Avengers: Age of Ultron - Review

Where to start with Joss Whedon's new epic? My hyper-aware little brain saw so much, it's having difficulty putting so many thoughts and observations into a cohesive whole. I will say that I left the theater depressed, not sure whether or not the entire movie universe that I've come to love was ruined for me. Still, my disappointment with tempered with the knowledge that this sometimes happens after seeing a movie I was really excited about: I'm so busy noticing stuff that I don't really enjoy it until the second time through. Maybe (hopefully?) that's what happened here.


Let's start with the heavy stuff. Everyone familiar with Gnosticism? Yeah, I wasn't kidding about heavy. Gnosticism is the thought that the world as we see it is inferior (if not an outright illusion) to the intangible spiritual. While the name makes it sound like the second century idea that it is, Gnosticism shows up frequently in popular culture. The Matrix, The Truman Show, Noah, Snowpiercer... all Gnostic. Why does it keep showing up? No clue. Maybe because it makes for good stories. Or maybe it's all part of the transhumanist agenda put forth by the Freemasons/Illuminati/Lizard People who really run Hollywood. You can go to other websites for that.

Anyway, the only way to escape this evil, material illusion is through knowledge.

So in Avengers: Age of Ultron (from now on referred to as A:AoU), Tony Stark uses one of the mystical Infinity Stones to create an artificial intelligence he names Ultron. His hope is that the Ultron program, in the form of metal robots, can be an international peacekeeping force that allows the Avengers to go into retirement, prevent all wars, kickstart utopia.

Unfortunately, Ultron is self-aware. He has knowledge. Shoot, he escapes Avengers HQ through the Internet!

Incidentally, this isn't the first time Joss Whedon has unleashed a spiritual entity onto the Internet. In the first season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "I Robot, You Jane," he does the exact same thing. Intelligent being, digitized, builds itself a body, connects with a witch (who later kinda kills him), and unleashes homicidal terror on the populace. You can save yourself some money and just watch the same story (albeit, with a 1990's TV budget) on Netflix.

Anyway, sorry to run down a Buffy trail (no apologies for that pun). So Ultron has knowledge. He decides that Tony is a demiurge (a word I don't recall being used in the movie, but having a perfect definition from Wikipedia: An artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe), and casting off his puppet's strings that held him under Tony's control, he sets about to bring world peace by killing humanity. Boy was Tony embarrassed (not really).

The idea of building robots to keep us safe, only to have them kill or subjugate us, is an old one. I first heard it listening to old radio shows from the 1940's.

Ultron builds himself a robot army. How do you defeat an evil robot overlord? By pulling together your human resolve, doing the unexpected, defying the programming? Only if you're Captain Kirk. If you're Tony Stark you just... build a better robot. Yep. Early in the movie Tony tells his familiar, companionable AI Jarvis to "take the wheel" of their jet. Cut to a bumper sticker on the dash that reads, "Jarvis is My Co-Pilot." Here we go...

Jarvis take the wheel!

This robot's got some plans

I can't fight'em on my own

I'm letting go

Give Avengers one more chance

Save us from this time bomb

Oh, Jarvis take the wheel!

Tony and Bruce Banner use Jarvis's AI and the Infinity Stone (the Mind Gem, by the way) to create the android Vision. A little bit Ultron, a little bit Jarvis, our team isn't quite sure who's side he's on. When pressed, Vision simply states, "I am." Not sure if Whedon was channeling Descartes or the Burning Bush here, because in a movie filled with Bible references it comes off as a little blasphemous. But the more I think about it, the more I think the atheist Whedon wants us to know that Vision thinks, that he's more than programming and has reason, and thus he is. Ultron sets himself up as God, at one point holding up an object and saying, "On this rock I will build my church." Vision is going to be (from Whedon's perspective) the opposite of that.

So Ultron is the bad guy, and Vision is the savior, right? Unfortunately, it's not that easy, and it's why I left the theater a little depressed. At one point, Ultron notes that the dinosaurs had their day and that human's have had theirs. The next step in the Earth's evolution is to wipe out mankind and replace it with robots. Just before his total demise, Ultron essentially asks Vision why he's chosen to hold back the inevitable. Vision replies that just because something won't last, doesn't mean that it's not beautiful.

So the movie ends with a sense of hopelessness. Maybe Whedon felt he was infusing some reality (his understanding of reality, anyway) into the series. And hopefully people will use it to discuss their beliefs about the future and the afterlife. But for a movie about colorfully dressed super people smashing things, it was kind of a downer ending. 

But when the colorfully dressed super people were smashing things, I was having a blast. CAP THREW A MOTORCYCLE AT A JEEP! There was no way this movie could top the first Avengers film. I remember sitting through that movie with a stupid grin on my face the whole time because I couldn't believe it was really happening. Now that I've seen it a few times, I'm used to all my new favorite superheroes on the screen together. 

I loved how Tony's backup plan for dealing with the Hulk was named Veronica. Remember Banner's ex-girlfriend's name? Betty. There's an Archie Comics joke in there somewhere... And Whedon's fiction-is-stranger-than-truth moments never cease to amuse. "We're in a city that's flying. A city that's flying, and being attacked by metal robots. And I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense." I was the only person in the theater who laughed out loud when Tony approached a broken down green farm tractor and said, "Hello, Deere." 

So yeah, A:AoU is quite overwhelming, with its history, heresy, heroes, highs and... whatever synonym for "lows" starts with H. But all in all, I think I'd rather see Furious 7 again.

Thanks for reading all of this. As always, purchasing from any of the Amazon links gives me a little kick-back. If you like what you read, feel free to share.