Some random thoughts on that Avengers Age of Ultron moive. It needed more AC/DC.

I only see about one movie a year that doesn't have a talking animal in it so I may as well write about it when I do.

• It needed more AC/DC.  One of the problems with the current era of super hero movies is that none of them have a theme song.  Not one damn one of them.  Hum Spider-Man's theme.  You can't.  How many times have you seen kids play fighting in their back yard while humming the Avenger's theme?  Zero.  And Tony Robert Downey Jr. Stark was smart enough to know he existed in an era of incompetent film scorers so he brought his own jams.  He brought AC/DC.  Those all-american arena rock jams from the Australian band AC/DC played a big part it setting the tone for Iron Man and differentiating him from the super heroes of the past in Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and the first Avengers film.  But then, Iron Man 3 happened and there wasn't any AC/DC.  And I think Tony Robert Downey Jr. Stark has been in mourning ever sense.  He never seems to enjoy himself in Avengers: Age of Ultron.  And really that's the biggest knock on this movie.  It just isn't as fun as Marvel has taught us these movies should be.  Marvel fed us a formula and it worked.  This time they forgot some of the ingredients.  Just a little AC/DC might have fixed all of that. 
• Or maybe they could have just used the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack.  It would have been cheap but who would complain.  When it works it works. 
• I think that feeling of mourning was all over this movie.  It felt like a swan song for Robet Downey Jr.,  Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner in particular.  We know Downey Jr. is at least back for Captain America: Civil War but for all three of those guys it felt like a last ride.
• Only Chris Hemsworth's Thor seemed to be enjoying himself.  Chris Evan's Captain America seemed to revel in the comraderie of a super team.  As that character should.  
• Scarlett Johansen's Black Widow wasn't having a ton of fun but she's not supposed to.  Dark past and all that.  I think she was just right in every scene or at least as right as the script allowed.  Great work from her.  People can debate that the character could have been given more.  You can look at it from a feminist angle and make some complaints.  But this movie is meant to sell toys to little boys and razors to their dads.  Scarlett did about as much with what she was going to get as possible. 
• Sticking with the ladies for a moment.  Cobie Smulders continues to be great as Maria Hill.  Linda Cardellini is always just right in everything from Scooby-Doo to Mad Men.  I thought Elizabeth Olsen was very good in a very bad role.  She could be a strong contributor to the next films.
• But... sigh.  Scarlett Witch and Quicksliver... I think it it was a bad idea from the start.  Yeah, they have been avengers and if you are bringing Vision into the story you kind of want Scarlet Witch to be there to stand beside him.  But these characters are not those characters from the comics and I guess legally they can't be since Fox has the mutants.  So instead they are a couple of kids that from a fictional country that got "enhanced" by Hydra.  Lame.  Could't they at least be Inhumans?  And what are they ehanced with?  Loki staff magic?  Chitauri slime?  My 13 year old daughter is a big X-Men fan and she was pretty mad about how wrong they got Scarlet Witch and Quicksliver. 
• And speaking of bad ideas; Sokovia.  Ugh.  More like Suck-ovia.  Fake countries are the worst.  Stop it!  Why is there a country of people that look like middle class white Americans that all speak with the same bad movie-Russian accent?
• Yeah, Quicksliver was definelty a bad idea.  And what makes it worse is Fox did Quickslilver better in X-Men: Days of Future Past.  Contratulations Fox.  Marvel should have just cut their loses with Quicksilver. You can't turn vinegar into wine. Congratulations Fox. You and Sony have a combined total of one win against Marvel.  I think that brings the score to 109,342 to 1.  Try to build on it.  Or don't.  Actually, please don't.  Please just go away or get bought by Disney.
• I loved that this movie was not about children.  Eventually we will probably get a child Spider-Man in these things but so far we've been mercifully Harry Potter and Katniss free in the Marvel movieverse. Thank God!
• It was cool to see War Machine and Falcon involved but why didn't Falcon get to play in the helicarrier scenes?  Lame.

I had some more thoughts but life is hard and I got tired/bored before I finished this post.  Sorry. 

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith