I haven't seen Winter Soldier since it was in theaters, but I don't remember liking her in that either. I don't think she's objectively bad or anything. I really just don't like the interpretation of the character and how she fits into that universe.

I agree about Stark, and even after watching it again I don't understand why Banner helps him build The Vision, except that it's necessary for the plot. That whole portion of the film is a mess, honestly.

My biggest complaint about the Widow/Hulk romance is that it seemingly came out of nowhere. There was no buildup to it. There were no hints that they had even the slightest attraction to each other in previous movies. Bruce Banner's love interest had always been Betty. What happened to Betty? There was no mention of her at all in this movie.

Do we need buildup? We only jump into their lives w/ each movie. It's not a direct solid line we're following. We see one... there's a time gap and then we jump into it again.

Yeah, these movies are happening in "real time". It's been 3 years between events of each movie, and they're lives aren't put on hold during that time.

well, yes, it's not a direct timeline. But I see his point - there's been nothing in any previous movie to even remotely hint at anything between the 2. Heck, she had more involvement with Cap in CA:TWS.

Some of it likely has to do with those 2 not having solo movies, so they only get development in the group movies.

Yeah. But do we need to see Bruce and Natasha get the butterflies, they dance around it, and then they have that first kiss? Relationships, we as a viewer, happen with or without our knowledge. Like real life. We want to see everything as a viewer, which can be very fucking lazy. Why is it so wrong to just jump into a character's life? It's not so wild. Unexpected by not implausible.

I know we recognize Widow as a sexual type of personality but while she uses that to push her agenda in the moment. Aside from Cap getting a stiffy, I didn't feel that he had much more emotion towards her aside from being a team member. Though that he was open to becoming towards building a friendship.

A Banner/Natasha relationship could have worked, but Whedon botched it.

I would have loved about 40-45 minutes of "will they/won't they", then a short stretch of dating, then about 30 minutes of "WE WERE ON A BREAK!", then maybe 20 minutes of make-up. Maybe that's on the director's cut?

I'd say that the first Avengers made it where the closest interactions with Banner/Hulk were with Natasha. She is who brings him in and also deals with the first Hulk out.

I didn't buy or care about the Widow/Banner love thing because it was simply unnecessary. But I was never a fan of forced love stories in action films.

Exactly - she was the one they sent. And yep, she's the one who tried to calm him down on the carrier. They already had a "beauty and the beast" thing going on in the first movie. Not that big of a stretch that years later things might have progressed a bit.

I picked up the movie and gave it a repeat viewing. After seeing it at the cinema i was not blown away by it. It got certain aspects right, but a lot of it was also very off target. Watching it a second time i was more happy with the team working together and that was pretty great. Ultron as a villain was just fine. He had the potential to be so much more and it feels like they really restrained his character. Also having them fight a bunch of Ultron inferior copies at the end felt lazy.

The Banner/Black Widow relationship was fine i guess, but i do agree that her character has so far had one great showing....and that was in Winter Soldier. In the Avengers movies she seems rather lacking. Hawkeye got a slightly better outing this time, but i still do not feel we have gotten anywhere close to seeing the badass he can be in the comics.

Downey Jnr as Stark is starting to actually piss me off. What was once superb casting now feels like its too much ego and not enough substance. I know that the character of Stark is egotistical, but Downey Jnr seems to be reveling in it too much. Going into Civil War its pretty clear for me which side to err on.

The Hulkbuster action scene was the stabd out moment of the movie and it will get some repeated viewings. The Vision was handled pretty well, although his creation was a little forced to say the least. Good character for the future though.

And now onto my biggest problem with this movie. The writing. Watching the movie again it really felt like each person was simply waiting for their turn to speak their lines and make a funny quip. Many of the conversations did not feel authentic. After watching something like Sicario where every single conversation and interaction felt 100% real, this movie misses the mark every time. I know its a super hero movie, and Whedon writes funny scenes, but that does not mean that it cannot or should not be handled in a realistic fashion. I grew bored of the characters trying to one up each other in their witty come backs. 90% of what Stark says is either a witty comeback of scientific mumbo jumbo. The machine has taken over from the man that we saw in the first movie. Its actually why i really liked Iron Man 3 as he spent a lot of the time out of the suit and trying to deal with things without his armory. Well until the end anyway.

Hrmmmm.

A different take w/ Viz's birth. I like some bits in it. Mostly Viz's powers but.. it's kind of clunky too.

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i'm watching this for a third time. i'm still catching things i never caught before. i didn't really like this one at first, but it is growing on me and tells us so much of what leads into other MCU movies. Wakanda, Andy Serkis character, Bruce and Nat, Wanda, the infinity stone, creation of Vision, Captain America ever so slightly nudging Thor's hammer. so much happened in this perfect lead in to so many and Infinity War. i'm so glad i gave another chance.

Always been a favorite of mine. One of the better ones IMHO.

I've always liked it - the Hulkbuster scene alone makes it a top-tier entry.

I like that the movie digs into the cast and motivations a bit more. I also think Ultron poses the ultimate criticism of serialized superheroes: "You want to save the world, but you don't want it to change." It's unfortunate that larger themes like that are not explored in the MCU. I guess Eternals was closest, along with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but those ideas are sidelined for action sequence #5,632

It feels like nuance is usually lost because we need the good guys to be good and the bad guys to be bad, with the good guys being able to make mistakes but rarely being able to be bwahhaha evil, and the bad guys needing to at least be murderers so it's obvious they're wrong.

I dunno, it's always been tough to me to really have superheroes dealing with actual real world situations in a continuity-laden environment. You can get elseworlds or "alternate universes" like Squadron Supreme where things change a ton, but rarely in the two main superhero universes because these toys have to be marketable for eternity, you know? Plus when you think too hard about how Superman could end world hunger if he really wanted but somehow he doesn't, or what Tony Stark could do with his intellect for the impoverished, those are hard questions to answer without turning off at least a subset of your audience.

I know it's uncool to sympathize with Joss Whedon in 2022, but Age of Ultron always felt to me like a potentially great movie that was submarined by studio interference. You can almost see the tension onscreen between what Whedon was trying to do and all of the studio mandated "Marvel business". The movie ultimately doesn't work, but listen to the commentary. Whedon sounds like someone who put his heart and soul into the film and was completely broken by the process. It's no surprise Marvel took the keys away and handed then to the Russos. They were far better equipped to deliver what Feige and the franchise needed.

That's exactly why I love Superman: Peace on Earth. He tries to end world hunger, but ultimately fails. I believe 100% that you can have black and white heroes and villains, while also having that depth. The trouble is the audience, as you said. Captain America can't directly criticize US foreign policy, so it's an allegory. Except wait, actually the US only did those things because a Nazi Cult (except you can't say "Nazi") infiltrated the government. All regular Americans are good guys. And I LIKE The Winter Solider.

It would be nice to have the heroes lose. Like actually, no takesies-backsies lose. And you know what? They can keep pressing on. They're heroes.

I must have missed it…how did Ultron just happen upon the mind stone that he gave to help create Vision?

He steals Loki's staff when he busts out of the Avengers' tower and his intelligence allows him to figure out that it's actually more powerful than they previously realized.

it's fucking Citizen Kane compared to MCU phase 4 garbage to date.

Which always seems weird to me because IIRC Thanos gave Loki that staff, so he not only gave away an Infinity Stone, he took his sweet time coming to get it back.