Since one of my first reviews I did on the site was of The Avengers, I figured that it would be fitting to do my next review on its sequel. So, for those of you waiting with baited breath wondering whether or not it will be better than its predecessor, let me ease your anticipation; it is not as good as the first Avengers, but it is one hell of a good time.

Since we have already been introduced to all of our main characters the films starts off in the middle of an action sequence (in media res for those of you with a literary background), and simply goes from there. Now, I plan to keep this review free of any major spoilers, so I’m not going to delve too much into the plot. If you have watched the trailers, then you know the basic outline of the story; artificial Intelligence is created in the form of Ultron, and it goes terribly wrong. The Avengers are then faced with the task of stopping this foe; it’s your basic superhero film. That being said, there is a lot more character development in this film than in its predecessor, especially with Hawkeye’s character. In fact, look for an inside joke about how much Jeremy Renner disliked what they did with his character in the first film.

One of the strongest points of this film is its action sequences. To put it in the words of the younger generation, they are “on point”. The Hulk vs Iron man in the Hulkbuster suit fight was everything that I could have dreamed of, and the final fight sequence, which lasts a fairly long time was quite well done. All in all, the movie was a great experience.

There were some flaws though. The problem the film ran into was that it had the Herculean task of jamming so many characters into such a small time (look for numerous cameos) and, of course, setting up future films. Unfortunately, the characters of Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch suffer because of this; we get a bit of their backstory, but it is never flushed completely out. Marvel has been incredibly ambitious with their phase 1,2 & 3 plans. It made this film (as good as it was) feel like a setup for future events. We know that the Marvel Civil War is coming, and we see the setup for that. We know that the Infinity War is coming, and we see the setup for that. I understand that the 2^nd movie of any trilogy is going to be a setup for the final act, I just wish it had been a little more The Empire Strikes Back and a little less Catching Fire.

Overall, I really did like the film. James Spader was amazing as Ultron, a character that is both brilliant and childish at the same time. Paul Bettany also has a nice turn as the voice of J.A.R.V.I.S. and a bit more. Robert Downey Jr. is always great as Tony Stark and Chris Evans gives a quite strong performance as the always proper and good Captain America. I am greatly looking forward to see how Captain America: Civil War turns out, because I think it is shaping up to be the greatest Marvel movie yet. If I rate this movie on a 1-10 scale, it would be a strong 8. Go out and see it for yourselves!