Scoring
We polled our entire team and ranked every MCU film across six categories. We weighted each category based on their overall value to the success of the movie.
Plot - 25%
Character Development - 20%
Villain - 20%
Action - 12.5%
Intangibles - 12.5%
Supporting Cast - 10%
Overview
Film: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Release Date: May 1, 2015
Reception
IMDB: 7.3/10
Rotten Tomato - TOMATOMETER: 75%
Rotten Tomato - Audience: 83%
Box Office
Budget: $250,000,000
Opening Weekend: $191,271,109
Gross US: $459,005,868
Gross Worldwide: $1,405,413,868
Trailer:
This trailer is amazing. Why didn't they make this movie?
Plot
Synopsis: When Tony Stark and Bruce Banner try to jump-start a dormant peacekeeping program called Ultron, things go horribly wrong and it's up to Earth's mightiest heroes to stop the villainous Ultron from enacting his terrible plan.
Analysis: The plot works pretty well for the first two acts before it starts to fall apart. Most of this is tied to Ultron's ultimate plan, which we will dive into more in the Villain section. Overall, most of the film felt watered down as it started to become clear that Marvel was trying to force-feed the future of their franchise, instead of trying to make another great Avengers movie.
Grade: 6.5/10
Character Development
Analysis: Character development is usually on the back burner when it comes to an Avengers movie, but they still tend to give each character a little bit of runway for the audience. Outside of maybe two characters, the rest of the ensemble are pretty forgettable. Most of the plot is built around Tony Stark and his relationship with the Ultron project. Building the story around Robert Downey Jr. is usually a safe bet. Unfortunately, most of Tony's arc feels disjointed, as they completely erased all of the progress they made in Iron Man 3 five minutes into the film. At least Hawkeye finally got the runway he deserved coming off of the first Avengers film.
Grade: 6.5/10
Villain
Name: Ultron
Bio: Ultron is an artificial intelligence peacekeeping program created by Tony Stark from the decrypted code derived from the Mind Stone. Ultron however had soon deemed humanity itself as the greatest threat to peace on the Earth and attempted to create his technological singularity by committing genocide against them, leaving only his own doubles left in his wake.
Evil Plan: I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan. Ultron planned to commit global genocide by creating a device that would lift the city of Novi Grad skyward and cause it to recreate a meteoric impact when it crashed into the Earth.
Analysis: Artificial Intelligence peacekeeping program that determines human kind is earth's greatest threat? Seems pretty reasonable. I can buy into that. Picking up a city and dropping it to blow up the earth? Wait, what? Outside of his evil plan being a complete mess, Ultron lost all credibility with the audience as soon as he started talking about making omelets, instead of actually being intimidating.
Grade: 6/10
Supporting Cast
Iron Chungus
Captain English
Hot Tub Vision Quest Machine
The Incredible Sulk
Goosfraba
Eaglenose
Slowgold
Miss Cleo
Hearing
Wait, There's A Guy On Our Team Dressed Like A Pirate?
Yeah, Science!
Analysis: Any movie with Avengers in the title gets an automatic 5 points just for everyone showing up. Most of the core was pretty underwhelming after the first act, but we did get graced with 2.5 new Avengers, so there's that.
Grade: 7.35/10
Action
Best Fight:
Analysis: If you look at this film purely from an action standpoint, it seems like an outlier in the franchise. It's almost as if Whedon went all in on trying to translate the look and feel of reading a comic book onto the big screen. If you screenshot individual scenes from the biggest action set pieces, they look as if they were pulled straight from the page.
We love this approach in theory, unfortunately, it felt a too disjointed in practice. Luckily, we were blessed with one amazing fight scene that will stay with the audience forever. Thank you, Veronica!
Grade: 7/10
Intangibles
Analysis: This party plays out just as one would expect when a bunch of testosterone driven alphas are at a party together. Drinking contest, lifting contest, who has the hottest girlfriend? This scene pretty much covers all of the Intangibles that this film has to offer.
Grade: 6.25/10
Best Moments
Little Agents
How much wood could a Mr. Stark chuck if a Mr. Stark could chuck wood?
Hawkeye's Halftime Speech
Final Score
Analysis: This movie had a few memorable moments that will stick with the audience, but overall it was a huge letdown coming off of the marketing. Even general fans knew of Ultron going into this film, but all we got was a shell of the character. Despite the few great moments, these weren't enough for fans to get past the disjointed big bad.
Grade: 6.52/10
If you want a deeper analysis on the Ultron film, make sure you check out our latest Dr. Film Episode!
Image Credits: Disney
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