Film Review | Avengers: Age of Ultron
★★★★☆
It would have been easy for Avengers: Age of Ultron – the sequel to Marvel’s franchise mega-hit Avengers Assemble – to rest on its laurels. Thankfully, Avengers 2.0 improves on its predecessor on many fronts even if it doesn’t fully recapture the magic of the 2012 endeavour.
Whereas it took a little while for Avengers Assemble to get going, the opposite is true for the sequel. We begin with a Bond-esque opening skirmish between our heroes and HYDRA cronies that ends with the recovery of Loki’s scepter and a party to remember. But when Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) attempt to use the power of the scepter to jumpstart a peacekeeping program, the inadvertent result is Ultron (James Spader), a highly intelligent robot hell-bent on human extinction. Making matters worse, Ultron joins forces with powerful Maximoff twins Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).
Film Trailer | Avengers: Age of Ultron
There is a great disparity between the posters and the trailers for Avengers: Age of Ultron.
In the build-up to today’s big reveal Marvel had released a number of bland and lazy character posters featuring each of our principal heroes in a standard hero pose set against a boring backdrop filled with Ultron drones. There’s also a one-sheet with all the Avengers that’s spent far too many hours in Adobe Photoshop:
Thankfully the trailers for Avengers: Age of Ultron have been anything but bland and lazy, and the third and supposedly (but probably not) final clip that was unveiled earlier today is no different.
Film Features | For and Against: The Amazing Spider-Man in The Avengers
Next week, the eagerly anticipated franchise reboot The Amazing Spider-Man swings into UK cinemas (read my review here), and with its impending release, its star Andrew Garfield – who of course plays the famous scarlet-clad hero – has been asked on numerous occasions about the possibility of Spider-Man joining the Avengers at a later date.
The answer has always been a tongue-in-cheek ‘Yes’ – honestly, who wouldn’t want to be on that team?! – but there is a lot of red tape to get through in order to get to that stage, what with Sony currently owning the rights to Spider-Man meaning that Marvel will have to buy the rights back before being able to use the character.
There is no doubting that the web-slinging hero is one of the most well-known comic book characters of all time, and his presence in a future Avengers movie is at the very least intriguing to ponder.
The question therefore is; would Spidey be a good fit for the Avengers?
Read the rest of this article on HeyUGuys here.
Film Review | Avengers Assemble
“And there came a day unlike any other…” This opening line to the Avengers comic books was also spoken by Samuel L. Jackson when the cast of the Avengers was first unveiled at Comic-Con almost two years ago. Marvel’s ambitious superhero team-up has been four years in the making and has spanned five films, but now it’s finally upon us. Make no mistake about it; Avengers Assemble marks an unprecedented event. Just like the team itself, there are so many reasons why it should not work. And yet, director Joss Whedon & co have managed to surpass all the lofty expectations and deliver not only one of the greatest superhero films ever made, but one of the best blockbusters in recent memory.
Read the rest of this review on Yin & Yang here.
Film Review | The Cabin in the Woods
Have you ever been watching a film and felt that you’ve seen parts of it before? It’s a problem that horror films in particular seem to have run into of late. Well good news horror fans; it’s a problem that the makers of Cabin in the Woods are well aware of. Penned by Joss Whedon – aka the director of that small film called Avengers Assemble – and directed by Drew Goodard, this latest addition to the genre revels in turning those well known clichés upside down, and is easily the best horror film of the year for it.
Read the rest of this review on Yin & Yang here.
AMONymous 