Avengers: Age Of Ultron: 5 Things That Made The MCU Better (& 5 That Made It Worse)

Marvel’s Avengers: Age Of Ultron was the second Avengers outing and an important milestone in the MCU. It brought in some new heroes, transformed Jarvis into Vision, and lead to the Sokovia accords and the issue of government oversight, which ultimately divided the Avengers down the middle.

Despite its significance and ticket sales, the movie itself failed to capture audiences the way previous films had, and ended up being overshadowed by X-Men: Days Of Future Past. But did Age of Ultron get the praise and criticism it deserved?

10 Better: Plot

Although it wasn’t particularly well-executed, the plot itself had a lot going for it. Most notably, it took the Avengers out of their bubble and forced them to face politicians and public opinion, similar to Tony Stark’s story in Iron Man 2.

Unfortunately, there was far too much plot crammed into one movie, so it never got the treatment it deserved, but the events of Age Of Ultron took MCU storylines in a new direction, spawning some of the saga’s better films.

9 Worse: Storytelling

Phase 2 of the MCU is often considered the worst yet. After hooking audiences and a world-class cast with the first round of movies and beating the world with The Avengers, the films began to get lazy and complacent.

The simple, iconic, well-executed style of Phase 1 was replaced with a shapeless series of trailer moments strung together with little care. Age of Ultron was the worst example of this. Thankfully Disney broke them out of this funk and brought back the passion.

8 Better: New Characters

Age Of Ultron brought in some fascinating new characters, and though most weren’t properly utilized in the later films, that’s on them. Ultron himself wasn’t all that interesting, but the movie also brought us Vision, Scarlett Witch, and Ulysses Klaue. Quicksilver was also introduced though Marvel decided to immediately kill him off, likely because Fox nailed the character in their movie first.

Vision and Scarlett Witch were both unique and immensely powerful, and brought us some interesting moments, like Vision lifting Mjolnir and Scarlett Witch planting false visions in the Avengers’ minds, and the thematic links between the two.

7 Worse: Action

While the movie’s action looked good on paper, it was pretty disappointing. X-Men showed Age of Ultron up for not putting enough thought into it, with their superior Quicksilver, as well as their superior, “ripping a giant structure out the ground” scene.

Also, the army of no-stakes robots Ultron threw at the heroes in the finale made for an incredibly boring final fight, with each Avenger casually tearing the jumped-up cartoons to pieces.

6 Better: Visuals

While the movie wasn’t particularly dynamic, the visuals themselves were on point. C.G.I characters like Hulk, Iron Man, and Ultron looked better than ever, and the filmmakers were able to use them in more creative and elaborate ways.

Age Of Ultron wasn’t a step-up for the MCU in terms of storytelling, but it was a big step-up in terms of production value.

5 Worse: Character Development

With so much going on, there was very little time for any kind of character exploration or development. The characters were used more like pawns, acting however the script needed them to instead of how they would act in that situation.

Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were incredibly unscientific, Thor’s dialogue and actions made very little sense, and Ultron wasn’t a particularly captivating villain. We barely skimmed the surface of what any of the characters were thinking or feeling.

4 Better: Knowing Its Place

Age of Ultron is up there with the Captain America sequels when it comes to fulfilling its role in the Infinity Saga. While later movies started to go their own way, for better or worse, Age Of Ultron managed to remain true to the tone of the series up until that point. The plot also fed off what was set up in the previous movies, rather than inventing its own back story.

Most notably, it started to ask big questions of the Avengers and make them take responsibility for their actions, a theme that carried through to Phase 3 and the saga’s finale very effectively.

3 Worse: Villain

Ultron was one of the most disappointing villains in the Infinity Saga. He thought a lot of himself, but his actions and motivations made very little sense, and the character was so vague about what he wanted he was just used as a plot puppet to make the Avengers go to certain places.

After sending hordes of useless robots after the Avengers for half the film, he confronts them and announces it’s time to end it, then proceeds to just send more mindless minions after them.

2 Better: Performances

While the characters they were portraying were all over the place this time around, the actors were in fine form, getting more into character rather than playing for the big moments.

Robert Downey Junior’s character work with Tony Stark started to grow more impressive around this time, and we started to see a bit more depth to Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers. Some fun cameos, too, including Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue. James Spader was wasted on Ultron though.

1 Worse: Tone

A common trope of the MCU is taking a heavy storyline with big implications from the comics, then cramming it unconvincingly into one feature-length movie.

This results in a movie where the characters take everything a lot more seriously than the audience and are forced to constantly say out loud how dangerous the situation is because the film isn’t written well enough to portray that. Age Of Ultron was one such victim, and as a result, ended up one of the most boring MCU movies.