“Avengers: Age of Ultron” is no one’s favorite MCU movie. It’s all set-up. There are a few rousing moments down the stretch, and the first-act party scene where everyone gets drunk and tries to hoist Mjolnir is the kind of endearing hangout moment you wish these films could accommodate more often, but, overall, it’s just treading water. Thematically, I think it’s one of the juicier installments in the Thanos run, but there’s just too much narrative track being laid to get invested in Ultron’s arc.
Writer/director Joss Whedon saw this murkiness happening, and, in an interview with Buzzfeed, he discussed how he fought against it:
“No matter how much they may talk about, ‘Well, this is going to lead to some terrible stuff down the line,’ in my movie, it’s designed to be a complete experience. And if I don’t do that, if I haven’t brought you on that journey and closed it out, f*** me. That’s the danger of this sort of serialized storytelling, turning the motion picture experience into episodic TV. Because we have episodic TV, and now you don’t even have to wait to watch it, you can binge it. So that’s to me a dreadful mistake.”
Alas, his worst would eventually be confirmed.
