There are times when I want to hug whoever came up with the idea of marathon watching something. There are times when I want to punch that person in the face. I can’t quite decide where I’m at right now, but let’s see by the time I’ve finished writing this.
As some of you may remember, I recently marathoned all of Marvel’s Daredevil in one night while livetweeting it. It was something of an experience for me as the show was one I was looking forward to since before it was even announced (because I was adamant that that format was the best way to translate the character to screen and I was right, goddamn it) and it allowed me to experience it as, essentially, an extra long movie.
That was a 13 hour marathon.
Yesterday, I did almost double that with the Ultimate Marvel Marathon. Nine films, twenty-two hours of Marvel goodness and sweaty nerds (and I’m including myself in that because hoo boy was I getting rank by the end of it) leading up to a showing of Marvel’s Avengers: Age Of Ultron. This piece is going to be talking in part about my experience watching almost all of Marvel Studios’ film library in one go and also about my thoughts of Avengers: Age Of Ultron seeing it in the context of that marathon. So let’s just to it, right?
I’m going to first talk about the experience of sitting through a marathon like this as it’s perhaps a situation many people have found themselves in, but it’s also one almost wholly unique. Much like camping out to get into a panel or a signing, the experience of being in a room full of mostly like-minded people for such an extended period of time means it’s hard not to bond with the people around you going through the same situation as you.
Even though I attended the marathon alone, by the time the fourth film rolled around I had begun chatting with many of the people around me during the breaks between each film. This developed into a sort of camaraderie as we pushed each other through slumps where we began to get tired, only to get hyped during our second, third, fourth, fifth and so on winds as we get to relive our favourite moments from each of these films and notice connections in the continuity we never noticed before.
Or, even, in the case of the guy sitting next to me who had come from Bristol to Edinburgh for the marathon, get to experience Captain America: The Winter Soldier for the first time, which was an amazing thing to sit beside.
It also allowed for a greater appreciation in just how far Marvel Studios has come in terms of their films. One of the immediate things I noticed about Iron Man, which I hadn’t watched in quite a while, was small and contained it felt as a movie. It felt… quaint. With films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier fresh in my head from last year, seeing Iron Man again made me realise just how small the beginnings this universe had. All they had to get right was make people care about the arc of Tony Stark in the film and the rest would fall into place. And, thankfully it did, or I wouldn’t be here writing about how I then watched another eight these films across a 22 hour period.
The rest of the marathon went exactly as I thought it would in terms of re-examining the quality of the films. Iron Man 2 continues to be a hot mess, but to me it’s a loveable hot mess so I can’t really hold that against it. By the time Thor rolled around, it was about 4am, so I slept through the majority of that. All I really remember are vague audio snippets as I drifted in and out of sleep across three seats. It was a strange feeling. Captain America: The First Avenger really cements its place as the strongest of the Phase One solo films with a strong sense of character, well-balanced humour and an origin story that doesn’t stop halfway through the film in order to tell a new story (I’m looking at you, Iron Man).
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Then came the first big milestone: The Avengers… which I also mostly slept through. I remember making it to Thor’s introduction before the dozing off began, but I’m giving myself a pass on that because this was at least my seventh time seeing the film in theatres. Then Phase Two began and one thing I don’t think I realised when these films were coming out individually is that the gross from The Avengers really helped the scale of Phase Two. Despite the problems many people have with its script, Iron Man 3 really ups the scale of action for the character and takes his abilities such as they are to previously unseen levels. The same goes for Thor: The Dark World, which I would say is the most underrated Marvel Studios film thus far. And, finally, we capped it off with the best Marvel Studios so far, at least by my reckoning, with Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Watching these films back to back gave me a new appreciation for how the scale and depth of these films expanded as they went on, not just in the technical terms of “The last film made a lot of money, so we can pay for more CGI this time”, but in terms of expanding the universe with each film. It was a really amazing chance to see a film series that champions inter-film continuity laid bare with all the inner workings happening back to back and has given me a real appreciation for the little miracle that could that is Marvel Studios. Sure, they’re not all perfect films, but they are an example of a creative team doing the best with what they have, being rewarded for it and continuing to push themselves further each time.
Then came the main event. Like the Wrestlemania of movies, each match leading up to this moment was only to drive up the hype for the closer. Everyone was excited. There was not a bleat nor whimper of exhaustion in the entire room. This was possibly bolstered by the five minutes of handing out Avengers themed 3D glasses where everyone got super hyped to get glasses of their favourite character. The lights dimmed and Avengers: Age Of Ultron began.
Now, the question on everyone’s lips must be: is Age Of Ultron any good? The first movie was almost a miracle machine in how it brought so many disparate characters from wildly aesthetically different films and had them team up while keeping the story cohesive enough that it plays well for people who have no idea why that kid who stuck a banana up his ass in Not Another Teen Movie is wearing an American flag. So… was Age Of Ultron a good movie?
I don’t know.
I’ve had a whole night as of writing this to digest the movie and I genuinely do not know if, overall, it was good. Or if I even liked it all that much. It’s a strange experience so I’m going to try and break it down as much as I can without getting into spoilers, of course. What I can say off the bat is that I believe this is going to be a very polarising film. While the first film came out to almost universal acclaim, I can see this film having just as many people who hate it as love it. That might not necessarily be a bad thing, mind you, but it certainly does make for an entertaining viewing experiences.
Let’s talk about the things that I know for sure work first, though. What I have to mention is that the directing, cinematography and just general visual presentation of this film is stellar. Joss Whedon seems to have levelled up as a visual director as the detractors that found The Avengers to feel almost TV Movie like should not be disappointed here. Just as the scale of the story has increased, so to has the scale of the film itself and the world it presents. What that means is that the action is simply fantastic and each major setpiece is staged incredibly thoughtfully so that the full range of each character’s abilities and styles can be put on display.
Continued belowA nice touch I appreciated was that the film pretty much opens with a long-take shot similar to the one in the final battle of the first film. What I liked about it was not only was it a nod to the fact that that shot existed in the first film to establish the team beginning to work in unison and so using it right off the bat here establishes the team as a cohesive unit, but it means that Joss Whedon uses that trick early and forces himself to be more visually creative as the film continues.
That visual creativity uses comes thanks to a focus on showing how each character behaves differently in a fight compared to the other members of the team. When the team is working together, cutting from Captain America to Iron Man to Black Widow is going to show three very different fighting styles and allows Whedon to mix-and-match solo setpieces and mini team-ups between the Avengers in the middle of the action to keep each setpiece flowing naturally without feeling like the same material is being redone.
However, while Whedon seems to have levelled up as a director, the film suffers heavily in the writing department. I won’t be the first to say this nor will I be the last, but this film has a lot going on. This film runs at a solid 140 minutes and it is packed tight from start to finish. That means that there are a number of times where Whedon seems rushed to establish something or end something in order for the film to keep moving without being overwhelmed. This was obviously going to be the case for a film opening with six main characters and introducing at least four more into the mix, but it seems to have forced Whedon to cut a lot of corners to make the film flow and it can be very noticeable at times.
Perhaps it was the unique situation of having just seen literally all of the films leading up to this one just before it, but the seams of Whedon’s writing of each character really start to show here. For instance, and I’m trying my best not to spoil anything here, but Whedon’s writing of Tony Stark specifically feels like he’s actively trying to ignore that Iron Man 3 happened. Where the character was when he ended that film is not the same place as where he is when this one begins and it feels a might regressive in a lot of ways. In fact, regressive is what I’d call the character writing overall.
Whedon clearly had a plan in mind for these character coming off of the first film, but it feels like the subsequent solo films contradicted those plans and yet he just stuck with his original plans. This leaves Tony Stark as a guy who suddenly has a legion of Iron Man robots yet again, it leaves Steve Rogers stuck as a the old-fashioned grandpa of the group, Thor exists to talk loudly in a funny accent etc, etc. It feels like Whedon had so much to do in this film that the characters come off as a broad caricatures of who they should be at this point.
Though, the characters who definitely suffer the most from the writing are Scarlet Witch and Ultron. Anyone going into this film as huge fans of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver from the comics, I think, are going to be disappointed in how they’ve been adapted. Scarlet Witch in particular doesn’t even feel like Wanda Maximoff. Instead, she feels like a strange amalgamation of River Tam, Fred Burkle and Echo from Dollhouse with just the slightest hint of a very Brian Michael Bendis inspired Scarlet Witch layered on top. It leaves her as the most cliched of Joss Whedon’s at this point rather tired cliches: the Mentally Broken Petite Woman With Dangerous Mind Powers Who Is Also Graceful And Sweet. Not only does it leave Wanda feeling a hollow, walking trope, but it then reflects onto Pietro, who really only exists as her counterpoint except there’s no depth to be a counter to.
Continued belowWhile the use of the Twins’ powers makes for an interesting change in the dynamic of the film’s action scenes and their arcs are pretty well-defined and the development makes sense, they just feel out of place in the film. This isn’t really helped by the acting either. The rest of the Avengers to continue to embody their characters wholeheartedly and turn in just as good performances as in previous films (even if the writing feels at odds with the characters, as I mentioned), Wanda and Pietro are just out of luck. Saddled with very hokey and very generic Eastern European accents, Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson try their damndest to keep up with the rest of the cast, but are buried under the rest of the film. It of course doesn’t help that their accents keep slipping in very noticeable ways, but for the life of me, I can’t remember a single line of dialogue Scarlet Witch had. They almost feel included in order to be plot devices more than characters and it’s a shame as they had so much potential to be great in this film.
The other major problem for was, unfortunately, Ultron himself. The MCU doesn’t have the best track records with villains, of course, with guys like Iron Monger only showing up to job because the film needs a bad guy, but I was hoping for more with Ultron. And everything started so well. While his origin is obviously different from the comics, Joss Whedon does a great job of integrating it into the established lore of the universe while twisting elements of the universe we’d taken for granted. And then we get James Spader’s amazing, soulful and menacing voice as this being comes to life and finds himself burdened with this hatred of the Avengers. And then he starts to make quips? For some reason, Joss decided to establish a pettiness in Ultron’s plans by making him at times act like a child, throwing temper tantrums and such, as well as having him drop out of nowhere, really flippant witticisms that go a long way to destroy any menace Spader and Whedon created in the first place.
By the end of the movie, Ultron is essentially a joke character and I found myself with this deep sense of disappointment of what could have been. Ultron started out, much like the Twins, which such potential that I just don’t feel was capitalised on. I don’t want this to come off like I’m harping on the movie because, as I said, it’s not a film I dislike, but the film pushes this dark, psychological aspect of pulling the Avengers team apart and it just doesn’t have a villain with enough menace or threat to bring that aspect home.
Finally, and this is something I can’t get too deep into because it is definitely spoiler territory, but The Vision is the highlight of the movie. If you can, don’t watch any footage of him before going to see the film. If possible, go back and time and erase all knowledge of the character being in the film just so you can enjoy the surprise.
Overall, Avengers: Age Of Ultron is a film. Is it a good film? Is it a bad film? I don’t know. Is it a film I enjoyed watching? Yes, most definitely so. Is it a technically well directed and well shot film? Again, most definitely so. Is it a well written film? Well, yes and no. While the writing certainly does have its strengths and everything The Avengers did well this film does even better, the writing has just a many pitfalls and the weaknesses of the writing of the first film are amplified just as much. In the end, Avengers: Age Of Ultron is a little like the Bluesmobile. In the heat of the moment, the momentum of the action and the craziness keeps you from thinking too much about what’s going on, but as soon as it’s over the doors fall off.
Still, it’s a film that has given my about 2,000 words of material and I could take going for just as long, so it can’t be all bad, right?
Just doesn’t expect an after-credits stinger. The mid-credits one is all you get.
