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Anna Bowman is a junior English and telecommunications major and writes ‘Film Annalysis’ for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Anna at aabowman@bsu.edu.
I’ll try not to spoil this blockbuster, but this is fair warning to the readers who wish to remain in the dark – something might slip. Really though, you know the films were comic books first, right?
Let’s start off with the new villain, Ultron. Played by James Spader, Ultron was an intimidating, incredibly sardonic mastermind, ironically created by men he would later seek to destroy. It was great to see the man we’ve come to know as Alan Shore and Robert California recite Kelly Clarkson lyrics (watch for it) from behind an iron mask (which looked disturbingly like Saw). However, I was less than impressed by the choices his character made.
With every piece of information about the Avengers at his fingertips, Ultron could have created a psychological warfare between the characters, but instead, he mostly relied on his threat of physical domination to carry him through.
Another audience member made the point that “The movie made Ultron threatening because he’s a computer – not because he’s an all-knowing, virtual being,” which seemed to be a waste of his power. For me, this was less interesting to watch, but for some of you, it may be just the type of violent action you’ve come to love from Marvel films.
As for the other new cast members, I was thrilled to see Aaron Taylor-Johnson take on the role of Quicksilver. He had a powerful energy and kept me wondering which side of the battle he was really on. However, I was less thrilled to see the atrocious blond highlights they decided to give him. I don’t know where the costuming department came up with some of the decisions they made for this sequel.
Furthermore, despite the respect I have for Elizabeth Olsen and her superb indie movie performances, she wasn’t great as Quicksilver’s twin, Scarlet Witch. Despite her ability to alter reality and cast hexes, all I could think about was her terrible Eastern European accent. I’m sure the two of them worked really hard to sync their pronunciations, but Johnson seemed much more natural in his “Transian” role. Perhaps he had an unfair advantage, as he was tasked with the part of Count Vronsky in "Anna Karenina" just three years before.
Technically speaking, it’s hard to keep improving upon a franchise that has already proven itself impressive, and at first glance, it seemed as though "The Avengers" has started to slow down. As I saw hammers and shields fly through the air and Mark Ruffalo “Hulk up,” I wasn’t particularly blown away; however, I was surprised to learn that the CGI has indeed taken significant steps since the last film was made.
In a recent interview with Spader on "Late Night with Seth Meyers," he revealed that they filmed with new performance-capture technology that allowed actors like he and Ruffalo to block their characters’ movements with the other actors on stage instead of working alone with a green screen.
This was reiterated by Ruffalo in an interview on "Live With Kelly and Michael" when he said, “An actor can basically give a performance disappearing inside the CGI.” Plus, this new process takes a quarter of the time to film, which probably saved them a lot of money – not that money was an issue.
Before leaving you to decide whether or not you want to see this sequel, I’m going to take a moment to go on a feminist tangent. I loved that "Age of Ultron" kept up an equal amount of female and male objectification. In film criticism terms, it’s called the “gaze,” which is how the audience views the characters based on camera angles and the looks they share with each other. There is an extremely unnecessary scene toward the middle of the movie in which Captain America and Iron Man have to cut wood… why would you ever need a scene like that in a superhero movie? It’s obvious why they threw that in. It was for the ladies, and I appreciate that. It’s not all about the Black Widow’s slamming body – it’s about the men in tights too.
"Age of Ultron" stands with the rest of the Marvel films as a classic addition to an ever-growing franchise, but don’t wait for Spiderman to show up after the eternity of credits. Spoiler alert: It was all a lie.
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