New "Avengers" lacks excitement of first film

The first “Avengers” movie was something unique and brought together many peoples’ favorite super heroes. Their chemistry as a team worked, when they weren’t fighting there was witty banter, and the movie was an all-around fun experience. “Age of Ultron” had a lot of these fun moments, but unlike its predecessor, these moments felt forced.

At the very beginning, Iron Man swears as he bumps into an invisible shield around the enemy base and Captain America says “language” like a mother correcting a small child. Now this joke was unfunny enough, but it is made worse and memorable when this joke is made at least four other times in the movie. Robert Downey Jr’s acting is also lacking all character he usually brings to the table. His energy isn’t there like it was in any of the Iron Man movies or the first “Avengers” film. There are many scenes where his character should be evoking strong emotions, but we just don’t get to feel any of these emotions because he seems to be there to just collect his paycheck.

Another glaring flaw of the film was the awkward and unnecessary relationship between Bruce Banner and Blackwidow. The film keeps bringing up the fact that they are both monsters and would be a perfect couple. This would again only be a slight flaw, but just like the bad joke, they drag it across the entire movie. There are too many drawn out scenes where the two are awkwardly flirting or pouring out their emotions to each other. “Avengers” was never supposed to be a touchy feely film — it’s supposed to be an action movie.

The film also suffers from Man of Steel/Transformers syndrome — there is a blatant product placement. The camera zooms into a depressed looking Bruce Banner deep in thought while listening to classical music… with the latest and most expensive model of Beats headphones. All of the team is getting their weapons, armor, and… a pair of Adidas shoes. Blackwidow is watching a touching video near the end using… a Samsung tablet with Skype on it. These ads constantly tear the viewer out of the film with the reminder “THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT PROFIT.” The whole thing began to feel like an ad. The immersion breaking moments didn’t help with the film’s almost two and a half hour run time — it felt like it was dragging after the first hour.

Well, let’s be honest, you are going to see “Avengers: Age of Ultron” because everyone was excited about it. It’s not a bad film by any means, but it doesn’t stack up to the hype or the pure fun of the first movie. I give Avengers: Age of Ultron seven flying robots out of ten.