It really has to be said that few have pulled off a project quite like Marvel Studios. And really, even if the rest of their films are awful, we still got Guardians of the Galaxy. That’s enough to hang your hat on.
And frankly, I’m glad that Sony and others owned the rights to some of the most popular Marvel characters. Let Fox fuck around trying to make easy money with X-Men. The obscure properties are killing it for Marvel (and Disney obv). They’re killing it because they have had to try harder to make the characters cooler. Wolverine comes with such built in cool it that you shouldn’t even have to try all that much (Looking at you Fox, you Futurama canceling bunch of asshats). But Capt America is a difficult character to get inside for a bunch of us. It’s not the patriotism, but there’s something off about him. Like propaganda has a shelf life akin to fruit; something just smells rotten after awhile. But so far the movies (and no small amount of credit goes to Chris Evans) have created a sympathetic, quiet, humble, slightly anarchist AMERICAN. Doesn’t even wrinkle your nose. And Thor can EASILY be an asinine character whose dialogue makes Battlefield Earth just pop. But they did this passion of the Thor type thing that just… works. They’ve done so well. You can’t single out any one particular Marvel film as being as quality as The Dark Knight; but they’ve made a group of characters people care about. You couldn’t really give a shit about hanging out with Cyclops and Storm from Fox’s universe. But you’d grab a drink with Thor and Black Widow.
Anyway, this film is remarkably similar in action to the big New York battle in the first Avengers. Ultron, an AI accidentally created by Tony Stark, has a legion of robots that are attempting to, after some red herring, destroy the world. I think. But they’re in a vacationy Eastern European spot this time and the fact that the Avengers attempt to evacuate the city shows learning.
But Ultron, even though he is entertaining, is kind of a goofy bad guy. The best action is Iron Man vs Hulk. It’s a humdinger. That and the various team bonding and cattyness are what really work in the movie.
And, it must be mentioned, this film does a great deal of heavy lifting in terms of setting up future films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We were in Black Panther territory, as well as setting up (I think) Capt Marvel and Warlock. And Civil War and Ragnarok. Lot of exposition to get through during the film.
That said, it was still a fun movie. But I feel like I want to see Capt America: Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok more. Next up for Marvel is Antman. Then we’ll spend a few weeks spanking it to Mad Max, then it will be all Star Wars till next year. Unless it’s not.