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18 Geeky Spoilery Thoughts on 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'

By Rebecca Pahle | Marvel Movies | May 5, 2015 |

By Rebecca Pahle | Marvel Movies | May 5, 2015 |


TK wrote a thoughtful, insightful review of Avengers: Age of Ultron with, like, paragraphs and shit, but other people have thoughts too, TK. Even if they mostly boil down to “Eh. Ultron is OK. It’s fun as long as you don’t think about it too much, which is what I’ve come to expect from the X-Men movies and not the less clusterfuck-inclined MCU, but whaddayagonnado?”

Also, is “going on a vision quest” the new “nuking the fridge?”

Warning: Spoilers.

—Poor Clintasha shippers got Jossed so hard.

—I actually saw Ultron a second time last night, and—as I expected—knowing in advance that the plot is a Gordian knot of WTF (THOR GOES ON A VISION QUEST OK) helped me enjoy the film’s good qualities more. One of those qualities: I know everyone’s all about Science Bros, but I think Cap and Thor might have become my Avengers BFF duo of choice. Tony & Bruce:Inventing murderbots::Cap & Thor:Slick hammer and shield fight moves. I want a webisode that’s just them hanging out. I bet it would be chill.

—Bruce was my standout the first time around, and the second time it was Thor, vision quest bullshit aside. He’s low-key (ba-doom-tiss), man.

—Hayley Atwell, you know I love you, but that cameo was pointless. It’s like Whedon needed a way to get Cap out of that fight but couldn’t figure out something that didn’t tack on screentime to an already bloated movie. All the other “Wanda’s in your head, messing with your shit” moments either contributed to plot (Thor’s) or character development (Natasha’s, Tony’s), but Cap’s told us nothing we didn’t already know. He’s the man out of time. Yeah, got it. Calm down with the cameos.

—Related: I am genuinely bewildered at at Whedon cutting the Loki cameo so Ultron wouldn’t be overstuffed. Did he read the script? Keep chopping, man.

—Also, why was Thor’s vision… thing… prophetic? Anyone? Bueller?

—FUCKING VISION QUEST. (As in, “the vision quest sucked.”)

—FUCKING VISION. (As in, “Yeah! Vision! Vision was awesome!”) I know Helen’s cradle created his body, but I also know Vision can modify his own physical form (his clothes, the cape), so my question is this: Which of them is responsible for the android having abs?

—Tony and Thor fighting over who has the best girlfriend was fun.

—“Fuck yeah Vision can defeat Ultron—he controls the Mind Gem! Do you know how scary powerful those Infinity Gem fuckers are? Like, the most powerful things ever. He totally could have taken care of Ultron in two seconds flat—SO, SO FUCKING POWERFUL, HAVE WE TOLD YOU ABOUT THANOS YET, HE’S GONNA HAVE THE INFINITY GEMS HE’S SO POWERFUL, POWERFUL POWERFUL POWERFUL INFINITY WAR IS GONNA BE A THING DID YOU KNOW—but after freezing Ultron out of the net he took a Starbucks break, and the barista accidentally spelled his name ‘Victor’ so he didn’t know his caramel mocha frap was ready, so long story short that’s why he was MIA for most of the final battle even though the Infinity Gems are SO, SO UNBELIEVABLY POWERFUL.”

—Speaking of Thanos (“THANOS THANOS THANOS, HEY DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THANOS? THANOOOOOOOS.”), fuck that mid-credits sequence. It was the exact same thing as The Avengers. Stop teasing me for things I’ve already been teased about and show me Black Panther already. Also, end credits sequence: Show me it. Mid-credits doesn’t count. Don’t punk out on me now.

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—I didn’t like the “Language!” gag at first—I felt they were going in the Avengers direction of making Steve an old-fashioned fuddy duddy, which doesn’t really work after we’ve seen Winter Soldier—but eventually he turned into the snarky asshole God made him, so that’s cool.

—I’m struggling to reconcile my firmly held belief that this movie was an overstuffed mess that tried to set up way too much and include way too many side characters with the fact that I want to see Don Cheadle in everything. His reaction to seeing Vision was priceless.

—Five stars to the costume department for putting Pietro “I’m a little shit” Maximoff in a track suit. You may say that the track suit is because he runs fast, but no: little shit douchebag uniform.

—JULIE DELPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

—Awww, the nugget who wouldn’t launch the helicarriers in Winter Soldier is back in Ultron as “full up with people” guy. Aaron Himelstein, you’re not in the IMDB credits, but I see you. Cap salute, sir.

—BACKLASH. BACKLASH AGAINST THE BACKLASH. BACKLASH AGAINST THE BACKLASH AGAINST THE BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH BACKLASH.

—I don’t know if I can handle the Ultron backlash (Ultrontroversy?) and the inevitable glut of thinkpieces about What Ant-Man Means for the MCU in one summer. Can we all agree to not?