The Avengers: Age of Ultron

I have been in a state of processing after seeing this movie, my immediate thought after viewing was to give it two and a half unicorns out of five....which is essentially a 6/10, in human terms. It feels as though I am pressured to love this movie as it is The Avengers, but I have never been one to conform to conventions. There was a moment of reflection that caused me to bump the film up to a 6.5/10 but I guess the way to get an unresolvable rating is to break it down. So lets get started.

The film didn't mess around, getting straight to the point through an amazing scene that allowed us to view all of our heroes in the their element, as they battled an army of Hydra initiatives in order to retrieve Loki's staff - a search it seems the team have been conducting for a very long time.

As well as finding the staff, they discover another hydra secret, genetically modifying humans to have supernatural abilities. Hydras best experiments are the Maximoff twins, Pietro (Aaron Taylor Johnson) and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), more favourable known by the comic book universe as  Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. The twins have a vendetta against Tony Stark which fuels their determination to destroy the Avengers, Scarlet Witch uses her ability to get into his mind and view his worse fear causing Tony Stark to build the ultimate defender who becomes the worlds greatest threat; Ultron

Ultron was originally created as a superior interface by Stark (Robert Downey Jr) and Banner (Mark Ruffalo) who managed to secretly harness the intergalactic power of Loki's staff. Ultron exceed expectations and fails to meet predicted requirements when he uploads himself into a number of Iron Man suits and attacks the unsuspecting Avengers calling them an enemy of Peace - Ooops. 

Always nine steps ahead and working with the supernatural twins  Ultron builds himself multiple sleek models so that he can easily upload himself should his form be destroyed - which was pretty darn cool. However it is soon discovered that Ultron wants to destroy more than the Avengers - Try the Earth; Go figure, with his devil inspired robotic form and his evil tone of voice and what not, who would have thunk it? 

The film explores problems with working in a team including trust, fear and hope - if you ask me they all need some kind of work retreat to get their issues in order, but there's no rest for the wicked or the uniquely skilled.

One of the most interesting things about The Avengers is that it brings together an assemble - no pun intended - of characters that already have their own deeper back story that can be and has been explored in their own separate movies which essentially means that there is no need for any fluff, they can just jump straight into the action with maybe a cleverly placed line or two that allows the audience who follow their individual stories to nod in understanding, and those who don't to be very quickly bought up to speed. That being said with so many characters it is easy to fall into plot holes, covering them up in post-production by cutting it between a bigger, more important and action packed scene. But we all know that "Fix it in Post" is a myth and by attempting to do so you just draw more attention to the problem.

I honestly think this film could not have been pulled off without the voice talents of James Spader who was behind the ruthless Ultron. With every head tilt, I could sense him channelling his Blacklist Character; Raymond Reddington. It was positively delightful and exceeding creepy hearing his deep emotionless voice singing along to a classic Pinocchio tune. - Chills.

It was nice to view the team just kicking back and having a laugh together when they thought the fight was over - Oh silly Avengers, the fighting is never over - and seeing a more.... humane side to them they don't have the luxury of wearing on their sleeves when their mission in life is to kill the bad guys.

With most films that have no sequential end in sight, I always ponder on where they can go next, whilst simultaneously holding on to some sense of continuity and originality. Although the ending left you with possible hints into the development of the team known as "The Avengers" and possible plot points for individual movies, I was ultimately left feeling uninspired. Would each new film just be cause to create a new and unrelated terror? If it forever to be Battle, Defeat, Repeat? Sure this is the core element of every movie, but I'll just say, if you want me to expect more, then you're going to have to give me more.

So this review was hella long, so apologies for that, but after getting out all my thought on this metaphorical paper, I think the film does in fact deserve a solid 7/10 which is a step up from 6, and translate roughly to...

Seventh Son

I often throw around the term: Waste of potential, in one form or another to quite a degree. But, it is so rarely that I mean that without a shadow of a doubt. The film Seventh Son is based on the novel by Joseph Delaney; The Spooks Apprentice. Having read the synopsis of the novel, this film was supposedly based, it is clear that they have disregarded the original plot and mainly followed the premise of being the seventh son of a seventh son. That of course is not the issue as some of the best films and TV shows that have are based on books have completely beaten their own path to acclaimed success (I'm looking at you Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire Diaries). 

Having gotten that out of the way, Seventh Son was basically a nothing. The characters were less than interesting as we trudged up and down the land with the drunk, miserable and old Spook, John Gregory (Jeff Bridges) and his latest apprentice who he bought Tom Ward (Ben Barnes). It honestly seemed like none of them wanted to do the job of capturing the escaped  Queen of darkness Mother Malkin (Julianne More). Which was probably the case for poor old boring Tom, the only thing keeping him around his abusive teacher who essentially taught him nothing was the hopes of bumping into the equally boring and ever plain Alice (Alicia Vikander).

The only enjoyment I derived from this film was the fleeting minutes we had with  Kit Harrington before we were downgraded to spend the rest of the film watching Ben Barnes who was probably the only one who didn't get the memo about this film being a big joke, meaning we had to endure him stumbling through what he clearly believed was "acting". 

I wasted 120 minutes of my life watching this film and I refuse to waste any more than I have to reviewing it. Just thank me for saving you that time, and do what I couldn't with it; go and see a different movie, ride a bike, go to dinner, I made this sacrifice so you didn't have to.

*No Unicorns*