Ultron Unbound

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) finds the Marvel Cinematic Universe entering its decadent period. I'd almost call it the series' Bronze Age, to borrow the nomenclature of comics. This should be a period when the storytelling in these films ramps up because the need for origin stories has been satisfied by the previous movies, a period when it should be doing its Galactus trilogy, its Kree/Skrull war, its Dark Phoenix saga. Certainly, that's part of why Captain America: The Winter Soldier was the best of the Marvel movies. That movie also had crackerjack storytelling and a defined source text. This film, on the other hand? It's stuffed to the gills with new characters, but not many new ideas. More, it's obviously the middle child in a trilogy, one that's weighted down with far too much franchise-building. Does it provide superheroics? Sure. But at this point, it should be providing more. Maybe I'm asking too much. I mean, it's not awful by any means. I suspect that after 38 movies based on Marvel Comics (with a 39th and 40th due in the next couple of months), I'm suffering from superhero fatigue.

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