Like most Marvel fans, I went into Avengers: Age of Ultron with very high expectations. After the first Avengers and movies following it Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Thor: The Dark World), as well as Guardians of the Galaxy, I was sure Age of Ultron would be the perfect sequel.
Boy was I wrong.
The trailer promised evil robots singing Disney songs, the usual snarky wit of Tony Stark, a badass Natasha, and the leaked clip showed a ripped Chris Evans chopping wood. What more could you ask for?
Certainly not an invented romance between the two characters least likely to be interested in each other. If I remember correctly, Natasha was terrified of Bruce during the entirety of the first Avengers, starting from the moment they met. The film gave no explanation of when a spark was created between them aside from a conversation with poorly hidden innuendoes. And as much as I love the idea of Hawkeye owning a farm and constantly renovating his house, my OTP remains Clint and Natasha.
My second issue with the film is correlated to the first. Too much time was spent creating a fictional romance, that the important plot, the one I was actually interested in, was left unexplained. When did Tony recreate his suits? Why was Thor so connected to Vision? And where the hell is Bucky? The film created more questions than it answered. Most of these will probably be explained in the upcoming Civil War, but I would have liked a little explanation.
My final and most important issue is the absence of the final after credits scene. Sure we had Thanos promising to destroy the Avengers, but I waited through the entire credits and I all got was "The Avengers will return..." Anyone who knows what IMDB is can tell you the Avengers will being returning. Ant Man even has a second scene, and is anyone actually excited for that movie? I wanted Black Widow picking up Mjölnir or the Hulk drinking an umbrella drink on the beach at the very least. Not giving me an after credits scene is like not taking Chris Evans' shirt off, it's just not right.
Despite my frustrations with the sequel, I still enjoyed the action and quick-witted humor of Age of Ultron. It set up the plot for the next Avengers movies and introduced conflict that I am excited to see play out in the next year.
