Movie Review - Avengers: Age of Ultron

So a lot has happened since the first film came out. The MCU expanded into space, got itself some TV shows to fill up the gaps between films (focusing heavily on S.H.I.E.L.D. and other Marvel characters) and we will soon be seeing many more Marvel characters be established into this universe that Marvel Studios has built with the help of Disney and formerly Paramount (except for The Incredible Hulk which Universal distributed instead of Paramount). Keep in mind that despite this being the sequel to the 2012 film, it does however take into account what has happened in the films that came before it so if you're going into this without having seen those films, you better watch them because otherwise, there will be things that won't make sense to you here. But for those of you who have, good work. So let's assemble and be avenged:

So the Avengers thus far consisting of Iron Man (reprised by Robert Downey Jr.), Hulk (reprised by Mark Ruffalo), Thor (reprised by Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (reprised by Chris Evans), Black Widow (reprised by Scarlett Johanson) and Hawkeye (reprised by Jeremy Renner), go to raid a Hydra outpost in a fictional Eastern European country called Sokovia where the scepter which was formerly used by Loki, is said to be held by a man called Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (reprised by Thomas Kretschmann and I can say that because he did appear in a mid credits scene in Winter Solider) who has been experimenting on humans with it, specifically a twin duo known as Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen respectively, both having been a couple once in Godzilla). One can run fast and the other can mess with people's minds. The mission is a success and Stark and Banner secretly use what's inside the scepter to make a peace keeping program called Ultron (played by James Spader), but little do they know that Ultron is unlike anything they have encountered before and its not long before the Avengers are called again to stop him, with a bit of outside help from some old and new allies.

If I'm being honest, this is how a sequel should go. Its bigger in size, story and characters and manages to give the slap on characters from the first film (such as Hawkeye), a lot more screen time and character development while also giving us the same for the other characters as well. I think Joss Wheadon is one of those film makers that is great at character development and is an all aorund great film maker as a whole. Overcrowding may be something that many of us don't like, but here, it feels like its neccessary for the things that are going on in the film. The Hulkbuster looks great and I like that the film throws in a few characters from the solo films in here as well make it very clear that they all live in the same universe. Its a great film all around, but as I said previously, you'll need to have seen not only the first film, but the solo films that came after it to understand this one in greater detail. And yes, Stan Lee as always is in here somewhere. 9/10