The Avengers: Age of Ultron

About time I got back on track with some film reviews and there's three I'm yet to bring you.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (3 stars ***) and Cinderella (2 stars **) I won't go into detail about but we must, of course, talk Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Let's get the contentious stuff out the way first and, despite being told many times to the contrary, I think this bests the first film.

Yes, it flies out of the traps without a regard for any of the events in the last MCU films (Thor 2 and Capt. America 2) but the first set piece is a marvellous piece of action cinema and worth the IMAX entry price alone.

You'll have to get over the fact that they seem to have tamed Hulk as well (he even sits in a plane at one stage) but everything else about this tops the first.

The jokes are better (the scene where everyone tries to lift Thor's hammer being particularly laugh out loud) the characters given more time to breathe and grow (it's nice to feel some more sympathy towards Hawkeye and establish some fledgling romance between Black Widow and Bruce Banner, the horror flashbacks caused by new Avenger Scarlet Witch are eye-opening as well) and the set pieces better here.

Ultron is a great creation, believable enough to be threatening although Marvel again rely on an ending sequence involving identikit, faceless robotic cannon (and hammer) fodder.

What is to be admired is the sheer scale of this end scene with floating cities and James Spader's dulcet, villainous tones keeping the tension levels high.

It's the biggest blockbuster of the year (until a little film called Star Wars comes out in December) and going to divide opinion but, for us, it's the pinnacle of Phase Two and the best we've seen from Marvel so far.

Setting up Captain America: Civil War nicely this is essential viewing.

4 stars ****