Avengers: Age of Ultron 2015
Joss Whedon's second Avengers team-up, and the movie where the phrase 'endgame' first turns up in the MCU. Micah, who covered the press junket for USA Today, likes it fine, though he prefers The Winter Soldier's MMA-choreographed fights and thinks the first Avengers had novelty this one lacks. Sean's read: after a 10-minute Hydra-stronghold opener it swaps invasion for world-building, as Tony Stark quietly builds Ultron out of the scepter's Mind Stone and it goes 'terribly awry.' They dig into James Spader's mocap Ultron (a rod of red lights over his head for eyelines; Elizabeth Olsen acting opposite him), Ultron as the latest in an evil-machine lineage, and the movie's odd need to affirm that humanity is worth saving. Best scenes are the human ones: the hammer-lifting party, the Hawkeye farmhouse (which Disney execs reportedly disliked), Hawkeye's 'I have a bow and arrow' pep talk to Wanda, and Hulk vs. the Hulkbuster as maybe the best set piece in any Avengers movie. Complaints: two hours twenty is too long (cut Thor's cave side-quest), the waves-of-robots finale over Sokovia, and a Thanos tease that, in hindsight, makes the surrounding films feel like 'throat clearing.' $429M domestic, $1.405B worldwide; 141 minutes.