by Vi Burgess & Haley Mitchell, assistant editors

NOTE: THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW – PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK

“I’ve got no strings, so I have fun, I’m not tied up to anyone!”

Following the breakup of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers are freelancing their way into our hearts as the team goes on missions to recover familiar artifacts and strengthen their teamy bonds. Filled with delicious cameos, those familiar Marvel quips, and insight into rich character backstories, “Age of Ultron” is good for approximately… thirty minutes. And we’re being generous.

Starting out with the actual good parts (there weren’t many): the music. If you’ve seen the trailer, the music is actually killer, the perfect combination of creepy, insane, and strangely empowering. It’s pretty great throughout the movie; it’s in all the right places so it’s not interruptive of any emotional scenes (not that there were many of those either). Also SPOILERS: Hawkeye is married and his wife is caring and gorgeous; it really makes him, and by association, the other Avengers, more human and squishable and loveable. But the one thing we love about Marvel is the smart little quips that they put in the dialogue, because that’s what really makes the characters really really squishy and cute. What would Earth’s mightiest heroes be without a sense of humor in the midst of a fight? Marvel did not disappoint, because the entire theatre was laughing hysterically.

But the story. Oh the story. If you’ve seen the first Avengers, you’ve seen the basic plot structure of “Age of Ultron” (covert mission-y introduction, sudden new super characters appear and disrupt the space time continuum, team scatters after new villain’s first attack, Hulk hulks out, etc.). So forgive us if we weren’t impressed, because after three Iron Mans, two Thors, two Captain Americas, and a Hulk on top of the first Avengers, it’s getting really old.

Despite the seemingly utter lack of hype for this movie, we did expect more from its two new characters: Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). From such an attractive pair of villainous “twins” we would’ve liked to see more subtle characterization, because every trait they displayed was handed to us on a platter. Scarlet Witch is another addition to the list of female characters in the Marvel Universe (along with Black Widow and Maria Hill and Peggy Carter <3 and SPOILERS Hawkeye’s wife and Helen Cho and that’s it), and yet with so many named women characters you’d think this movie would pass the Bechdel Test. It doesn’t. It barely passes the sexy lamp test thanks to the scenes they gave Black Widow (but more on that later). And for some reason, there are a bunch of down-the-shirt shots that suit…other movies… better than a PG-13 action movie. Boo you, Marvel.

And Ultron. Oh, Ultron. We had such high hopes for this villain. He was beautifully flawed, complete with creepy but amusing Pinocchio allusions, but seemed to lack any real motivation for destroying the entire planet. Did writers shrug and go “eh who needs motivation? he’s a robot, that’s all the motivation he needs?” because we think that’s actually what happened. In creating this new super-amazing-mega-powerful villain, another super-amazing-mega-powerful counterpart hero is also created, except he doesn’t have a name (apparently he’s called Vision, but we had to look that up after) and we’re not really sure if we like him or not.

A mutual friend of the Roar who saw the movie at the premiere before us claimed that it was “really rushed”. Yeah, buddy (you go, Glen Coco). Also, we didn’t pay eight dollars (pre-pay if you wanna see this movie in the next two weeks, folks) each to see some great stunt doubles fight for literally ¾ of the movie. We’re not there to see the CGI, Marvel (the villain is entirely CGI’d, half the heroes are CGI’d).

But the biggest disappointment: we’ve never seen something more forced as the romance between Hulk and Black Widow in my life, and that’s counting the one time I (Haley) stood in the pouring rain for five minutes looking for a way to close an automatic car door with the handle instead of the button. There was one scene of delightful flirtation and puzzlement, but what the heck happened? Relationships don’t jump from “hey maybe I like you” to “let’s run away together” in 5 hours. Also, it really trivialized Black Widow’s part in the movie, because she was made less of an Avenger, and more of Hulk’s girl or something. Fun fact, screenwriters: sterilization is not the end of the world for women. Neither is having kids. So frick  you, writers.

Overall, we’re not entirely disappointed this movie wasn’t hyped up as much as other Marvel flicks, because more hype would have meant more disappointment. If you’re looking for something fun to see and cringe at with your friends, feel free to see this movie and share our pain, because sadly it will probably be in theaters for much longer than it should be. The writers of this movie need to go sit in a corner and think about what they’ve created, just like Tony Stark.