My problem isn’t at all that I don’t want anything to blow up or get destroyed. I’m fine with the violence aspect of it, and would have been shocked if a fair amount of it wasn’t in there. What I more take issue with is the presentation of long and unnecessary destruction that seems to be less about the plot of superheroes vs supervillains, and feels more like a studio person checking off a box. Last year, Transformers: Age of Extinction became the highest-grossing film in China history, despite being an absolute shit film. (To be clear, AoU deserves no comparisons to Michael Bay other than the role of Transformers in illustrating my broader point.) That performance in China represents something of the culmination of a lesson that studios have learned increasingly well: that in order to increase your lucrative overseas box office, you up the violence factor to decrease the language barrier; explosions, obviously, don’t need translations. With that backdrop in mind, I think we’re seeing a near-uniformity that big blockbusters need to have lots of wanton destruction — not because it’s important to the plot, but because it’s expected of the film just by virtue of being a big blockbuster.

That’s the reason I use the term destruction porn. It’s not about the obvious and unavoidable destruction that comes from battles between gods and near-gods. That level of destruction is more what the first Avengers had, and what’s more representative of most of the better superhero battles I like in comics. AoU went beyond that more at times; the Hulk vs. Hulkbuster fight, while undeniably cool at times, felt like it solely existed (or had to happen in a populous city) because of a studio mandate for a) more destruction; b) creating a hot-selling merchandise option in the Hulkbuster suit; and c) MCU’s apparent love of seeing the heroes fight each other. Similarly, it could have made just as much sense for Ultron to simply uproot a giant hill or mountain for his asteroid plan at the end, but it became a crowded city instead because of the blockbuster need to show us civilians in danger during big fights.

Now, Whedon absolutely made all of this work about as well as it possibly could have, which is why in my comment I agreed with Spiff’s assertion that he helped save this movie. He tied the Hulkbuster fight to some real character emotions from Hulk. He showed Iron Man trying to avoid casualties in the Hulkbuster battle (I think one of the main reasons many of us were bothered by the final Man of Steel fight was Superman’s seeming lack of attention to the possible destruction and hurt innocents, which is not what we associate with the character). And much of the final Ultron showdown involved the Avengers going out of their way to keep civilians safe. Whedon helped our heroes keep their souls in the midst of so much destruction, and I applaud his efforts.

It’s just that I would have preferred his efforts not be necessary, or at least less necessary. I half-remember a conversation with you, from years ago, after Roy Harper’s young daughter was killed by Prometheus in a big comic book event. (It’s been a while, so I may not remember it exactly right.) You didn’t like the story, and when I praised its impact on Roy, you responded that even if it could work in some ways, was that really what we wanted from our comic books and our superheroes — to see them fail and a kid die because of it? For the record, you were right, and I’ve since come to loathe the laziness of character development via the death of a loved one. To me, the destruction porn phenomenon is just a milder version of that same question. Sure, the good guys succeeded a lot more here, but countless hundreds, maybe thousands, still must have died in that carnage, even if we weren’t shown it in the MCU’s bloodless vision. While that can work and work well, is that really what we want from our superheroes and our superhero movies?

Excellent review, Spiff. Avengers 2 was highly entertaining. Vision was probably my favorite character in the film– like you said, he was portrayed perfectly. I liked Spader’s take on Ultron, too, and I thought it made a lot of sense; Ultron’s megalomaniacal way of speaking in the comics, although enjoyable, does seem a bit odd to me. I think basing his speech patterns on Tony’s (his creator) with a little bit of “classic” Ultron thrown in was a very clever compromise. Ultron himself is an interesting character, who simultaneously equates himself to Disney’s take on Pinocchio (“There are no strings on me”– now that’s how you make the most of Disney acquiring Marvel, Whedon!)– to God himself. There’s a reason why he meets with Wanda and Pietro in the church. He’s also wearing a crimson cloak in that scene, I think, which is a possible nod to his original appearance as “The Crimson Cowl”:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ultron1.jpg

You know, Tony not being held accountable for Ultron’s actions (other than by the Avengers) is a very interesting point, and I think what makes the idea worth exploring is that the answer ISN’T so clear-cut. Tony never programmed Ultron to be evil– he merely programmed him to be artificially intelligent. Ultron “chose” what to do with it. You could argue that Tony may have given the OPPORTUNITY to be evil by making him a fairly free-minded A.I. consciousness, but I’d argue against that, too… pretty sure Tony did put an “evil” function in him (and you can make all of these same arguments in favor of Ultron’s creator in the comics, Hank Pym as well). Still, there are cases you can make against Tony, too, and I think his master goal with Ultron, which was “peace in our time,” is also going to be the driving factor behind whatever his actions may be in “Captain America: Civil War.”

There’s only one thing in this review that I take issue with: I don’t get this whole “destruction porn” term that’s caught on ever since Man of Steel came out. It’s a superhero action movie with a Norse god, a monster who can throw tanks and a man in a highly-durable suit of armor that shoots laser beams… and they resolve nearly all of their superhero problems through violence. Of course stuff’s going to blow up! I am pretty sure the both of you have seen this level of destruction dozens of times in the comic books and at times on an even greater scale, e.g. when Kang the Conquerer blew up Washington D.C. in Busiek’s Kang storyline in Avengers. Furthermore, we DO see the negative consequences of the mass violence in the film on a number of occasions, especially when the Hulk overcomes Wanda’s mind manipulation and sees all of the people he’s injured. There’s even talk of Banner’s possible arrest in the next scene. Obviously, real violence and destruction are terrible things, but this is fiction, and I feel like I’m seeing an unintentional double standard here, especially when you take into account that the three of us have seen quite a lot of fictionalized destruction in our pop entertainment.

As every review has rightfully pointed out, this was a CROWDED film, with a helluva lot stuffed in to the point that it was often bursting at the seams. Whedon’s first cut was reportedly 3 and a half hours long, with the theatrical version trimmed to a box-office-friendly 2 hours and 20 minutes. I’m already looking forward to the Director’s Cut I hope we someday get of AoU (though Marvel hasn’t allowed anything like that yet), because I’m curious if the extra hour of run time (long movies, as a general rule, don’t bother me) helps the flow. There are moments in the movie that feel rushed, certainly. The various visions that the team members experience after being hit by Scarlet Witch’s mind bombs almost all feel forced — Thor’s in particular was all over the place, as was his subsequent magic water diversion, and none of that seemed too worthwhile despite the pleasantness of briefly seeing Idris Elba’s Heimdall and Stellan Skarsgard’s Erik Selvig. Cap’s didn’t feel like it made the most of reuniting him with Peggy (though just seeing her at all was a bit of a tug on my heartstring after the excellent Agent Carter). Only Black Widow’s possession really landed for me, thanks to how much I crave more of Natasha’s backstory, and Whedon using that as fuel for the BW/Hulk romance. Likewise, as charming as I found Claudia Kim, her Dr. Helen Cho felt like a very rushed and forced character, as did the entire origins of the Vision (or the origins of Ultron himself, for that matter). The whole movie was super heavy on destruction porn, with the Hulkbuster fight feeling particularly shoehorned in, Action! for the Action!’s sake.

But while there are several things you can criticize about the movie, none of it really changed the final equation to me. Wanda’s powers are ill-defined (Maria Hill’s summary of her — “She’s weird” — made me lol), but Elizabeth Olsen’s performance was a major highlight to me. She put so much anguish into that character that I loved her all the more for her unleashed fury. Speedster heroes are always problematic (you have to make them fast enough to be cool, but their speed should be able to solve most of your problems), but Whedon as a storyteller really shone through in subtle ways there, I thought. The AoU Quicksilver might not have been as show-stealing as the Days of Future Past version, but Whedon’s version actually gets winded and has to pant to keep his breath. For some reason, I loved that small insertion; it made a hero seem more human, and imposed an implied limitation on a power that could otherwise seem limitless.

Likewise, the use of Hawkeye’s secret family and the Natasha/Bruce romance helped remind us of the humanity behind these people, even as the rest of the movie seemed to be building them up to be larger than life. Tony gets some short shrift in this movie (my god does he come across as dumb), but it’s more than made up for by seeing Clint and Natasha’s understandings of how some things can be even more important than trying to save the world; Clint is just lucky enough to have a romantic partner who sees it too.

The script didn’t have very rock-solid introductions ideas for Ultron and Vision imo, but the resulting performances rendered the issue moot. James Spader plays Ultron far more playfully than I expected (see: his severing of Klawe’s arm and “apology” for it), and made it work so much better that way. Paul Bettany’s Vision, which was visually wonderful, came in late and partially stole the show (though too much was going on for anyone to steal it very long). He played his Vision as a strong growth from his Jarvis, but was given the reign to go further than just that. His scene in the forest with the final Ultron drone was the best example, as he so wonderfully combined robotic calmness with an emotional response of heroic moral righteousness.

Was Age of Ultron as good as it could have been? Almost definitely not. They tried to cram in too much, went too heavy on the destruction porn to give it enough “summer blockbuster” feel, and lost some of the interplay between the Big Three (I’m a little bummed at how little we’ve gotten to see of them actually getting along over two movies, and with Civil War up next, that’s unlikely to change). But it also did so much right that it made up for most of its flaws with great success. Its supporting characters, especially Black Widow and Scarlet Witch to me but also Hawkeye and Vision, were fully rendered and full of some of the film’s best moments. It gave us a great villain, from a studio that has struggled to deliver those for many of its movies. It gave us a great feel for what a superteam should be: full of kickass teamwork and smaller character moments that tie it all together. It wasn’t Marvel’s best offering, and would probably even fall just outside its top three for me. But it was still a really fucking good movie that I had a lot of fun watching.