In responding to my staffers’ review of “Age of Ultron”, let me forego Nick Fury in favor of the words of another Samuel Jackson character, “Well, allow me to retort.”

“Avengers: Age of Ultron” is two and a half hours of wonderful spectacle, and manages to raise the stakes for the heroes both as a team and as individuals. While admittedly small parts of the movie feel rushed (I’m still wondering how Thor and Dr. Selvig got to that mystical pool…), the movie demonstrates once again that Marvel Studios and director Joss Whedon are a winning combination.

A thirty minute battle opens the movie, fully embracing its comic-book roots through the depiction of the action sequences and the banter between the heroes. This battle sets the tone for the rest of the film, as the movie rarely slows down to allow the audience to catch its breath – there’s A LOT going on.  The aftermath of this initial battle establishes the film’s central conflict: while they are a successful team, all is still not well with the Avengers. Egos still clash, motivations for their heroism differ, and their policing of various conflicts around the world have led many countries to view the Avengers as unwelcome intruders who end up causing more harm than good (hmmm…Whedon might be commenting on something there).

The end result of this unrest is the titular Ultron, an artificial intelligence system created by Stark meant to protect the world but which instead determines the best way to accomplish that is to exterminate humanity. Mayhem follows, fulfilling the idea that the Avengers are needed “to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand.”  The final battle is appropriately epic in scope and leads to some profound changes to the team.

As in the first Avengers, each hero gets his/her moments throughout the film that deepen the character – Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) benefits most from this expansion – but they’re not all pleasant revelations: Marvel likes its heroes flawed (unless it’s Captain America). The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow present these flaws together – both characters are left scarred by their first encounter with the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), a villain (whose family was a victim of Stark weapons) who has the ability to play with people’s minds.

And it’s their relationship and a perceived slighting of Johansson’s character that Whedon has taken an undue amount of grief for. It’s also a complaint my staffers raise, I think a bit unfairly.  Both characters are haunted by their pasts and a certain lack of control they have/had in their lives: Widow feels she was made into a “monster” through the Soviet spy training she underwent, while Banner IS a monster.  They are both trying to come to terms with who they are, and  that commonality is the basis for their romantic story line.  I never saw Widow as weakened – I saw her as more human (important to have that grounding when among a group of gods).

Overall, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is a thrill-ride of a movie, offering the audience both the expected visual treats and some rather unexpected twists. Fans of the comics and/or the Marvel movies will not be disappointed.