this movie. I remember this scene. How does this movie *show* (or even tell) that he didn’t know what the rest of his plan would be when he’s talking to Bucky?! Do you mean that he doesn’t specifically know how he’s going to get the videotape and show it to Stark? Or that he only knows he’s going to get revenge on the Avengers with Bucky-provided information, but he doesn’t know what that is yet? I think it’s very telling that some other explanations on this thread do basically say this was his plan all along (that is, he found out about the Stark family murders from that notebook, and got more info about it from the Winter Soldier, intent being to pit Stark and Cap against each other). The truth is, you can probably interpret it either way, because you don’t get much from the sorta-procedural scenes that Zemo has through most of the movie (because they’re not especially good procedural scenes, among other reasons).I’m just a little baffled that Ultron is considered this consensus choice for a particularly disappointing MCU outing, but Civil War has enough love to have people bending over backwards to explain the intricacies of a villain plan that’s such a strange combination of opaque and completely stock.
It’s on my mind because I just rewatched the movie last night. I don’t mean that Zemo’s story is literal nonsense that’s impossible to follow because it’s in a crazy moon language. I mean that his story—including the three or four slightly different versions I’ve heard here that purport to explain it—feels like an arbitrary and convoluted route to a pretty lame destination.
Like below you say:
Up until he interviewed Bucky he didn’t know what the rest of his plan would be.
I just watched this movie. I remember this scene. How does this movie *show* (or even tell) that he didn’t know what the rest of his plan would be when he’s talking to Bucky?! Do you mean that he doesn’t specifically know how he’s going to get the videotape and show it to Stark? Or that he only knows he’s going to get revenge on the Avengers with Bucky-provided information, but he doesn’t know what that is yet? I think it’s very telling that some other explanations on this thread do basically say this was his plan all along (that is, he found out about the Stark family murders from that notebook, and got more info about it from the Winter Soldier, intent being to pit Stark and Cap against each other). The truth is, you can probably interpret it either way, because you don’t get much from the sorta-procedural scenes that Zemo has through most of the movie (because they’re not especially good procedural scenes, among other reasons).I’m just a little baffled that Ultron is considered this consensus choice for a particularly disappointing MCU outing, but Civil War has enough love to have people bending over backwards to explain the intricacies of a villain plan that’s such a strange combination of opaque and completely stock.
I just watched this movie. I remember this scene. How does this movie *show* (or even tell) that he didn’t know what the rest of his plan would be when he’s talking to Bucky?!It’s implicit! What exactly is it that you think asking questions is for? Zemo wants information so that he can figure out what to do next. Sure, they certainly could have fleshed out the decision-making aspect of his storyline, I guess, but I didn’t have any trouble understanding what he was up to (at least once I had the whole picture). It makes enough sense in retrospect to qualify as the catalyst for the Avengers turning against each other.
I mean, don’t get me wrong: I’d happily watch an alternate cut of this movie that’s two hours of Daniel Bruhl trying to get revenge on the Avengers, where we only ever see the Avengers in the background or when they’re in proximity to him. But that would be a very different movie where Zemo is the protagonist.
I’m just a little baffled that Ultron is considered this consensus choice for a particularly disappointing MCU outing, but Civil War has enough love to have people bending over backwards to explain the intricacies of a villain plan that’s such a strange combination of opaque and completely stock.Emphasis added to highlight all the ways you’re trying to support your argument by being snarky about other people’s tastes. Not to mention the implied notion that arguments about taste have or don’t have validity based on popularity. C’mon.
And it’s not helping to make blanket assumptions. I love Age of Ultron. It’s one of my top three MCU movies. Sure, I think it has flaws: the Korea sequence is too long; the circumstances of Vision’s creation are somewhat muddled; the “Internet hub” scene is pointless (and that’s not how the Internet works!!). But the character work is great, the visuals are great, it’s got a ton of great moments, it’s fun. I like it more than Civil War. But I like Civil War, too; it’s a different movie that scratches a different itch.
Dude, I was responding to someone saying that my problem with the story was based on confusion, saying that no, Zemo *wasn’t* always after that tape, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, I was following up on that line of thinking about the plot. I don’t think the story makes very much sense either way. And beyond that, I don’t find Zemo compelling as a character. The woman Stark talks to at the beginning of the movie, whose son was killed in Sokovia, is far more compelling in her single scene than Zemo is during the entire movie.
I just…don’t understand how anyone could find the plan outlined above “complicated,” much less “ludicrously” so.The only behavior his plan hinged on was Cap bringing in Bucky alive, so he could get the info from him directly.Which unreasonable assumption did he make? Was it that Cap wouldn’t want his best friend killed? Or that the leader of the Avengers would be able to bring Bucky in alive, even in the face of opposition?The complications from the Accords are why Bucky, Steve and Tony were the only ones in Siberia…but that literally had nothing to do with his actual plan, besides convenience.The claim that “he wasn’t always after the tape” also falls amusingly flat, considering his first question to that Hydra agent was “Mission Report, 12/16/1991.”Is the issue that you didn’t realize that the 12/16/91 mission was the Stark assassination? Like, I’m genuinely struggling to understand your perspective, here.
I just…don’t understand how anyone could find the plan outlined above “complicated,” much less “ludicrously” so.The only behavior his plan hinged on was Cap bringing in Bucky alive, so he could get the info from him directly.Which unreasonable assumption did he make? Was it that Cap wouldn’t want his best friend killed? Or that the leader of the Avengers would be able to bring Bucky in alive, even in the face of opposition?The complications from the Accords are why Bucky, Steve and Tony were the only ones in Siberia…but that literally had nothing to do with his actual plan, besides convenience.The claim that “he wasn’t always after the tape” also falls amusingly flat, considering his first question to that Hydra agent was “Mission Report, 12/16/1991.”Is the issue that you didn’t realize that the 12/16/91 mission was the Stark assassination? Like, I’m genuinely struggling to understand your perspective, here.
I’m skeptical of the idea of a character who has been “studying” the Avengers (like as in… news footage of their occasional city-wide skirmishes? What kind of studying, here?) would have that much confidence in his knowledge of their relationships and behavior to know (and be correct in assuming that):
1. Cap will always choose Bucky over Tony Stark2. Bucky will definitely get re-captured by Cap before anyone else can kill him (even though the whole thing that makes those action sequences exciting is that it’s a tight goddamned spot for both of them, despite their superpowers), leaving the perfect opening to interrogate him3. Cap and Tony would be personally already on edge/at odds over the accords, something they have not spoken publicly about, and which gets sidetracked by a terrorist bombing4. And because of all this, Cap and Tony wouldn’t just disagree about how to handle Bucky, but disagree so violently that would effectively tear the Avengers apart.How is any of that communicated by the Avengers’ public personas?If that plan was executed by like, War Machine, I’d say, sure, it makes sense that he knows all that, at least. It would still be all of the details of a procedural without any of the filmmaking to back it up, but it wouldn’t be *as* ridiculous.But “Zemo has studied the Avengers, also special forces something” doesn’t cut it for me…… again, unless Zemo was a really compelling character beyond the plot mechanics. But he’s a character who is 90% plot mechanics! For that matter, I also find it ludicrous that decoding Hydra files that Black Widow released was somehow considered not proof enough in the first place. He needed a video. (Because what makes sense to do when conducting a covert assassination is to take a video of it.) That seems like a much more public-facing need than an Avengers-facing need. What, would Tony NOT BELIEVE that the Winter Soldier (who he already thinks is a terrorist!) killed his parents at the behest of Hydra, who his parents helped to fight?! Is the idea that without video proof, Cap (who knows Bucky was doing brainwashed murder missions) would, what, lie to Tony and say it couldn’t possibly be him? Or that Tony wouldn’t be furious enough unless he saw the videotape?Are you that literal minded that you don’t think ANY of this can be ludicrous as long as the movie says “but it’s true!”?
It’s not that “it’s like a comic book” is an excuse on its own, it’s that any of the Marvel movies could be reduced to a series of silly-sounding comic-booky plot beats the way you did with Civil War. All it demonstrates is that you didn’t like the movie; it provides no insight that anyone else can use.
Let me clarify what I meant about the super soldiers: It’s not that finding and killing them were Zemo’s main goal, it’s that he went to Siberia to find the proof he would need to break up the Avengers. And when he saw the super soldiers there, still in stasis, he killed them, although it’s unclear whether he expected to find them there or not (the red notebook could potentially have had info about them in it), but it still would have been a primary objective for him.
And then Tony/Cap/Bucky showed up and Zemo said, oh this is perfect, I can just show them the video now instead of having to leave and go give it to them. Nothing about his plan was trying to lure them to Siberia or expecting them to show up.
And the entire point of his killing the super soldiers is designed to subvert the idea that he was pursuing anything other than a grudge.Seriously, considering the rant about “stakes, stakes, stakes” earlier in this comment section, it’s impressive how thoroughly he missed the point of the end of Civil War.
There IS a key detail you’re missing, and that’s the fact that Zemo is completely irrelevant to the dramatic/emotional center of the movie, it’s the cap/tony conflict.Fundamentally you’re right that the Zemo plot – and anything zemo-related in the movie – is terrible. But you’re wrong to focus on Zemo. Focus on the relationships between these characters – which is what the movie is doing – and you’ll realize that this is hands down the best MCU movie. It’s not even a close contest. This movie features human beings with realistic relationships and conflicts, who also happen to be superheroes. What more can you ask for.
I do agree that there’s plenty to like about the movie that doesn’t have to do with Big Z; despite my repeated carping, I am pretty much thumbs-up on it. Would have given it a solid B had I reviewed it three years ago, because there’s too much fun stuff in it to ignore.But honestly, I think the movie kinda biffs it on the character stuff, too. I think the conflict between Cap and Tony is initially very interesting, as is the general question of oversight on superheroes, as is the continuation of Bucky’s story (even though Bucky is kind of a nonentity here, personality-wise). But because so much of it is tied into a false-flag plot, and so much of the final “devastating” conflict comes down to a bunch of soapy hooey, I don’t think it really sticks the landing. It becomes about misunderstandings, information-withholding, and insular MCU stuff.
It seems like it should be more affecting as it gets more personal, but I don’t know; I’m not really that interested in whether Cap was 100% certain that his brainwashed friend killed his new friend’s parents before he met his new friend… it sort of drifts away from “realistic relationships” at that point.
His original plan was to find the tape/file. He wanted to destroy the Avengers from the inside. He wanted them to fight each other from the beginning because they killed his family.
That was his entire goal. Everything he did up that moment was for that reason. The super soldiers he killed were a bonus because the file happened to be located there. A lot of the stuff was made up on the fly, but not pitting them against each other. He knew that tape/file was what was going to do that.
You are right about him showing the tape then, if they didn’t follow him he would have released it some other way.
As a piece of a whole, Age of Ultron doesn’t make any sense at all. I mean do your whole thing with that movie and tell me why that movie makes any more sense than Civil War.The thing I liked about Civil War is it actually made an effort to tie together past movies and set up future ones. The Russos know how to make a good piece to a bigger picture, whereas Age of Ultron tries to do the same and fails miserably IMO.Same with Infinity War.
It’s just hard for me to sit there watching a movie going “well, this is such a helpful piece of the puzzle.” I want to watch a movie, not an installment, and I can definitely enjoy a movie that takes advantage of previously established characters (I think of a lot of the Star Trek movies, old and new, as being particularly strong in this regard) so you don’t have to spend a lot of time on exposition or introductions.I don’t know, I don’t find Age of Ultron as nonsensical — or, moreover, as dumb — as Civil War, nor as dull as Infinity War. Tony tries to create an AI that can help protect the world, as an extension of his Iron Legion. It goes wrong, and he creates an AI that thinks the best way to save the world from humanity would be to destroy humanity. The Avengers all confront aspects of themselves that chafe against their basic humanity. I think that stuff is interesting, and Whedon is especially good at making action scenes feel like extensions of the characters, rather than obligatory second-unit breaks.
There’s still plenty of comic-book nonsense, but I find Ultron so much more interesting than Zemo, and the internal conflicts the Avengers have, within themselves and with each other, a lot more compelling than the soap-opera-backstory-gets-revealed-and-there’s-a-bunch-of-misunderstandings storyline of Civil War.
The story in a vacuum is interesting. What I didn’t like is how Age of Ultron quickly writes off Hydra and Baron Von Strucker (while barely even explaining the latter character), effectively undoing the best part of Phase 2 (Hydra revealing themselves in TWS) IMO. I also didn’t like that Ultron immediately begins as a bad guy, traditionally Ultron is usually portrayed as an ally who gets slowly corrupted over time. I’ve always said that based on how AoU plays out, both Stark and Banner should be in jail for the deaths and damage caused by something they directly created. Finally, I think the efforts to set up Ragnarok and fit in an explanation of Infinity Stones, primarily in the scene mentioned here but also in Hulk somehow traversing space in the Quinjet, are clumsy at best. I know Whedon has said he was forced to include those scenes but his comments mostly come off as someone who had no interest in playing ball with studio heads to make this movie fit better within the greater MCU.
A couple of small shifts and this movie could have been a great cap to Phase 2. Have IM still semi-retired and introduce Ultron as his replacement and ally to the Avengers, maybe even show Vision at the beginning as IM’s Ultron 2.0 so the movie doesn’t have to do so much heavy lifting explaining him later. Have Von Strucker stick around longer (and get background and characterization) and have him directly responsible for corrupting Ultron. So on.As it was, I just found it to be lackluster. It’s just preference though, I personally don’t care that much that Zemo’s plan in CW required so many things to go right or whatever like others do because I liked how the movie fits in Phase 3. I don’t think that’s a perfect movie, or even a top-three MCU movie, either though.
I do think the MCU movies in general have a weird problem where they tend to skip over a lot of stuff that’s potentially interesting on their way to the next big milestone — as you talk about with Strucker here. But I’m entirely sympathetic to Whedon’s desire to avoid playing ball with the big-picture stuff. It just isn’t that important to me!
And all I have been saying since my OP is that it is important to me (and others I’m sure) which is why I prefer CW and IW. Personally, I think its part of the job of being a MCU director to care about the larger universe and I think Whedon did a great job of that in Phase 1 and a terrible job in Phase 2.
I’m not saying you’re wrong to care about that, but does it ever kinda start to feel like collecting and arranging action figures to you? It’s just hard for me to get in the headspace where what’s good about a movie is how neatly it fits into a puzzle-piece slot (and for all that, I don’t know that Infinity War does actually fit neatly with some of the other movies in terms of what they do well).
No it doesn’t, they feel like true representations of the comic books I read as a kid. I never said the only thing I liked about CW and IW was how they fit into the MCU. I think both movies show that the Russos have a good grasp of the characters in the universe, they both feature fun action sequences, and I don’t really agree with your sentiment that the stories are non-existent or crap either.Your point earlier is that Zemo’s plan is very convoluted and inconceivable. That might be true but that’s only part of the larger story. I enjoyed Black Panther coming to grips with needing vengeance, I enjoyed the Steve vs Tony arguments about the Accords and the conflict the rest of the heroes felt, I liked the introduction of Spider-Man which managed to effectively reboot and produce the best version yet (IMO) of the character in about ten minutes, and I really liked the airport battle.I also really enjoyed Infinity War and the way it focused on Thanos and his backstory / drive. As I said before, I don’t think these are the best movies Marvel has made or anything, but IMO they’re better than Age of Ultron which has just as many story / villain flaws as a piece of a bigger whole.
The plot of Civil War includes a villain who mounts a full-on terrorist attack in order to frame a brainwashed super-soldier on the assumption that it will get said super-soldier captured, which he can take advantage of to impersonate a member of the U.N., all so that he can extract enough information from this supersoldier to lead two superheroes to a remote base where he… shows them a video tape (that reveals information I’m not 100% clear on how he knew would be there). I HATE what the MCU did with Ultron, but I may hate what they did with Zemo even more.
You’re boring. Zoidberg, you’re boring.
YOU ALL STILL HAVE ZOIDBERG
A better eye? Seriously? There’s barely a shot in this that doesn’t look like TV. It’s visually flat, mostly overlit, graphically uninteresting.
What in holy hell are Civil War or Infinity War if NOT visually flat and graphically uninteresting?! Like are you guys really into the frame-speed adjustment thing they bust out for those action sequences? It looks kinda cool, but there’s very little that’s “graphically interesting” about it unless you’ve never seen a Bourne movie or a Ridley Scott movie or whatever. Whedon at least orchestrates some images that look like splash panels come to life. And there are smaller moments, too: Hulk sitting alone on the quinjet. The way Ultron’s final demise happens in a quiet, light-filled wide shot. The nightmarish canted angles of the dream sequences. I mean, no, I wouldn’t put him with Nolan or Raimi or Burton in terms of visual distinction, but the idea that Civil War is cinematic and Age of Ultron is TV… sorry, I don’t get it.
I don’t think Age of Ultron has a single scene that begins to approach to all out coolness of Thor restarting the star forge in Infinity War. That whole sequence with him swinging a space ship on a chain and standing while the force of a star is firing through his body. It’s crazy sci-fi fantasy and I love it.
It’s one of the cooler parts of the movie, but it doesn’t really mean much of anything. That’s how I feel about most of that movie: There are good lines, cool little character moments, and some cool-looking bits, but it’s not really arranged or composed in a meaningful way.
To me, those little moments reflect my favorite things about comics. For this type of movie I prefer that the story provides a framing device for mythic visuals. Like Surtr driving his sword through the heart of Asgard in Raganarok. Personal preference and such. :DLike this, possibly one of my favorite comic book pages ever… last of the space sharks:
Fair, fair. Honestly, if all of Infinity War had been more like that, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more!
You’re clearly very invested in making this case. I happen to disagree – charitably, I could say that Whedon maybe inclines to a more Bryan Hitch aesthetic, which satisfies what you personally desire from a comic-book movie – but really, who gives a shit? You prefer ‘Age of Ultron’; I prefer ‘Infinity War’ . . . ultimately, they’re both just variations on the same burger.
Respect to you, though, for posting under your real name. We’re a brave few.
He’s one of the writers here. 😉
Sure, but he could also comment as . . . I dunno, FartMuncher82 or something. On an internet of anonymous bomb-throwing, I respect anyone who holds themselves publicly accountable for the opinions they espouse.
I think it’s a little bit like walking around wearing a shirt with your social security number on it.
Great. Now I have to change my shirt.
Lmao exactly my reaction. There are a couple cool shots but slapping a yellow filter on everything and calling it a day doesn’t somehow make the movie visually interesting.
I’m gonna second this. Age of Ultron is secretly the best Avengers film, and I’m being 100% serious.
In spite of its flaws, it feels like a much more complete “film” than the first one – thematically rich, character heavy, introspective at its best moments. Tony has a much more complete arc, I never understood the hate for the Natasha/Bruce stuff because I think it makes sense for those two characters and gives them a lot to work with, Hawkeye is the best utilized he’s ever been before or since, Cap gets some great moments, Ultron’s an extremely fun villain with clear motivations, even Vision for as clunky as his set-up is gets the best speech and best moment in the film. The only character who feels shortchanged is Thor, but Thor’s kind of a hard character to pin down as demonstrated by the fact it took them 5 movies to finally do it.
Also, and perhaps most importantly, it lets the characters breathe. The party scene at the beginning and the farm stuff in the middle are probably the two best sequences featuring the core Avengers casts in any of the movies. Infinity War was SORELY in need of at least one scene like this, where the characters take a breather, cool down, and get a chance to just connect as human beings… but because of how stuffed it was and because of how desperate it was to cram in fan service and action scenes it never has a chance, and as a result none of the emotional beats land. Because how can they land when we’ve spent an entire movie jumping from one setpiece to another?
Finally, Whedon is simply a better visual director than the Russo brothers. Period. The assault on the Hydra compound, the Hulkbuster fight, the truck chase, the final stand on Sokovia… all of these sequences are filled to the brim with cinematic splashpages, compositions designed to highlight the action and characters that feel like they were ripped straight out of a comic. Similar scenes in both Civil War and Infinity War just don’t have as much punch – largely everything in space or on Titan in Infinity War feels like it was shot on a soundstage in front of a green screen (because of course it was) with characters just kind of standing around. Even the famous airport fight only has one memorable shot in it, and it’s the most obvious thing they could’ve done: a wide of the two teams running at each other. The rest of the fight, while fun and clearly staged, is mostly just a bunch of similar shots of people fighting surrounded by a dull gray color. It could’ve just as easily taken place in a parking lot as an airport and nothing would change. It’s fine for what it is, but it could’ve been so much more interesting to look at.
This is nothing against the Russo brothers, btw: they’re still pretty good at action scenes when they involve guns and punching, and while I’m not as impressed with the tarmac fight as others, I will agree that the final fight between Iron Man, Cap, and Winter Soldier, hits pretty hard. But that’s because it’s a couple of guys in a fist fight. They’re good at that.
That doesn’t translate to massive superhero battles, and it shows more than I think people want to admit.
Agree completely. I would say there are some really fun images in the tarmac fight (there’s a shot of Spider-Man flying/crawling outside the glass in pursuit of Falcon and Bucky that’s pretty cool), but yeah, a lot of what’s cool about it is that it’s a fast-paced, multi-superhero powers blowout. That’s not nothing! But I don’t think the Russos get better when they add more and more “stakes” and “scale” or whatever else. In fact, it all kinda flattens out after a certain point.
I disagree. The only visual that really sticks with me from AoU is that scene of the Avengers in battle where the camera slows down and holds on them, which I can’t stand. Civil War gave us Ant-Man becoming huge, Cap straining to hold the helicopter, Ant-Man (again) riding on Hawkeye’s arrow, Iron Man firing his repulsors full blast into Steve’s shield … I think it’s got some of the greatest comic book visuals of the whole series. (Though the greatest probably belongs to Thor bringing down the thunder in Wakanda in IW.)
There are NUMEROUS scenes of “just breathing” in Infinity War.-Wanda and Vision discuss their relationship before being attacked, including what they foresee for the future.-Tony, Peter, and Steven discuss strategy (and pop culture references) after Steven was rescued. Later, the Guardian split team joins this discussion before combat with Thanos starts.-The Guardians meet Thor, Peter feels his masculinity is threatened.-Quill and Gamora discuss their relationship, she extracts a promise from him to kill her if Thanos is going to capture her.-Thor and Rocket discuss their losses en route to make Thor’s weapon.-Cap and Bucky reconnect in Wakanda, everyone meets the Black Panther.
AoU isn’t bad now. Having seen all the MCU movies since have cleared up most of what was unclear about the plot/stones. The only part I still don’t like is banner rolling over so easy for Tony when they create vision. I really wanted an slap”Snap out of it!” Moment.
I find it hard to swallow the idea that AoU is in any way a more distinct movie than any other film in the MCU, considering it’s pretty much “Let’s do everything I did in the first Avengers just slightly differently: the movie”. You have: a resentful, non-human villain who both hates and is “related” to one of the heroes (Loki/Ultron, Tony’s “son”); a scene where the Avengers’ base is destroyed by the villain and our heroes have to go on the run (Hellicarrier/Stark tower); brainwashing of the heroes to destabilise them (Clint/almost everyone but Clint); a scene where the Hulk is sent on a rampage that lets the villain get away and has to be stopped by a fellow Avenger (Thor on the Hellicarrier/Tony in South Africa); the villain’s plot being a vague subjugate/destroy mission involving mass destruction (Loki invading with an army/Ultron causing an ELE); a climax where the villain lures the Avengers to a single location to fight a faceless army of bad guys (the Chitauri in New York/multiple Ultrons in Sokovia); a piece of technology that’s central to the villain’s plan that has to be reached and destroyed (the tesseract gate/Ultron’s gravity thingie); and even a scene where the villain is comically and easily taken out by the Hulk (“puny god”/”Oh for heaven’s sake”). It’s like Whedon did a find and replace on his last Avengers script.
I’m with you on Infinity War. It truly felt like a bunch of set pieces stitched together. Not really much of a film. I mean, it was fun to watch and nice to look at, but I wouldn’t call it a good movie.
Whedon’s dialogue is so abysmal it almost makes this movie unwatchable.
By a lot, personally
YES. The AoU re-assessing has started. It’s a far more interesting movie than CW or IW, tbh. It fails at what it tries to do, but it’s this close to being a great movie.
I’m picturing your hands stretched pretty far apart when you say “this close”
You are on acid.
I agree that AoU is much less of a mess than Civil War.
I can’t agree. AoU neutered one of Marvel’s greatest villains while smacking me in the face with splash pages for 2.5 hours. I didn’t love CW or IW, but each one has moments that resonate with me more than pretty much anything in AoU. And Ultron? That was a Fox Marvel-level Ultron. Like, if they ever get around to folding Doom into the MCU, I hope like hell that they don’t fuck it up as badly as they did Ultron.FFS, by the time the Hulk/Hulkbuster fight rolled around (massive Hulk fan here), I was so fatigued by the previous beats/fights that it barely registered.
Man it’s scary/crazy/awesome how different people’s perspectives can be. Makes the world so much more entertaining. That being said, I’m so glad I don’t share this one
I stand by my belief that this movie should have just been 2 hours of the party at the beginning.
With enough time and booze, Rhodey’s story might have impressed an actual Avenger.
Counterpoint: seasons three and four of Sherlock. When franchises decide that all their fans want is banter and character work, everyone suffers.
That isn’t all I want…it was just better than the rest of the movie.
See also Archer
Partially agreed: they needed to find a better balance with the character stuff and the action scenes. I, for one, could have done without Hulk vs. the Hulkbuster suit.It is a fact that the reasons the MCU works so well is because it’s taken enough time to build its heroes as characters and to develop the character relationships. In contrast, look at the DCCU, where the characters are mostly a hot mess. They are seven movies in, and it feels barely coherent. Iron Man 3 was the 7th movie of the MCU. Look at how much better they’d established their core heroes by that point and found the right rhythm to which they could introduce more.
Maybe not have it replace this movie, but I would watch that movie.
90 minute long extended footage of just the party as a DVD extra. I’d be all for it.
Then you could put it on at your own parties and pretend they were your friends! I’d do that. I’m very lonely.
Dude, I just thought of this: what if the entire Ultron plot was contained to Stark Tower and played out more or less in real time? You have all these powerful heroes in lockdown trying to contain him from accessing the outside world, but he keeps shifting to and making new robot bodies based off Tony’s armor and even though it’s in a confined space, it just escalates until Tony and Banner get their hands on some tech and cobble together Vision to fight back.
Die Hard: Avengers actually sounds fucking great
Throw in a dash of “Aliens” as Ultron takes over the lower levels and starts manufacturing drones. The big fight scene where all the Avengers shred the drones can even begin with “THEY’RE COMING OUT OF THE WALLS!!!”
I think there is a Earth’s Mightiest Heroes episode where Tony is stuck in his tower and AIM(?) has infiltrated his systems and is using all of his tech against him. Eventually, Cap shows up to help him or something.
“Now I have a Mind Stone. Ho Ho Ho.”
It’s more like Andromeda Strain:Avengers
Eyes pop open, as does wallet.
Throw in a dash of The Raid and that might be the best MCU movie ever assemb–/is killed
I like that. You could have it be a standalone film and make it into a remake of ‘And Then There Were None’, with Ultron picking off the Avengers one by one until it gets down to Tony and Bruce. Then the two of them have to Science Bro the fuck out of things so they don’t die at the hands of a murderous robot. I’d watch that right now.
I said this in the comments of a prior ‘Age of Heroes’ article (can’t remember which one) and it bears repeating: if I had a first-born child, it would be given up by the time you finish reading this sentence to make a Dazed and Confused-style superhero movie happen.
It would have been a lot better. One of my chief complaints with Civil war is the “Heroes fighting” isnt really new because they spent all of Avengers (minus about a half hour) and all of AOU (minus a half hour) at each others throats.
If they could have coexisted with each other in AOU then Civil War (as much as I liked it) would have felt more special.
Wish they’d kept Ultron as the messed up Iron Man suit that he is when you first see him, was way creepier than his newer form.
Yeah, a patched, busted Iron Man suit would have been interesting. And maybe also driven home the point that Ultron is a byproduct of Tony’s fear and ambition run amuck?
I would’ve preferred Ultron to upgrade his body throughout the movie instead of like…twice.
The weirdest thing about this movie is that Tony is totally responsible for Ultron, but nobody ever seriously calls him out on that and the movie seems to actually forget this as it goes on. Tony’s guilt over creating Ultron is the subtext of his later character arc, but Ultron isn’t even mentioned by name in later movies (they use “Sokovia” as shorthand for the events of AoU), and Tony is never really given a scene where he says, “Maybe I shouldn’t have created that evil AI.” Leaving Ultron as a demented version of Stark armor would have made a lot more sense.
Ultron was mentioned by name in Thor: Ragnarok, though.
And Spider Man: Homecoming.
Visually, yeah, but did they use the name out loud? I can’t remember.
I’m pretty sure Toomes identifies it by name. Wouldn’t swear to it.
Shocker says it in the gun deal in the suburbs.
Cap calls him out at least twice (plus it’s not just his responsibility! Bruce and Wanda share that guilt t oo).
In Infinity War, when Banner asked Stark if he created another murder bot was great.
Yeah there are bits and pieces of this in the other movies as you guys are pointing out, I just feel like Tony Stark is let off the hook kind of easily after he gets that many people killed by creating Ultron. Also, the authorities have a quite reasonable reaction to all the devastation created by Ultron — “Hey next time can you give us a call before you do something like that?” — which leads half the Avengers to start punching people in the face.
okay but the ones who didn’t create the murderbot(s) I think are… understandably reluctant to be put on a leash when they didn’t do the deed.
The MCU in general has a weird two-step of letting Tony Stark fuck up but then letting him off for it.
Civil War had another big example of this – the first time Peter spoke up at the airport, Steve had a prime opportunity for a “Really, Tony? You’re going to let a kid get involved in this?” moment of moral high grounding.
Instead, everyone there faced with the prospect of fighting a young teenager goes “Fuck it! Time for school, boy!”
I feel like Natasha, in particular, might have something to say about a child being indoctrinated into a state-run supersoldier program.
Steve grew up when kids went to war at 16. Natasha grew up in a Soviet murder factory. Bruce was violently abused. Wanda and Pietro were pretty young. Steve calls her a kid (does this make Wanda and Jarvis creepy, they need to pin her age down) in Civil War. T’Challa was raised to be a warrior monk. These are the dark tones of the MCU Joss actually touched on in Ultron and look like they may be picked back up in the Window movie.
Ultron is referenced in Homecoming. Vulture’s crew made some of their weapons out of Ultron-drone arms if I remember right.
Seriously and then the government blames all the bad stuff on superheroes in general, forgetting the the vast majority of it was Tony’s doing in one way or another.
They lost something in translation when they adapted his design. There’s a menacing quality to his unmoving skull-like face and what I always imagined being a shrill robotic screech from the comic. I was disappointed this wasn’t captured by the anthropomorphic face and Spader’s dulcet tones. The messed up Iron Man suit during that first appearance was the only feint in that direction.
Definitely when he was scariest. Physically he looked very weak, but he was already so confident in his abilities that he made a strong first impression. If he hadn’t shifted to destroying the world and instead focused all his attention instead on destroying the Avengers, it’s likely he could have done it.
I know Whedon’s star has fallen, but dammit he was one of the most cinematic directors in the Marvel pantheon. The Russo’s are great with story and character beats, but they have no visual flare and the action has had diminishing returns since W.S.
I dunno. Their fight scenes are the most kinetic in the series, and some of the best in “mainstream cinema,” such as it is.All the kicking Cap does, etc.
I just watched Winter Soldier again yesterday and I forgot how much I loved that movie and how much physicality the action scenes had. I would really like to see them direct the next Cap movie or something a little smaller and more focused than Infinity War.
I’ll give you this: “All the kicking Cap does, etc.” is a pretty good description of what turns out to be the Russo aesthetic.
And that directorial choice does more to viscerally communicate Steve’s power than any previous director had managed when portraying him in a fight scene.I’m an OG Joss fan, but the Russos are much better at visually communicating characterization during group fight scenes
I do think they did a terrific job modernizing/reinterpreting Cap’s fighting style in Winter Soldier, which remains one of the best of these. But I’m sorry, if Scarlet Witch contorting her hands a bit during those (pretty cool) Civil War fight scenes counts as characterization, then the Fox TV series The Gifted is one of the most characterization-heavy dramas ever seen on television.
I’d say a better example of that would be Wanda manipulating Vision’s density-alteration powers to escape the Avengers compound. She’s using his abilities against him – exactly what Strucker trained her to do before she joined the Avengers. And you can see on her face that she’s conflicted about doing it, because she doesn’t want to be that person (and not to Vision, who’s gotten the closest to her of anyone on the team), but she does anyway.
And how they define Spidey’s visual aesthetic has a massive impact on how Watts characterizes him in the film.
That falls more under the realm of good acting than the Russos doing great visual characterization, which may seem like splitting hairs, and I’m sure they had a hand in her performance, but I don’t really see a lot of character coming through in the Russos’ post-Winter Soldier action sequences.
You’re right: that absolutely sounds like splitting hairs.
Hell, the differences between how Tony and Rhodes use their armor tells us a lot. Tony’s use of the repulsors are casual to the point of being dismissive, while rhodey goes over the top
Oh wow, Justice League was his last credited movie. I hope he’s just relaxing and enjoying his huge sacks of comic book movie money.
Seems like he’s gone back to TV. He’s working on a new show for HBO called The Nevers, and he apparently has another untitled show in the works for Freeform.
Whedon was cinematic? Avengers looked like a TV movie, and the only thing that changed with Ultron was the aspect ratio.
Hmmm, let’s see.vs.I mean, if you think there’s no real difference there, sure.
There’s a difference. Bottom one is TV. Top one is $200 million TV.
Sure, Jan.
Shooting a big blockbuster in 1:85 was unusual in 2012, and I think that, combined with the fact that Whedon was most well-known for TV, is a big factor in all the “It looks like TV!” criticism that the first Avengers received from some quarters. What many people miss is that the 1:85 was chosen in large part to make the movie more immersive in 3D, and that the movie was photographed with an eye towards making the movie extra effective in that format. It was about creating a specific kind of cinematic experience, even moreso than the rest of the Marvel movies, most of which treat the 3D conversion as an afterthought.
This is an odd take, seeing as how the most common criticism levied against Whedon is that he’s not nearly cinematic enough.
But like… who in the realm of these movies has him beat, visually speaking?Coogler, for sure. He’s terrific. There are actually memorable images in Black Panther outside of the action sequences.The Russos? They re-use a lot of the same tricks and for some reason they’ve convinced Marvel that desaturating color whenever possible makes their movies look grown-up. Their fight scenes with Cap are cool, definitely, but their sequences, especially in their later entries, rarely have that kind of extra logistical kick you get from a well-orchestrated set piece (the airport fight excepted—again, pretty fun fight scenes in their stuff, sure). Waititi is a delight and I like some of the visual flair in Ragnarok, but a lot of what he brings to it is an organic, genuinely weird sense of humor. Favreau? His strength seems to be working with actors. No small thing when those Iron Man movies were establishing the whole MCU, but they’re not especially memorable-looking. Shane Black is like Favreau Plus. I’d give some credit to Joe Johnston and Kenneth Branagh—their movies look very different from each other and from a lot of the other MCU movies—but neither of their movies have a sustained set piece as good as the Battle of New York.Rewatching the first two Avengers movies recently, I was struck by how well Whedon does with the action—and I know they have Action People who supposedly plan out a lot of that stuff regardless of who the director is, but something has to explain why the action sequences in Ultron are splash-panel ready, integrate character moments really well, and feel distinct from one another, while there isn’t a single memorable action sequence in all of Captain Marvel.
Your dismissal of Ragnarok’s excellent staging of action sequences and peppering mini-paintings all over the movie to underscore the mythologicall ballad that is Thor is super weird. Alongside Strange and Guardians 2, it’s the most visually ambitious and realized film in the entire MCU, but it gets passed over as “eh okay” in favor of Black Panther, where the film only really works visually in wide shots of Wakanda (because for all of Coogler’s talent, Disney skimped on the budget for fight sequences, which feature Justice League-level of CGI).
There are great visual moments in Ragnarok which, to be clear, is a top-5 MCU film for me. But there are also plenty of scenes that err on the side of slightly washed-out/overlit. Taken as a whole, I wouldn’t call it vastly more cinematic than Whedon’s movies, especially Age of Ultron.
Guardians 2 is a good point, though (I mean, Doctor Strange has some great-looking stuff, but I found it so uninvolving that it sort of canceled out the Inception-knockoff imagery, which I did enjoy). I think that movie is really underappreciated for how playful it is on a visual level. And I thought 2 was actually a pretty big step up from 1. And RE: Black Panther, the imagery in the afterlife really stuck with me, and Coogler puts together a pretty cool long-ish take around the casino in that early action sequence, and I love that upside-down shot of Kilmonger ascending to the throne… the movie probably isn’t as visually impressive as Creed, but I just mean in terms of overall sensibility, Coogler has a strong hand behind the camera in a way that a lot of MCU folks do not.
Killmonger burning the garden, and walking into the throne room, are both stunning shots.
Also, I will say that the reason I was so let down by Watiti’s handling of Skurge (and the Warriors Three, but that a whole ‘nother can of worms) is how iconic a lot of his other shots felt.He failed to meet the bar he’d set for himself, while adapting the most iconic scene in any Thor comic ever written (give or take Thor’s battle against the serpent…or Baldur’s escape from Hel…or Bill gaining the power, but not the name because that would be inane, of Thor. There might be a theme here!)
I rewatched the bridge battle (after Thor has realised he doesn’t need his hammer anymore) just the other day, and damn if it isn’t a great sequence. I feel like Waititi kept two things very much in mind: these are gods, the fighting will look epic, and Thor is a thunder god, so let’s see what having the ability to fling lightning around really looks like.
I see how you straight up forgot Gunn.
Guardians has some truly great visuals. Particularly the opening credits.
Your description of Guardians also applies to Snyder’s Watchmen! 😉
OK, that’s trolling a little. I do think Guardians Vol. 2 in particular has some visual flair. In that case, it’s more that I prefer Whedon’s sometime cutesy cleverness to Gunn’s, though I do think Guardians V2 is kind of underrated.
To be fair, the opening credits is the best part of Watchman. Yes, the song choice was a little on the nose, but it was a great way to introduce WHY and HOW this world is different without taking up much time at all.
it’s Snyder, all the song choices are on the nose
Half the song choices in Watchmen were taken from the book, including “The Times They Are A-Changin”.
James Wan. Aquaman might be a total mess plot/characterwise, but it’s nothing if not cinematic. The dialogue scenes and action scenes actually look like part of the same movie and there’s kinetic energy to the way they’re filmed.(Unless you meant Marvel-only, in which case James Gunn is the closest to it)
Yeah, I meant Marvel only. I think Nolan and Raimi and (sorryyyyyy) even Singer are very good at this stuff for the most part, and yeah, I liked Wan’s movie a lot, too.
Whedon does two things very well:1. He can shoot and write a scene with, say, six-to-nine people and give each person in that scene a clear position and voice, so it’s both clear and dynamic. AoU has several of scenes like that (the Hammer scene, the argument after the first fight with Ultron, the scene after Vision’s creation).2. He knows how to make the “splash page” cinematic. For all people talk about Marvel being “quick edits” or such (which… I got to be real, it’s just not true), he loves long, clear shots with full action in them.
What? lololol.
Counterpoint: Whedon thinks he’s a better director than he is, copies a few standard tricks that others have done better (Cuaron’s long takes, Snyder’s fast-slow-fast) and ends up serving up extremely cornball shots. Compare the assault on the Hydra stronghold from Age of Ultron with the airport battle in Civil War, and the former feels downright sophomoric.
I’ll go one further and say Whedon isn’t as great a writer as he thinks he is. Yeah he’s great as punchy dialogue and character set-pieces, but it’s the trick he goes back to most frequently regardless of who or what he’s writing for. First “Avengers” it worked fine, but “Age of Ultron” it felt really tedious.
Look up his AV Club interview talking about “Alien: Resurrection”. He comes off as really petulant, egotistical, and kind of unprofessional. All of his points come back to “Everything would have been better if they just stuck to my script”, which is code for “Everything would have been better if they’d listened to me, because I’m awesome.” He said the same things about his script for “X-Men”, and I’m like “Dude, you wrote the ‘toad gets struck by lightning’ joke, don’t blame a shitty joke like that on the director.”
How ironic that at the end of the day, he needed Marvel more than they needed him. If he’s willing to talk that much shit about his collaborators, I’m not surprised he hasn’t got much else in the pipeline lately.
I uh,,, thought this was a given by now. “I, Joss Whedon, am a brilliant genius who keeps having his vision ruined by studios” is a story he’s been selling since the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie in ‘92. :|P.S. uhhhh don’t you know that the “toad gets struck by lightning joke” was ALSO genius, and Halle Berry just screwed up the delivery? Truly, success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan, specifically because Joss abandoned it to go make another tv show/movie about a hot girl who can kick.
I actually think Whedon is personally responsible for a lot of the negative vibes Ultron received on it’s initial release. I remember just about every interview with him at the time being mostly about how tired and over it all he was, and how Marvel wouldn’t let him do everything he wanted to do. He made his own movie feel like a lame duck before it even came out.
One hand, I can understand exhaustion from trying to film a movie on the scale of “Ultron” while also trying to balance corporate brand management and expansion. Other hand, tons of people work on these films and all did the best they could, and by all accounts made a good, successful film (which even I’ll say “Ultron” still is, in spite of my problems with it). It just feels in bad taste to constantly complain in public and shit all over the entire experience once it’s over.
Or to put it more succinctly…
FANS: Wow! You got to direct two of the biggest movies ever!
JOSS: Waaaaah it was so hard lemme tell you how hard it was…
“Toad that gets struck by lightning” was supposed to be the payoff of a running joke, but for some reason they cut all the buildup to it yet kept that last one. It’s like cutting “Why did the chicken cross the road?” but keeping “To get to the other side.”
Sounds like it must have been some awesome joke.
Ehh, maybe, maybe not. I’m just saying that if they cut all the setup, then they should’ve cut the punchline too.
I’m gonna go to bat for him that in his Buffy era, at least, he was one of the best writers and directors TV had ever seen. I mean the man wrote The Body, that’s proof enoughpost-Buffy? yeah, haven’t really cared for anything he’s done. the first Avengers is a pretty good movie, but he just completely abandoned all the weird existentialism that made him so interesting originally
Counterpoint: even The Body doesn’t hold up because Joss is incapable of writing characters who feel things deeply without blurting out every anguished thought they have.
I love that airport battle in Civil War but you really think it’s… visually sophisticated? It’s a competently shot scene where a lot of really cool stuff is happening.
Wait until you see how far Whedon’s star will fall. I come from the future.
do you even like these movies?
This was my least favorite MCU movie… partly because of the title. It should have been called 3 Days of Ultron or something.
Avengers: Weekend of Ultron
Weekend at Ultron’s
That one is my favorite.
Obviously, because it’s the best.
Avengers: In the Future, Every Ultron Will Be Famous for 15 Minutes.
3 Days in the Valley of Ultron
Complete with Wanda/Natasha bedroom catfight?
Please?
Ultron’s….iron.
‘24-Hour Ultron People’.
I rewatched Avengers 1 and 2 yesterday, and even if it doesn’t quite reach the heights of 1, Ultron is still one of my favs. There are a lot of plot points that are glossed over too quickly, like the creation of Vision, and I wish we’d gotten to see a Director’s Cut that fleshed out those things better. But there are a lot of great character moments, and I love Spader’s Ultron.Ultimately I agree that the Russos are better at making this type of film, but Whedon really excels at balancing humor and pathos.
Whedon was better at handling the cast, instead of the plot.
AoU’s main issues are its pacing and its muddy themes – like, Clint’s speech about what being an Avenger is is both one of the greatest parts of the movies and also completely unrelated to anything else. Excising South Korea + Thor’s subplot (so just farmhouse -> Sokovia) would have been way better
Excising South Korea removes the how behind Vision’s creation, and more importantly, removes the turning point for Wanda and Pietro.
You can have that happen in NY. The issue is that they go to SK and then back to the US and then to Sokovia. You can have Helen Cho in the Tower and the twins turning point being there too.
I suppose that’s true, but a stated goal in the production of this one was to make it feel more international. Scenes in South Africa and South Korea were specifically to make it less US-Centric.
The scene in Johannesburg that makes no geographical sense? The bits in Stereotypical Balkan Country? That was supposed to make it look less US-centric?
Are you saying Easterneuropistan did not have a rich sense ofworld-building? Pshaw!
I mean, Sokovia is pretty central to the story, and I don’t know what’s explicitly non-sensical about the geography in Johannesburg. (I mean, yeah, presumably there’s an odd bit of distance between the tankers and the downtown, but it doesn’t have to be that far.) But more importantly, having the Avengers here taking unilateral action worldwide with no oversight ties directly to the plot of Civil War. To go back to your original thing: it seems you don’t mind the plot points that happen with Helen Cho, the cradle and the train, you just don’t want them in South Korea. And I’m not sure why beyond “travel time”, which isn’t really presented as a big thing here. The quinjets seem hypersonic enough to circle the globe pretty quickly.
Sokovia is a really common, shallow stereotype of the Balkans. Johannesburg is more than 500 km away from the coast. It’s still a very US-centric movie and totalling Seoul doesn’t detract from that.I do mind the train and the craddle! It’s a very long detour for no real reason. It stops the pacing and muddles the second half of the movie. Streamlining it would make it feel less confusing, bring out the themes and make the climax work better.
I think like the cave scene, involving Thor in Vision’s creation was just unnecessary clutter. Cut that out and the scene might have breathed a bit better, even if it means Thor has fuck-all to do.
I like the Thor Vision creation scene. It is hard to cut stuff and have a story there.Maybe if they changed the Thor bath scene, showing Thanos and the infinity stones instead of, whatever they showed?The 2 scenes together make no sense as is, but it is hard to have one without the other.
It just felt cluttered to me. Like, Vision built a new body that turned on him, ok. That’s about the extent of his comics origin iirc. They put Jarvis in: yeah, if you say so, even if it’s just an excuse to reuse the actor. Magic lightning on top of that is an ingredient too many. It felt like they just wanted to give Thor a dramatic entrance, because it’s never mentioned again.I don’t think his bathtime dream was a prerequisite either, as he’s already well familiar with infinity stones after the events of Avengers 1 and Thor 2. He could’ve just gone, “guys, I suspect that that be an infinity stone”.Had they used it as a stinger at the end, it would have served to tease Ragnarok and Infinity War without contributing to the overstuffed-ness of AOU.
And Vision now has 4 dads. One of which he helps murder…..5 if you count Banner. And one is his grandpa!
StarkThorBannerUltronJarvis
And none of them are Simon Williams. I weep.
#ReleaseTheWhedonCut
Elizabeth Olsen’s shaky Natasha voice might be the worst accent I recall being used in a major film.
I dunno… Halle Berry’s in X-Men is pretty rough.
Don Cheadle in Ocean’s Eleven for me.
Wasn’t he trying to be bad, though? I mean, I hope so.
We have a winner!
Does John Malkovich’s Russian accent from Rounders count?
There’s also Malkovich’s Russian accent from Billions.
The Devil’s Advocate comes to mind for me.
“LOSE? AH DON’T LOSE! AH WIN! I AM A LAWYER! THAT’S MAH JOB! THAT’S WHAT AH DO!”Reeves is pretty consistently enjoyable in much of his work, but his southern accent in that movie…oof.
Timothy Dalton going German at the end of The Rocketeer sounds like Craig Ferguson.
As a native Sokovian I was quite insulted.
I’m just glad they cast real Sokovian Daniel Bruhl in Civil War.
Those legs make up for it.
And, it just got worse and worse. She was barely even trying in Infinity War.
I know this was discussed yesterday but wow, this column really is starting the lean heavily on the “this is what was shit about this particular film” theme, huh? It almost turns it into a point at the end, only for it to quickly turn back into “Then again, Endgame will probably fuck it up” Also, “here’s where a studio had growing pains learning how to balance a film’s story with expanding its universe” was the point of the Iron Man 2 column. I’m not saying Ultron doesn’t share that issue but, 5 years and 8 films later, it’s hardly a new thing.
As I mentioned in the IM2 comments, both IM2 and AoU had the difficult position of being A. sequel to a surprise hit and B. having to do heavy lifting in a worldbuilding burst. And I think audiences resent B, in as much as so many sequel-bait failures over the years have trained us to be annoyed at at thing that’s setting up stuff that we think won’t actually come.I mean, even in this movie, where the MCU continuing for a while was a solid lock, many of us subconsciously thought they could never really pull off Infinity War.
Yeah. Tomorrow won’t be Luis’ frantic monologues, or how Hank Pym having been a superhero broadens and deepens the MCU’s history, it will be how Yellowjacket is a crap villain.
Or the article will bemoan Edgar Wright leaving and use Luis’ dialogue as an example of how much better the movie overall could have been. That’s the common talking point with Ant-Man.
I forgot about that. Guaranteed that’s mentioned.
And wasn’t Luis’ speech actually NOT something Wright did?
Yeah, that was Peyton Reed’s idea.
Funny thing– apparently Luis’s storytelling never came from Wright, even though people consider it the definitive “this is what Wright’s version would have been like” bit. That came all from Payton Reed’s team.
Interesting, seems like you’re right and I never knew that.
Pyton Reed was as an inspired choice for the Ant Man movies as the Rusos were for Cap and Coogler was for BP. Honestly, I will watch AM and AM&TW more than I ever will the Guardians movies. GOTG was great, but GOTG 2 only had some great scenes. Both of Reed’s movies hold up as coherent films.I am not looking forward to Dr Strange’s next outing. Bottom 3 MCU flick and they bring Derickson back.
My guess is the Ant-Man/Falcon fight, as they tend to be leaning on scenes that grow the Big Picture. That or the Peggy/Howard/Hank scene in the beginning.
WAAAAAAH someone said something MEAN about my comic book movies!!!!
I think the Ant-Man “Marvel Moment” will highlight how the film told a more lighthearted, lower stakes, and self-contained story, serving as a bit of a palate cleanse after several films of heavy themes and world-building. In that respect, the Luis monologues would make a fine representation, although I’d pick something featuring Paul Rudd as the MCU’s first hero who’s really just a regular shmo with a relatively un-fantastic life.Alternatively, they could go with the opening scene of a de-aged Michael Douglas. The technology has been revisited often in the MCU, opening up the series to casting older actors as marquee Marvel characters while also establishing that heroes existed between First Avenger and Iron Man and that these characters existed before we officially meet them.
Yellowjacket is weirdly a not-great villain, but Corey Stoll plays him with SUCH GLEE that he’s compelling to watch. It’s like if Ursula was trying to destroy Paul Rudd.
I’m imagining Paul Rudd in Little Mermaid cosplay now – thanks for that image…
He does the most with absolutely nothing. Great casting.
This comment aged well…
The AV Club, and seemingly every other outlet, is too busy praising GoT to give any other franchise credit.
These articles highlight the scenes that most emblemize what their respective films represent in the journey of the ‘grand MCU experiment’. Not the Avengers’ journey, but Marvel Studios’ journey of bringing this behemoth to life, simultaneously maintaining and growing it. For better or worse, Ultron was the point that the fan-pleasing easter eggs momentarily exceeded their grasp. Lore teases and sequel-bait, largely unrelated to the movie’s central plot, had previously been relegated to the mid- and -post credits, or otherwise were hidden in the margins. They were bonuses for the die-hard fans to notice, obsess over, or enjoy an inside joke, while mainstream audiences could literally take or leave them while still understanding the film they just paid to see.Ultron put these teases front and center in the film itself, narrative detours that distracted from the central tale of a still-young team of superheros battling the genocidal A.I. that two of them secretly built. Even positive reviews for the film singled out Thor’s plot-halting side trip as a misstep, and Marvel responded by course correcting, dialing it back in future films in the MCU.The things that were done well in Ultron (the angst, the banter, the heroism) largely continued what had already been established in earlier films. The reception to “Thor goes to a cave” is what most influenced how these films were made moving forward.I predict these Marvel Moment articles are about to get very positive again very soon.
“I predict these Marvel Moment articles are about to get very positive again very soon.”If you think the AV club will pass up any opportunity to shit on the MCU…I disagree.
WAAAAAAH someone said something MEAN about my comic book movies!!!!
Yeah, this is a really sour pick. For all that I like Whedon, the fact that this scene played a role in him leaving Marvel isn’t big news in the larger scheme of things. Over the last 5 years, I really haven’t heard anybody say, “If only Joss Whedon was still in charge of the Avengers movies, the MCU would be much better.”Unlike the Avengers, which was the culmination of a lot of setup, most of Age of Ultron was setup for things to come in the next phase. The Thor pool scene was just the clumsiest bit of it, but you can hardly go anywhere in the story without it alluding to some “next movie.” If I was going to pick a scene that said something about both AoU and the MCU as a whole, I’d go with the Johanssen/Ruffalo “But I need the Other Guy,” scene. It had the setup of future projects (straight path from there to Thor: Ragnarok, in a less clumsy way), plus you have the controversy over the Natasha/Bruce romance. Or you could go with the scene everyone talks about when discussing AoU—one of the MCU’s absolute best scenes in a movie that’s not very good overall—the party scene with everyone trying to lift Thor’s hammer. Picking the pool scene seems like the kind of thing you do just to be a jerk.
It’s worth noting that this movie has little to do with the Event book Age of Ultron of which it was named after. In fact, Ultron was barely in the book at all. It’s more accurate to call it Wolverine and Sue Storm’s Whacky Time Travel Murder Adventure. In fact, the only long term consequence of the event was that it introduced Angela into the Marvel Universe, which also had nothing to do with Ultron.
That whole “event” was just peak-Bendis.
Peak Bendis, and peak “wanting-to-keep-an-expensive-artist-we-have under-exclusive-contract-busy-on-something-without-deadlines”.
Yes, the movie AoU derives more source material from Ultron’s origin (substituting Stark for Pym), “Behold the Vision!”, and some stray superficial plot elements from Ultron Unlimited.
Marvel needed Angela in the mainstream continuity. They had a real shortage of busty women wearing bikinis as superhero costumes.
To be fair, she is in a relationship with trans woman.
That’s pretty dope.
Ant-Man had four credited screenwriters and a replacement director, and it still wasn’t even close to being as disjointed as Age of Ultron.
“Disjointed” is an absurd statement. AoU is about as coherent a movie as possible with 10 main characters.
Age of Ultron was a mess of a movie mainly due to decisions made around Ultron himself, I think. So much of this film feels disconnected from everything going on in the other films, which is partially why I think it sticks out so much.
Yes it’s a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess.
But then, I was born yesterday.
Both Wanda and Vision were so much interesting in AoU.
I recently rewatched AoU and that was my same feeling. Wanda as a strange witch who screws with people’s heads is more compelling than Wanda as “basically a telekinetic except with red vapor.” And Vision’s “yes, they’re doomed, but it’s nice to watch them try,” is philosophically very different from anything he shows in the later films.
I wonder how they’re going to eventually handle Jean Grey in the MCU since they more or less gave her exact powerset to Wanda. And while AoU has many flaws, including not at all justifying why Tony would/should go through with creating Vision after the Ultron disaster, I think Vision himself is a highlight; his ending conversation/fight with Ultron, is such a great scene – surprisingly quiet, funny (“I was born yesterday”), and poignant.
I think they handled Vision’s intro very well and I think Paul Bettany was a great choice to play him. I just don’t think they used him particularly well in Civil War / Infinity War.Re: Jean, my hope will always, always, always be that Marvel sits on the X-Men for a few years and then reboots the whole thing as its own franchise, completely independent of the rest of the MCU. That’s probably a pipe dream, but we’ll see. I don’t think they need to be in the same universe as the Avengers.
Second. I don’t mind Marvel bringing some of their movie magic to the X-Men, I just don’t see them fitting in at all with the rest of the MCU. Let them be their own thing.
I mean, we’re 2 months away from the second Phoenix Saga movie, so maybe the MCU could just…not do Jean Grey?
“I wonder how they’re going to eventually handle Jean Grey in the MCU”Hopefully they don’t bother.
Yep! Even the romance that AoU hints at would have been more interesting.
I do miss her having some of the weirder mind powers of AoU. A scene I always wanted in one of these movies was a bunch of gun-toting thugs coming up to Wanda and some other Avengers getting ready to fire, then the camera pans to her moving her hands around, and the camera pans back to the bad guys and their just holding their guns and making little kid-like gun noises with their mouths while not actually firing.
That’d be a lot more fun than how they’ve used her since AOU!
Yes, I loved Wanda and Vision’s scenes here.
This is the movie where I stopped being a marvel fan. I still go to the movies within 2 weeks of them opening. I just hated this gratuitous disaster porn of a movie. Dropping cities out of the sky. I just felt Marvel overran it own feet. I was just done.
Hard disagree. A good alternate thesis for this article would be how much it was a counter-point to Man of Steel, with its city-destroying collateral-damage-ignoring final battle. Cap specifically says something to the effect of “we need to save these people to prove we’re better than Ultron says”.And if *that* wasn’t enough, there’s an entire movie (Civil War, itself a superior counter-point to Batman v. Superman) that deals with the consequences of the destruction of this movie.
I liked civil war for its smallness. I don’t watch movies as comparisons of other movies just was getting marvel over elaborated universe tired by this movies. I am OK with others disagreeing.
“Ultron says we’re monsters. It’s not just about beating him, it’s about whether he’s right.”Everything in the movie is about balancing their superheroism with their humanity. Everyone at some point calls themselves monstrous– except Clint. Because Clint is the guy who is at ease with his balance between the two.
I’d venture that when your superpower is “really good with a weapon that’s been obsolete for four centuries”, it’s hard to get a big head about it.
And I think one of the more interesting things about the movie — and one reason I don’t much mind that Tony creates Vision even after creating Ultron — is that it shows a lot of the characters accepting their more monstrous side (regardless of what Cap says). Hulk takes off, feeling like he can’t live responsibly on the Earth anymore. Cap commits to being a lifelong soldier, not finding a way to settle down; Natasha seems to do this, too. Tony commits more acts of hubris to combat his previous act of hubris.
If AVC is feeling contrarian, it might just pick the “General Ross and team discuss the accords” scene to represent Civil War for just this reason.
That’s a good scene, though…..unless you’re one of those people who forgets that Ross is power-hungry & obviously prejudiced against anything that even potentially makes Bruce Banner look good.
So much of the final act was just The Avengers evacuating people and bringing them to safety. It had to have been a direct response to Man of Steel.
I mean, in the movie destroying a whole city/nation was a bad thing. If that’s not a rebuttal to Man of Steel, nothing is!
That hang out party scene is the best part of the movie. I would watch two hours of that
Scene is so overrated now. Everyone loves the hammer scene that they forget the other cringeworthy shit surrounding it. Tony and Thor arguing over their girlfriend’s and then Hill doing the fake cough thing? Yikes.
I love this movie despite how much of a limp dick Ultron is. I have no idea what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, or what he aims to accomplish by doing it, but there are so many cool moments scattered throughout that I don’t care. And man, I could watch a whole movie of just the party scene. Just the team hanging out, drinking, talking shit, flexing on each other, Scarlett looking absolutely stunning and wooing a giant nerd like Bruce, all of it. Such good chemistry between all of them.
Here’s my thing about Ultron’s motivation: it’s basically evil robot will destroy humanity because we’re too petty and destructive to let live, which is boring and has been done. Here’s what I want from an Ultron storyline; I’ve literally just come up with it, so it’s pretty sketchy at the moment.Tony creates Ultron to be an AI that will protect the world. Instead of hating humanity, Ultron feels a deep, protective love for us, but is saddened by the way we hurt each other all the time. Keep the “getting on the internet and trashing JARVIS” parts. Ultron learns all about the Avengers and is inspired by the “there was a plan” speech. He adopts it into a plan of his own. Using the Mind Stone’s powers, he will link the psyches of every human on the planet (bring them together) and merge them, selectively taking the best of humanity (creativity, empathy, courage) while removing the negatives (fear, hatred, greed). He’ll then merge this human aggregate mind with his programming, uploading it first to himself and then everyone on the planet. He needs two things to do this: a new body, like in the original film but this time he gets to keep it, and some kind of massive broadcasting computer thingie. When the Avengers try to stop him, he unleashes his army of robot clones worldwide to keep them busy while the Mind Stone program generates. This gives the Avengers two choices: go after all the Ultrons around the world to stop them killing people, or destroy his machine while people die. (The Avengers call him out on killing people he claims to love, but he’ll just use the “omelette, eggs” excuse.) They have to split up to stop his clones and it soon becomes apparent that they don’t have enough firepower. The solution comes when they realise JARVIS is still “alive”, and can get past Ultron’s firewalls after his tussle with him earlier. They manage to upload JARVIS to Ultron’s machine and wipe the program, instead broadcasting JARVIS to all of the other Ultrons out there and shutting them down. Finally, the Mind Stone (which now has JARVIS in it) is installed into the main Ultron, purging that program and creating Vision.
I like that! There must be a million ways to do the ‘I’m trying to save humanity from itself’ storyline that was clearly Joss’ intent here without having it turn out quite so clunky. I don’t hate the rest of the film. I rewatched it again during my MCU rewatch leading up to Infinity War, and minus all the clunkiness, I still enjoyed all the stuff in there that’s worthwhile. It’s mid-to-lower-tier MCU for me.I honestly think Joss let Ultron get bogged down in all his monologuing, which is ironic, really, because I’ve always seen Ultron as a bit of a stand-in for Joss himself. Think about it – he has good ideas and is ridiculously capable, but at the same time, he hates the system in which he has to operate to bring his ideas to fruition. I’ve often thought that instead of Spader (who did a great job with the voice, despite the script he had to work from), Joss himself would’ve been a fantastic choice for the voice of Ultron. Think about how Joss talks right now, and tell me you couldn’t hear Ultron saying some of the very same things in his very same voice. It would work like gangbusters. Someone should take some of Joss’ interviews or whatever and match it up to Ultron’s weird-ass mouth movements just to prove me right. That would be a hoot.
Not that I minded the flick at all – in fact I quite enjoyed it – but this was the movie where I started thinking “Jeeze, this thing is really creaking under the weight of it’s own continuity.”As much as I like the current crew, restarting after Avengers IV is probably for the best.
As popular as it is to blame the Studio for Age of Ultron, I think the majority of what doesn’t work can be laid at Whedon’s feet. Ultron doesn’t come across as menacing and way too much script real estate is spent on trying to subvert our expectations on Hawkeye getting killed off.
There is a good and bad to this scene.The bad: If you’ve seen the deleted scene on the home disc version you know this scene was originally a lot worse.The good: There are a bunch of hilarious outtakes of Selvig talking to his students just prior to meeting Thor.
This is the only MCU movie other than Thor 2 and Captain Marvel (still in theaters) that I have never rewatched. It likely isn’t that bad but all I remember is pure disappointment.
Thor 2 (because of bad), Captain Marvel (because of still in theatres) and Black Panther (because I want to properly see it in one sitting and time is scarce) are the ones I haven’t rewatched. Iron Man 3 is one I’ve given up on rewatching.I think AoU is in the same league as GotG2 with the “was this as disappointing as I remembered” rewatches.
I think Thor’s spooky pool vision could have worked with just one key difference: they should’ve made it the post-credits scene.
One other way it could have worked: Thor could have been entirely nude, it could have been in slow motion, and it could have been 45 minutes long.
I personally do not want that, but I respect and understand the market for it. Now I want to see actors from the movies replace topless women in sexy scenes from 80s movies. Like Helmsworth doing the Fast Times pool scene. A different Chris can do Christmas Vacation. Ect.But have Johanson and Ruffalo do the scene from Back to School where Mellon walks in on the sorority girl. Just to hear Ruffalo scream and Johanson deliver the “your perfect” line all goofy eyed.
I always loved those 80s cop movies that would have the police bust into a strip club for absolutely no reason, just so they could get some T&A in there. To follow your suggestion, the strip club would feature RDJ, Don Cheadle and Paul Rudd.
I agree, Elba is too on the nose.
Of COURSE you’d pick this scene. When the AV Club folds, the last article will be about how much Age of Ultron sucks because Thor spends 20 seconds of its 142 minute run time in a pool in a cave.
This is my favorite Avengers movie. A lot of really great character works, and some beautiful cinematography.
Probably my biggest issue with AoU was in Ultron creating an army of brinless drones of himself for the Avengers to smash. It’s a bit of a dull repeat of the first Avengers, just swap out the Chitauri with Ultron clones.They should’ve had just one Ultron using his superior AI and vibranium exosckeleton combating the Avengers, tapping into Earth’s defense computers, drones and fighter jets to throw at them instead.
Exactly. Ultron could be anywhere and everywhere, but instead he lines up his entire army of himself in one place and lets the Avengers take him out like bowling pins. Plus, if his argument is that humanity is too destructive to be left alive, wouldn’t taking over the planets many weapons systems be a great illustration of this. “Your violence has already given me everything I need to destroy you.”
Shoulda been the party. It was the first time we got to watch these people do anything together outside of an emergency and really showed how well inhabited the roles and the world were. The cave scene was just an unmemorable mistake. Not even the point of this series.
No, I think nitpicky shots at weak, continuity-building scenes is pretty much the point of this series.
Whedon can complain about studio interference all he wants, but he was responsible for the Hulk/Black Widow romance, for making Black Widow a damsal in distress, and calling her a monster because she was sterilized.
All these years later and I still find the decision to ship those two odd.
The bulk of their prior screentime is varying degrees of Banner warning/threatening about what he’s capable of and then Hulking out and trying to kill her.
Now, this isn’t to say a bridge is burned on that alone, but to go right from that to flirtation and fuck-eyes at the party requires some extra legwork in between to avoid looking kind of creepy. And given Banner’s ability to do standalone movies is limited thanks to the Universal rights, Whedon probably should have been a bit more aware when he set up the stage their relationship was at and slowed his roll.
As it is now, it feels like it happened simply because he wanted it to happen and couldn’t be bothered to really justify it beyond ‘Eh, shit happened between movies. Don’t ask me to explain.’
That wasn’t what was going on in that scene. Banner had brought up being a monsters and not being able to have kids. BW countered with the forced sterilization story to convey that him not being able to have kids isn’t a problem and he isn’t the only one screwed up in the room. She used the word monster to describe herself because that was the word he was using to describe himself not necessarily because she sees herself that way.
Also, captured though she was, I’d be hard pressed to call her a damsel in distress. She was responsible for getting herself help as quickly as she did by sending up the Morse Code that Clint picked up. She probably would have broken out herself if she had anything in the cell to do it with.
Also, it’s clear to me that she calls herself a monster not because she’s sterile, but because she WORKED FOR AN ORGANIZATION THAT STERILIZES PEOPLE TO MAKE THEM BETTER ASSASSINS, which objectively speaking is kind of monstrous?? So I feel like it tracks and that scene is pretty misinterpreted. Maybe could have used a little more breathing room to make that clear, but still, come on.
If that’s what he was going for, then it’s monumentally crappy writing, because as written, Natasha is saying, “Because I’ll never have kids, the only thing I could find more important than a mission, I’m so much better at killing people.” The lines link one to the other.
And don’t forget Tony’s “prima notca” rape joke! A lot of this movie was a good reminder to me of how poorly Whedon’s work has held up for me.
I still hate how Ultron’s mouth moves and contains no Kirby crackle.
Yes! I am not a fan of the design. Loses everything cool and terrifying about the comic version.
There was almost no way the Avengers sequel could’ve been considered a better or important movie than the universally beloved, a then-one-of-a-kind original. Ultron’s odd plan to end life on earth notwithstanding, there’s a lot to like about the movie. The final fight scene in the church was pretty goddamned great.
I’ve always thought of it like this: Whedon (unintentionally, I’m sure) perfectly captured the feeling of reading through one of those 90s mutli-series comic crossovers, like Acts of Vengeance or Operation: Galactic Storm.
A giant story that is padded out and paced all wonky, simultaneously overstuffed and rushed, with editorially mandated plot developments, awkward connective plot scenes, and epic action scenes and “momentous” revelations.This movie is a bit of a mess, and it’s not one of my favorite MCU films, but I still love it. It’s still time spent watching all these characters interact on screen, still time spent seeing favorite comic stories adapted into a movie, still time spent in this wonderful world.
Although Acts of Vengeance DOES contain that great scene with Magneto demolishing the Skull!
Exactly. Those long overly complicated crossovers may not hold together as nicely paced stories, but if they were any good, they had more than a few awesome moments and scenes. Like this movie.
Leave it to Agents of SHIELD to give us a better version of Ultron down the line (although Ultron had the better final scene/ending for sure).
Proof movies are ruined because people are stupid.
I was so stoked when I saw the design for Ultron in summer 2014 and was assuming they would keep that menacing look the entire movie
Then they basically had him “self-evolve” into a character straight out of that animated Robots movie
My one big quibble with AoU is Ultron’s motivations. I really wish they would have given him more of a messiah complex, which only becomes genocidal after he’s rejected by the world.
This one’s grown on me. I mean, it’s not great, and most of the criticisms are valid, but it’s definitely better on a 2nd viewing, and the themes seem more coherent.
I remember seeing AoU and being a little “well that was slightly disappointing” but not nearly as bummed as I was by Civil War. With the latter, it was painful realising that they just wasted a Cap movie on a Teamup. I think that the oddest thing is that all the complaints about AoU are even more valid about CW.Mainly: you had to know/watch a fuckton of shit (from previous movies) in order to make a coherent story/character understanding out of Civil War. Isn’t there an understanding that this a characteristic that’s meant for “Avengers” movies?
– How does Zemo get the codebook file from that guy? and who is that guy? and what is the codebook for? Ah, yes, we had to know and remember Winter Soldier and AoU details to know he was a Hydra officer, the codebook was for Bucky, and that it was released during Black Widows big intelligence dump.- Who is Zemo and why is he and the other Avengers so frown’y and grumpy? Ah, yes, we had to know from AoU that an entire city got bounced up and down off the earth. Don’t worry, we’ll also get told (not shown) – always great storytelling principle – that Zemo’s family was there.- What are the individual personalities of all 257 characters involved in the Airport fight and how does that explain the meaning of all of their quips and why they’re “funny” references? Ah, yes, that’s simple. Just watch every other movie ever made (including Empire Strikes Back).- Why was the Airport fight just a little boring? Ah, ye- hmm… nevermind, nothing explains how the Russo’s made that happen.
– What is the meaning of this flashback (I’m specifically referring to the 4th out of the 13 they had, of course) and was the whole movie another flashback within a flashback and also where is The Flash? Wait, was he the one in the red suit that jumped in at the beginning of the Airport fight?- If Baron Zemo doesn’t have superpowers, than how do you explain his improbable ability to keep superpowered heroes trapped in a room about five different times while he quietly explained the ongoing plot up to that point? That’s pretty amazing.- What was up with that Uncanny-Valley Tony Stark face in the beginning? Like, really? What could I ever find or read that would make me understand why the Russo’s left that in the movie?
How does Zemo get the codebook file from that guy? and who is that guy? and what is the codebook for? Ah, yes, we had to know and remember Winter Soldier and AoU details to know he was a Hydra officer, the codebook was for Bucky, and that it was released during Black Widows big intelligence dump.I, too, am amazed that Captain America 3 presupposed the viewer had seen Captain America 2.
Is this satire or are you really this stupid?
If I’m being honest, “Ultron” felt like a comedown after “Guardians of the Galaxy”.
The first “Guardians” is my favorite Marvel movie, because it wasn’t afraid to embrace the off-the-wall weirdness that previous Marvel films were skittish to really go for. Not only that, but each character was written so they were funny in their own unique way. Peter acts more important than he actually is, Gamora acts more mature than she actually is, Drax is literal, Rocket is psychotic, and Groot is…well, Groot.
In “Ultron”, everyone acts and talks like a Joss Whedon character, so whether it’s Iron Man or Thor it’s all quippy-quippy, witty-witty, snarky-snarky the whole film. I’m not opposed to humor or a light-hearted tone, but when every character is telling the same kind of joke for three hours, it gets really tedious.
Not to mention a lot of the film seemed to ignore the character development everyone went through in their individual films. Tony had no problem putting the armor back on? Steve still isn’t conflicted about HYDRA infiltrating SHIELD? And what the hell is the story between Banner and Natasha? It made me seriously think “Joss? I don’t think you’re the person to be writing these characters.”
I remember watching Avengers cartoons with my kids when they were little, and in nearly every one, I was worried that Ultron was a bit too scary for them.
Then this movie gave him jokes and a human mouth, and all of his scariness evaporated in a poof of overly-verbose Whedon quips.
Its interesting, I just rewatched this and it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I remembered. I think there are any number of ways it could have been a smarter or more interesting film, but I never found it as lazy or presumptuous as Infinity War was in places, yet I thoroughly enjoyed Infinity War and still do on rewatching it, but genuinely remember feeling like AoU was a dud at the time of its release.
My opinion of AoU has always been that it was a perfectly cromulent sequel. It’s not nearly as bad as some say nor is it anywhere near as good as its most ardent fans claim. It has some extremely cool moments (the party scene at Stark’s tower, Banner/Natasha shipping, Hulk vs Iron Man Hulkbuster fight), but then it crams in too many subplots and characters. Stark essentially creates this entire problem by trying to play god and gets extremely little pushback about it. Quicksilver and Wanda can’t really be so dumb as to believe Ultron, can they? And the Thor bath is a perfect example of the WTFery of the bloat.
The twins story needed some more work, agreed.
They basically wind up becoming the enemy they spent their lives hating, causing destruction and sowing murder and destruction. But their story plays out more like they’re inept, not realizing that Mr. Murder Robot was a murderous robot.
I’ve never understood the complaints about the cave scene. It’s literally 32 seconds long. It’s over before you have time to dwell on it.
And I suppose that I was more attuned to the MCU than the average moviegoer, but it was obvious it was table-setting for the big story arc. By that point, we’d already been introduced to three of the Infinity Stones. (Four, but I don’t think that we knew about the Mind Stone being inside Loki’s staff until Age of Ultron.)
But it’s a bad scene. Ideally, your movie doesn’t *have* bad scenes in it.
I like this movie because the battle at the end is comic book as hell.Worst thing about the film is that the Quicksilver in it isn’t half as good as the one in the X-Men movies.
I’m not huge fan of the Age of Ultron in the comics, or even really Ultron. That said, this movie is totally watchable for me based on James Spader’s take on Ultron as a testy villain who thinks he’s omnipotent and unstoppable… while he’s clearly not. The subtle hints that he’s losing his mind are also great.The Robert California redub is amazing, but the actual movie isn’t far behind. Sure, it has clumsy moments, pass on the AI orbs quibbling, but most Marvel movies have their issues. And thank God that Winter Soldier came out and we didn’t have to see Cap’s dumb “Velcro & Spandex” Avengers uniform ever again.
Man, that suit is so bad. It actually makes Chris Evans look a little scrawny.
Despite all its flaws, this movie still gave us that great Hulk VS Hulkbuster Iron Man fight.
What was up with Whedon during this film? He got the first one right. Maybe he didn’t know Ultron all that well to try it.
I thought the movie held up fairly well. I’m aware of the complaints about the Ultron arc, but to me it moved along fine. My key issues with the film were:1. Every single scene of the Nat/Bruce romance. The biggest “why the F is this even in the movie” thing for me. It was just pointless, and wasn’t even written very well. They managed to at least utilize it in Ragnarok, but I was glad they buried the whole thing asap.2. Nat’s “witty” quips. All that “beep beep” nonsense was irritating and out of character.3. Nat’s Tron glowstick outfit.Honorable mention: Hawkeye’s secret farm thing. Only redeeming thing about it now seems like that was planted to have some repercussions now for Endgame.I couldn’t understand how Whedon was able to fuck up Black Widow so thoroughly, since he was known for building interesting female characters. There were stories about last minute story retooling due to her pregnancy, but shoehorning in a bad melodramatic soap opera-ish arc was the best Joss could come up with? Just weird.
So did Iron Man 2, I would argue.
The party scene is the best thing in this movie, and while I know this series isn’t about the best scene but rather the one that shows off this grand experiment, I still think it fits. (For the record, I’m talking about the party from start to finish, which might stretch the concept of a “moment” a little far.) It gives you time to touch base with everyone and see how they’re evolving. Tony and Thor talk about their girlfriends. Rhodey is clearly trying to impress people so that he seems like one of the team. As much as I hate the Nat/Bruce pairing, it does at least explore a pair of characters who don’t get their own movies to evolve. You see Cap finding a place for himself in the world by talking to other vets. All up, it allows us to take seriously the idea of the Avengers, that there is a place for them all to come back to when they’re not off doing their own things. They’ve changed from the uncertain heroes still figuring out what to do with their abilities into people with their own super and ordinary lives and a shared purpose. And that’s what will be threatened by Ultron, and Civil War, and Thanos.
I do get a bit sick of the whole ‘humans are a disease and must be wiped out’ bad guy. What happened to bad guys who were either just greedy or total psychopaths. Think of great baddies and most are driven by greed (even Loki) – the classic Rickman double of Nottingham and Gruber, Lex Luthor – or insanity – Bates, Lector etc.
I love the line in this movie when Mr. and Mrs. Hawkeye (Linda Cardellini) are having a “serious” discussion and she says, “You know I support your avenging,” like it’s his weekly poker night with the guys or something.
but the cave scene serves not only to kill the pacing So it was technically an homage to Empire Strikes Back?
That “cave pond that let Thor know about the infinity stone in Vision’s forehead” was The Well of Wisdom, from the Norsemythology. Odin used this to gaid eternal wisdom by sacrificing his eye. Thor very likely sacrificed something of his own to get answers to his questions. The point is, this “pond” served a much bigger purpose than people seem to realize. To call it “some cave pond” I’d say is lack of knowledge to where Thor actually comes from.