MCU Retrospective: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Avengers: Age of Ultron had a lot of high expectations going into it given the success of the first Avengers movie. People were expecting big things out of Joss Whedon’s follow-up to what at the time was one of the biggest movies ever made. While people expected a massive boom from this movie, what we were left with was a mediocre meh.
This movie wasn’t bad. It did have quite a few questionable decisions behind it though. One of the first odd things you’re introduced to in the movie is the odd lullaby type thing that Nat does to calm Banner down when he’s Hulked out. I get what the point of it is, it’s still just weird.
Speaking of Nat and Banner, the whole romance subplot that ran throughout this movie was just weird. And although I’m glad it was dropped after this movie, it makes it all that more inexplicable as to why the writers of this movie thought that it was a good idea.
One of the biggest head-scratchers that people had after watching this movie was the Barton Farm scene where you get to meet Clint’s family. While this scene finally gave the character more development, it was out of place in this movie and caused the action to come to a screeching halt for a not insignificant amount of time.
One thing that I did notice after rewatching this movie and knowing what comes next, specifically with Civil War, it was interesting to see the seeds of distrust and aggression being sown in this movie. Of course the events of this movie are what set the events of Civil War into motion, but it was still interesting to see this foreshadowing of things to come, whether intentional or not.
Age of Ultron feels like the red-headed stepchild of the Avengers family. I feel that people tend to like the original or the Infinity War/Endgame movies better than this one. And while this movie isn’t bad, it does make some questionable decisions that I feel ultimately hurt the movie and led to the end of Joss Whedon in the MCU.