The Avengers: Age Of Ultron

I'm going to try not to spoil this one, I swear.

Earth's mightiest heroes are back again and director Joss Whedon revels in his element here, It's explosive, visually gorgeous and has more one liners than you could throw your shawarma at. Opening up to a Bond style infiltration scene we can see that there's been a few missions between films since The Avengers work as a strong unit, often teaming up with each other to throw moves that devastate the opposition, all the while exchanging trademark Whedon banter between each other. Thor's fish out of water style comedy still remains a personal favourite and he delivers continuously. The confidence takes a blow however when they face themselves with HYDRA experiments Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, "He's super fast and she's weird". Wanda gets into the teams heads and and we see their deepest fears, each hallucinogenic trip spawning seamlessly from their reality.

The villain of the piece voiced by James Spader breaks the mold when it comes to Marvels usually two dimensional villains, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr/Iron Man) has the idea to dabble with an AI code found in the HYDRA base to create a self aware safety protocol to protect the world so the Avengers can take it a little easier, Stark telling Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo/Hulk) that it would achieve "peace in our time," however as in any artificial intelligence scenario, the Ultron program goes rogue and comes to the conclusion that world peace can be brought about by the extinction of humanity. Cue drama.

The films highlights are the characters interactions with each other, ten movies in to the cinematic universe and the core team members are already well established and yet for a team mainly compromised of leaders the friction that results is satisfying, mostly that the relationship between Stark and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans/Captain America) paving the way to the upcoming Captain America: Civil War. There's even a budding romance between an unlikely couple and I think I can finally say it...

I like Hawkeye.

That's right the bow and arrow guy, fighting besides monsters and literal God's, Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye is actually one of the stand out performances, possibly for being short changed in the last Avengers movie but he has some of the funniest lines and really puts things into perspective to a later reformed Wanda. I think on Whdeon's part Hawkeye was written to be the most relatable team member as without powers and still giving as good as he gets we feel we could be part of the action too.

The film is visually incredible and each action piece is memorable for the most part, a crazed Hulk going head to head with Iron Man's hulkbuster armor is a stand out moment yet the third act of the film isn't too dissimilar to the end of the first Avengers, countless fodder enemies merely being there to make the heroes look good and straying just a little too close into disaster porn. It's not Michael Bay bad, far from it in fact it just feels unnecessary in parts.

My only two gripes with the film are that despite Ultron being a compelling and unconventional villain he is sidelined a little for more of the teams interactions. An eight foot killer robot with a Stark -esque personality and dry humour is a delight to see and Spader is clearly having a field day with it, I just wish they showed us more of him. The other is quite an unpopular opinion but Samuel L Jackson returns as Nick Fury and it's not needed in the slightest, he gives a pep talk and that's really it.

  Yes I'm probably seeing this through rose tinted glasses but I loved Age Of Ultron, Whedon manages to juggle all these conflicting egos delicately and only teases future events to come rather than shoehorning them in like many other Marvel films have been known to.

See it for the child in you.

Godzilla

The eighth one

Spoilers

After sixteen years since his last big screen outing (or ten if you've seen the Japanese ones) the undisputed king of monsters is back to smash up iconic landmarks and have your inner nine year old squeal with glee. Dinosaurs are cool but nuclear dinosaurs top everything.

The premise of the film basically follows the life of Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Kick ass) an explosive ordnance disposal technician and his family in two points of time. It initially begins in Japan where Ford's father Joe (Bryan 'Heisenberg' Cranston) an overworked nuclear power plant supervisor sends his wife and a team to look at the damages to the plants core. Disaster arrives on cue and after a huge explosion and the plant being quarantined we hurtle forward fifteen years to see Ford happy with a wife and son. All seems to being going well until he gets a call from Japan to go bail his now estranged father out of prison. The years have not been kind to Joe and his son only see's him getting lost in his conspiracy theories. You know whats bound to happen from here anyway, Joe's not so crazy and it gets a bit late to listen to him. There is one man who seems to have an almost prophetic knowledge of the giant monsters however, Ken Watanabe (Inception) plays Dr Serizawa (possibly an Easter egg from the nineteen fifty four movie) a scientist who works with Monarch, an organisation tracking a number of giant monsters for decades.

Despite a somewhat decent cast the human side of the monster story lacks tremendously, Taylor-Johnson and his on screen wife Elizabeth Olsen are almost a paint by numbers family and it will make you wince in horror. Hopefully it's just what they had to work with that is the problem and not their chemistry, otherwise Avengers 2: Age Of Ultron is going to have it's weak link. Aside from this the usually hard hitting actors are woefully underused, Cranston is as always a pleasure to watch and his trauma and outright frustration with shady government cover ups are one of the films highlights, and yet he's out of the film before the halfway mark. Watanabe also begins the film as a believable and mysterious character who devolves into a cliched mannequin who's sole function is to utter cryptic one liners and spout exposition no ordinary human would be able to arrive at, he unintentionally provides a few laughs however so I guess he has that going for him?

In this aspect it remains faithful to the Toho Studios films. Faithful in that around 85% of the film is comprised of lackluster human stories you sit through in anticipation for the real star of the movie. The build up is worth it and even after giving up a lot of screen time to the films villains (Giant monsters this time! Not the army for once.) Gojira's eventual debut is monumental, hats off to the art department because he looks incredible, and this version of the roar is both heroic and terrifying. He commands a presence and the sluggish but jarring shots he throws at the rival monsters are something you feel the force of, also his atomic breath is Awesome.

You weren't expecting an Oscar winner were you?
With all its faults and a tendency to drag every now and again Godzilla is a welcome return to the big screen and the lack of Matthew Broderick can only improve a movie. Look forward to the sequel, here's hoping for an appearance of this young lady.