Despite not being too hot on the plethora of superhero movies and multi-faceted franchises, I have to admit that I enjoyed the first Avengers film. Which means that I’m probably going to enjoy the second Avengers film, Avengers: Age of Ultron, especially if director Joss Whedon has anything to say about it.
In a recent interview with Empire Magazine (via Collider), Whedon opened up on just how much fun the villainous robot Ultron is going to be:
I’m having a blast with Ultron. He’s not a creature of logic – he’s a robot who’s genuinely disturbed. We’re finding out what makes him menacing and at the same time endearing and funny and strange and unexpected, and everything a robot never is.
While that sounds kind of like a recipe for most major villains nowadays, the fact that Ultron is a robot and therefore presumably uninterested in the whole “human emotions” thing, should be interesting. Whedon has a way of crafting complex characters in genre settings, and if he has any pull at all in the development of the villain in Avengers: Age of Ultron, we should be in for a treat.
That being said, the area where the previous Avengers villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) had the edge over Ultron was his opportunity for development over several films. We came to understand what made him tick in Thor, and that modicum of sympathy transferred well over to The Avengers (and later to Thor: The Dark World). Ultron will not receive the same trajectory of Loki, of course, which may or may not injure his character development. With James Spader voicing him, though, we can at least hope for a creepy, fascinating and sympathetic baddie.
Avengers: Age of Ultron is really piling on the stars, bringing back all our Avenging pals alongside Spader, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Thomas Kretschmann. Whedon promises that the new faces will not just be fan-service, and that the conflict will be bigger than “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes versus one British character actor.” Ok, Joss, but that one British character almost took over the world. Are you sure that those heroes are up for something bigger?
Avengers: Age of Ultron will hit cinemas May 1, 2015.
