Friday Film Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron
As the roaring success of last year’s Guardians Of The Galaxy confirmed, our appetite for films set in the Marvel Comics universe is voracious.
This eagerly anticipated sequel to the 2012 action adventure Avengers Assemble is poised to smash box office records with the same unstoppable clobber of a rampaging Incredible Hulk.
Director Joss Whedon is back at the helm to lay the narrative groundwork for the 2016 blockbuster, Captain America: Civil War, which will tear the eponymous team apart as governments worldwide prepare to pass an act regulating superhuman activity.
In many respects, Avengers: Age Of Ultron is business as usual.
Whedon’s film fleshes out the back stories of existing characters, introduces new friends and foes to the fray, and continues the relentless cross-pollination of this menagerie of mighty misfits.
While the sequel delivers exactly what we expect, it lacks some of the pizzazz of the first film and pacing noticeably sags in the middle, plus overly enthusiastic editing of set pieces reduces some skirmishes to an incomprehensible blur, which strain the eyes in 3D.
By introducing a hulking automaton arch-nemesis, Avengers: Age Of Ultron duplicates some of the large-scale digital destruction of the Transformers franchise.
James Spader’s vocal performance lends gravitas to his mechanised megalomaniac while Robert Downey Jr predictably snaffles the majority of the droll quips.
Seeds of romance between Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson, sown in the first film, are heavily watered as a diversion from the bone-crunching.
Running jokes about Captain America’s aversion to swearing and the size of Thor’s hammer don’t run out of puff before the 141 frenetic minutes come to a suitably bombastic close.
Marvel films have a habit of sneaking a teaser into the end credits - Age Of Ultron doesn’t disappoint the ardent fan boys and girls on this front either.
3½
84%
A fainting epidemic sweeps through a late 1960s all-girls school in Carol Morley’s lyrical and haunting feature.
Sixteen-year-old Lydia (Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams) and Abbie (Florence Pugh) are best friends, who make a vow to never lose touch.
This sisterly bond is tested when Abbie sleeps with Lydia’s older brother Kenneth (Joe Cole), the only man in the house in the absence of a father.
Tragedy strikes at the school and Lydia struggles to cope with her loss and with the pressure of maintaining peace between her mother and brother.
Soon after, an infectious hysteria sweeps through the school and Lydia finds herself at the centre of the hullabaloo, bringing the teenager into conflict with chain-smoking headmistress Miss Alvaro (Monica Dolan) and emotionally brittle teacher Miss Mantel (Greta Scacchi).
73%
Based on the experiences of real Sudanese refugees, The Good Lie is a thought-provoking drama set the year before the September 11 attacks, about the plight of three young men who are offered shelter in America as part of an ongoing resettlement effort.
Abital (Kuoth Wiel), Jeremiah (Ger Duany), Paul (Emmanuel Jal) and Mamere (Arnold Oceng) arrive in America and pass through customs in New York, where they are forced to separate.
Abital is sent to Boston while the three young men share an apartment in Kansas City.
The plan to support the refugees in their bewildering new home unravels and an employment counselor named Carrie (Reese Witherspoon) steps in to take charge, aided by her caring boss Jack (Corey Stoll).
Together, they help Jeremiah, Paul and Mamere to acclimatise and escape the temptations of crime and drug abuse.
87%
Award-winning director Michael Winterbottom and controversial stand-up Russell Brand explore the recent financial meltdown in a provocative feature, combining archive footage, documentary filmmaking and comedy to highlight the wealth gap of modern society and the escalation of events that rocked the world.
N/A
Roy Andersson’s delicious ensemble comedy was the deserved winner of the coveted Golden Lion at the 2014 Venice Film Festival, painting a vivid portrait of a group of loosely interconnected characters, who all suffer from various forms of isolation and sadness.
These vignettes, shot in a single static take, include the ill-fated attempts of two novelty gifts salesmen to ply their wares to unreceptive customers, a rousing sing-song in a Second World War bar owned by Limping Lotte, and the unwelcome advances of a lusty Flamenco instructor to one of her male students, who doesn’t appreciate his teacher man-handling him in public.
94%
