Finally went to see Age of Ultron. Yes, it’s wall to wall action packed, with beautifully choreographed fight scenes, flip dialog between the battles, awesome visual effects, and split second editing to take your breath away.
But what surprised me is that it’s not, you know, an actual movie. Not in the sense that, say, Richard Donner’s Superman was an actual movie. Watching Ultron, I felt as though I had been dropped into the middle of something — and I guess in a sense I had been.
Yes, I know that at the level of an Avengers movie it’s less about gold statues, and more about gold. With a budget so enormous there is no margin for financial error. But for me the gold is starting to rust. I had somehow thought that Joss Whedon would find some way to surprise us.
Of course everybody sees a movie for different reasons, and you might like this one quite a bit. As a large screen action extravaganza it certainly gets the job done. So maybe it’s me — maybe I need to lower my expectations.
Or maybe by now Whedon is only doing the Avengers to buy himself freedom to work on smaller projects that he actually cares passionately about. And maybe that’s ok.
After the movie, my friend and I were comparing notes. I said “Well, that wasn’t Chaucer.”
Then I thought about it some more. “Unless,” I added, “you’ve seen A Knight’s Tale. In which case, that was Chaucer.”
The new AVENGER’S film has made more than a 1.2 Billion dollars world-wide, as of this week-end. So, I believe, Whedon was caterering to the “masses.” And, to have the “freedom” to do whatever films or TV shows he wants. Take AGENT SHIELD, for instance, a TV series that has a following, but isn’t very ratings successful. Instead of ending in 2 years, it was renewed for the 3rd year.
I think the first CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER was more in line with a comic book film that has more depth. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER is my favorite 2000 plus comic book film to date. Actually, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY does not have depth, but it was certainly really fun!
Oh yes, I completely agree, on all counts, and I’m not really complaining. We want Joss Whedon to have maximum freedom in the smaller projects where his unique genius can really shine. In any case, because there is already a complex set of story lines established by the comic books, he would have risked the ire of the fans if he had optimized for making a truly good film (in the traditional sense) rather than one faithful to the Marvel canon.
The first Captain America film was indeed a wonderful example of how to make a strong, emotionally involving, and character oriented superhero film. I understand many of the fans didn’t like it. 🙂
And Guardians of the Galaxy, by poking gleeful fun at the whole superhero genre, was a total hoot!!!
Perhaps you have had too much in the lab. The inaction of linear action isn’t as much fun after what you work on, I’d imagine.
Did you see Chronicle? This was a few years ago. I think that was the last story driven superhero film I saw. I thought of it because you mentioned Donner’s Superman. Chronicle made me feel the same sense of awe and wonder that Superman did.
Video games these days have a more sophisticated storyline than superhero films.