In their second outing as a team, the Avengers end up being ripped apart, brought back together and separated again in a film that doesn’t let you down. Mostly. No, Avengers: Age of Ultron doesn’t touch the pinnacle that The Avengers did but that is understandable, if not expected, given the job this film has in launching Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) Phase II. What it does retain from the first, and build on subsequently, is the stellar character chemistry, unparalleled action sequences and the heart, all thanks to the wizard called Joss Whedon. 

WHAT WORKED:

•The fact that you see the original Avengers (yes, the team grows to include others as the movie progresses) in eyeball-grabbing action from the very first frame, with the same amount of bitching, leg-pulling and feel, two years since the first film.

• That one scene where we see some of the people we’ve seen over the last six years — from the science bros Bruce Banner and Tony Stark to the mighty Thor, the righteous Steve Rogers, the deadly Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton, the friends James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes and Sam Wilson, the efficient Maria Hill — letting their hair down and horsing around with Thor’s hammer is almost enough to make the film worthwhile.

• The Hulk vs Hulkbuster sequence, where we see Hulk lose control and Iron Man trying to calm him down by clobbering him and then burying him under rubble. Told you, it’s killer. And it is just one example of the numerous action sequences that leave you on the edge of the seat and breathless.

• The attention paid to every character, even the new ones, whether it is the Maximoff twins, Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver, who you end up becoming attached to even when their screen time is not that large, or the villain Ultron, who you can totally understand even though he is essentially AI. Paul Bettany’s Vision is again an example of the master Whedon at work, where you form an attachment with the character even if he “was born yesterday”. You don’t feel like the older Avengers — Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye or Hulk — were passed over in favour of others. Even amidst all that goes on in the film we learn a little bit more about all of them.

• The interactions between the characters were the highlights of the film, as usual, whether it was Thor and Vision discussing the balance of Mjolnir and how it affects the swing in the middle of the climactic battle; Stark, and then later the rest of the crew, razzing Cap for his “watch your language” sequence, easy camaraderie between Iron Man and the War Machine even when they looked like they may not win; the cheekiness of Quicksilver towards Hawkeye; and, especially, the touching and emotional scenes between Banner and Romanoff.

• The humour, as always, was spot on though a little less in supply given that this is a much darker film than the previous one. Here’s an example: 
Captain: So if the hammer is in an elevator...
Stark: And the elevator goes up...
Captain: Does it make the elevator worthy?

WHAT DIDN’T:

• The film tries to do too much in a very short time and the Whedon magic, that made The Avengers all that it was, was almost buried under the need to use this film to launch the next phase for MCU.

•  A lot of important developments for the MCU were blink and you miss, for example the reference to the Infinity Stones, Thor’s pool dip in a cave and what he saw and why he needed professor Selvig for it, and the introduction of Wakanda and Andy Serkis’s character.

•  Some portions of the film dragged a bit, especially those focusing on Clint Barton. Not that I don’t like Hawkeye, but I felt that those sequences were absolutely unnecessary and the time could have been used for others.