Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015, Joss Whedon) (Patreon)

Mike Catches Up With All The MCU Movies He Skipped: An Odyssey Undertaken Solely For The Purpose Of Watching Black Panther Without Having Some Weird Anal-Retentive Breakdown (Please Do Not Waste Your Valuable Time Arguing With Mike In The Comments About How Dumb This Is, Just Accept His Sickness), Part 4 of 10*. Hadn't yet started watching Buffy when the first Avengers came out, so I didn't have the point of comparison, but this felt exactly like twiddling my thumbs during that show's obligatory but tedious fight sequences, impatiently waiting for the snarky witticisms to resume. Except that here the battle-to-banter ratio is more like 2:1 than 1:6, and the action is oppressively digitized rather than almost endearingly cheesy. Enjoyed hearing Spader's signature amused officiousness in this offbeat context (though I preferred Ultron as disembodied neural pathways; his various metallic forms clash with the voice), and Ruffalo gets the Whedon timing down perfectly ("You have to trust me" "Kinda don't") when he's not being asked to sell a bland, guilt-ridden romance. Didn't really understand the bit that Wikipedia's plot summary describes as "Wanda subdues them with haunting visions," as said visions seem to run the gamut from actual traumatic pasts to possible apocalyptic futures, with Thor's somehow imparting crucial information about the MacGuffin Stones. Mentally tuned out when Ultron's human-extinction plan turned out to involve lifting a large hunk of earth into the air and then just dropping it. (Remember when the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit the Yucatán traveling at an estimated 20 kilometers per second, i.e. nearly 45,000 mph? Velocity's where the destructive energy comes from, Joss. It's not like dropping a bowling ball onto a sponge cake from a height of three feet.) Mostly just exhaustingly busy, as usual; not sure I'll ever get around to Infinity War—that'll depend on whether some subsequent MCU film gets the rave reviews that Black Panther did—but reducing the roster by 50% doesn't sound half-bad to me.

Oh, and apparently Andy Serkis' character, introduced here, plays a key role in Black Panther. So my sickness definitely required me to see this first, and to see all the other films I'd skipped before seeing this one, and etc. (Yes, I know it isn't necessary.)

* I still haven't written up Part 3 (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), will try to backtrack to it at some point. Not that I have much of interest to say. Also, there are still somehow six freakin' films to go (even though Ultron came out just three years ago), and year-end poll voting looms, so you're gonna see this project kick into high gear now. Ant-Man already en route from Netflix.