Avengers: Age of Ultron

I’m pretty averse to superhero movies at the best of times, unless a brilliant director takes them to a place that is over and above the standard. Unfortunately, Joss Whedon is no Chris Nolan and that means that Avengers: Age of Ultron is pretty thin stuff, even for the rehash and dispatch world of Marvel. Whedon has had many fingers in many successful pies over the years, but he’s still yet to prove his worth as a more than average film director. So what we have here is just fast food film making for the masses. Who cares if there’s virtually nothing new to say? Just put it out there and watch the money roll in. At least the fan boys will have fun, but the average film goer will be as bored as the cast looks going through the motions of treading through the same plot strands as previous films. Whedon’s over use of CGI does him little favours here as well and, much like the lesson that Michael Bay still hasn’t learnt, once you’ve seen one SFX dust up you’ve seen them all. As for the main players, Robert Downey Jr. is just plain annoying and Mark Ruffalo gives a master class in bad acting in any scene that requires any sort of emotion to be projected (though, frankly, who can blame him if he can’t be arsed to try). For some odd reason Chris Hemsworth appears to use his James Hunt voice for the whole film, but at least that provides an unintentionally amusing distraction. Any plus points? James Spader voices the villain of the piece (Ultron – keep up!) and despite only being a CGI rendered mass of lines and colours, actually provides the film with its one true piece of personality. There’s also a few throwaway gags to enjoy, but the whole Marvel world feels unbelievably tired now. Having said that, Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t in this one so small mercies, huh? Rating: 4/10.