Avengers: Age of Ultron

Zach Goodier

The long wait is over, and a new Avengers film has come out. But now that the dramatic team-up has gone through the honeymoon stage, does this team have the endurance to keep it up?

The movie starts us in Eastern Europe, where the Avengers are attacking a Hydra base to recover Loki’s scepter from the first movie. In the midst of the fighting, two of Hydra’s enhanced humans, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, escape. After a brief engagement with the Avengers, they quickly disappear. Tony Stark manages to recover the scepter, and while the team celebrates for a few days before Thor returns the scepter to Asgard, Stark examines it. Long story short, Stark uses the crystal inside the scepter (an infinity stone) to help him complete his new artificial intelligence program, Ultron. Ultron’s mission is to protect the world; however, Ultron quickly turns on the Avengers, and starts working on plans of his own.

No strings on this guy.

The story is a really exciting retelling of the Ultron tale. It all fits very nicely, and ties in to a lot of what is transpiring within each of the movies in the Marvel universe. Ultron is a wonderful villain, and James Spader really brings him to life. Since Ultron’s personality is derived from Tony Stark, he has some entertaining lines throughout the movie. The Vision also appears in the 3^rd act, as a byproduct of Ultron’s plans. His role is relatively minor, but still significant, and it will likely lead to more important things down the line in the Infinity War.

These two make a great addition to the film. I had no idea what to expect, but I found them both to make excellent characters.

The action is great, with scenes like the Hulk vs Iron Man being standouts in this film. The Maximoff twins, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, both make for great additions to the cast, with interesting powers that make some great action scenes. Nick Fury also returns, which leads into some great sequences at the end when he joins the fight. But despite all that, a lot of the great scenes come from those little moments Joss Whedon creates. Like many of his other works, he has that talent for creating and/or capturing moments that might not be outwardly significant, but are the moments you remember long after the credits roll.

This. Armor. Rocks.

The special effects are as top-notch as ever, but I did not see it in 3D to know how that side came out, although I imagine it is probably top-notch as well. I never felt that there were any weak links from the technical end or from the cast, everyone seemed on top of their game. The final major battle takes place back in Eastern Europe, on a city that is being risen in order to crash it back down to Earth, in Ultron’s plan to end humanity.

The Vision is a great character, even if he shows up to the party rather late.

The only fault I found in this film is a lot of the internal problems amongst the Avengers felt reused from the last film. It doesn’t feel forced, and it is still entertaining, but part of you might feel like we’ve done a lot of this in the previous film. But this is a very minor thing, in the midst of all the great characters and scenes. Plus, it gave Stark and excuse to don his Hulkbuster Armor, which is amazing to watch.

Some of the minor characters from the franchise get to enter the fray this time, or at least get a solid cameo in.

This movie is more than a worthy successor to the first film, with all the characters coming back and doing all the things they do best. Hulk smashes, Thor hammers, Hawkeye and Black Widow show off their skills, Captain America gives some speeches, and Tony Stark throws out some clever lines and kicks but as Iron Man. However, what makes this movie even better in some ways is the addition of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who both bring a lot forward to this film, and Ultron is easily one of the best villains in the Marvel universe so far, with the exception of possibly Loki. In short, if you loved the Avengers, you will almost certainly love this movie too.

Good:

-Ultron is a great villain

-Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were done right.

-Hulkbuster armor.

-Joss Whedon’s gift of creating all those little moments that make his works great.

Bad:

-Some of the conflict between the Avengers themselves feels redone from the last film.

Scully Rating: 9.5 out of 10

X-Men: Days of Future Past

By: Robert Murphy

Spoiler alert!

I like many of you were probably very excited for the latest addition to the X-Men franchise with the recent release of X-Men: Days of Future Past. The reason I was so excited for this film was the fact that it is based on my favorite time in the X-Men universe where we enter a not so distant future where the world is in disarray in the wake of the robotic creatures known as the Sentinels. These robotic juggernauts were created by humanity to hunt down and if necessary kill them all because of the threat they posed to the human race. This though proves to be bad for both sides as the Sentinels are really out of control and doing things on their own terms, so to prevent this the last remaining mutants must send one of them back to the past to prevent any of this from ever happening. The only person able to do this though is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and he must unite the younger versions of Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) when they couldn’t bare to be around one another, but uniting them regardless to save the future, for everyone. 

Wolverine wakes up in his younger self in 1973 and I say younger but he really just looks the same as always, anyway he has to track down Charles as his younger self but he will quickly find that he is not the man we all have known these many years, he is more of a lost and troubled soul right now. Ever since the events of the last movie, X-Men: The First Class, he has lost everything, mainly his dearest and closest friend Raven who was also known as Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). Mystique will prove to be the main focus of the story as she is the driving cause behind why all these events unfolded and her passion for her fellow mutants will be let loose. Not only this but she receives many of her incredible martial arts moves and acrobatic feats that we’ve seen her use in earlier movies but weren’t present in The First Class, so no more useless little girl for this character. Also after the events of First Class we see that the only friend to have stayed by The Professors side is the young Hank aka Beast (Nicholas Hoult) whose helping him in his time of need. And finally we have Magneto who is in the midst of another extreme lockdown situation after certain events, let’s just say he managed to curve a very life changing bullet and people were not happy. The whole plot work behind this film is massive and where in most films so many ideas and moving parts wouldn’t work, Days of Future Past managed to find balance and fix many screw ups of the past films that annoyed fans like me.

Each of the core characters get their moments on screen which is to be expected but what is great about it is that it doesn’t feel like a setup, everything is important for the characters at that time and each character has a drive or motive to them in earnest. Charles is having a hard time as I mentioned and it will take wise words from not only himself but from Wolverine as well, I say this shockingly because advice and patients isn’t his strong suit and even he admits that. Wolverine almost becomes a teacher to Charles in his own way during the film and what he does for Wolverine in the future, he must now do for Charles, guide him and help him be the man he’s meant to be. Mystiques role in Days of Future Past was surprising to me, she was always a mystery in the original three movies and while I like her more since The First Class, I was surprised to see how strong of a character she is now. While the events in the future are important, the character don’t get much attention, the Magneto and Charles we know as played by Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart do get their moment but the rest really don’t, I don’t even think I heard Storm (Halle Berry) say more than one line. This was okay for me though, they all still played their roles very well and came up more in the fight scene portions of the film.

Speaking of the action scenes, these were very powerful moments when you see them as they deal crushing blows to our favorite characters a lot of the time. You will have to see some of your favorite characters die in their fights with the Sentinels, who oddly look and behave a lot like the Destroyer weapon from Thor. These robots are merciless and deal horrible blows to some of the cast and it really does hurt to see them fall to their knees, I won’t spoil any names though. Other great scenes come from the present 1973 story telling such as the incredible scene with Magneto lifting a whole baseball stadium around the White House and showing just how powerful a mutant he is. Perhaps the best moment for the whole film (comedy wise anyway) was during the prison break for Magneto and watching the new character Quicksilver (Evan Peters) who completely steals the show for this entire section of the film. And I know right about now you may be asking about good old Trask (Peter Dinklage,) well I don’t know what to say, as a bad guy he isn’t much of one and as a character he doesn’t stand out that much either. I don’t blame his performance or anything like that, I just don’t think he was that important in the film despite being the creator of the Sentinels, he just doesn’t stand out.

In conclusion, I am absolutely blown away by X-Men Days of Future Past, I knew that I would enjoy the film but I didn’t realize what a great addition it would be to the franchise. As I casually mentioned before, I saw many fixes to story errors the other films had made which was just great, it may be petty but the adjustments are probably really appreciated and were definitely noticed by myself. Everything was very ambitious for Days of Future Past as it combined the classic characters and the new additions from The First Class and we all know how bad that can turn out but it comes out the best I’ve seen a film do in a long time and was a stellar movie for the X-Men franchise.

Good:

- So many moving parts for the film that were all juggled very well

- Excellent action

- Both the new comers and old favorites performed amazingly

- New additions like Quicksilver stole the show

Bad:

- Dinklage’s Trask wasn’t a very good villain and was more of a background character it seemed

Scully Rating: 9.0 out of 10