It will surely stand as one of the most peculiar and possibly ironic entries in a director’s filmography that in between Joss Whedon’s two “Avengers” films there reads “Much Ado About Nothing”: a low-budget, black-and-white Shakespeare adaption sandwiched between two of the most gargantuan blockbusters ever made.
In “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Whedon (and Marvel’s) sequel to the third highest grossing film of all-time, there is definitely aplenty ado-ing. Too much, certainly, but then again, we come to the Avengers for their clown-car excess of superheros, their colorful coterie of capes.
What binds Whedon’s spectacles with his Shakespeare are the quips, which sail in iambic pentameter in one and zigzag between explosions in the others. The original 2012 “Avengers” (which featured the rarest of superhero movie insults: “mewling quim”) should have had more of them, and there’s even less room in the massive – and massively overstuffed – “Age of Ultron” for Whedon’s dry, self-referential wit.
As a sequel, “Age of Ultron” could have amped up the brio. But it instead pushes further into emotionality and complexity, adding up to a full but not particularly satisfying meal of franchise building, and leaving only a bread-crumb trail of Whedon’s banter to follow through the rubble.
The action starts predictably with the Avengers, now assembled, assaulting a remote HYDRA base in the fictional, vaguely Eastern European snowy republic of Sokovia. They are a weaving force: Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Chris Evans’s Captain America, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye.