Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor and the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D-fronted, earth saving team returned in 2015 with a whole new adventure, Avengers: Age of Ultron, following their first outing in 2012. With Captain America: The Winter Soldier doing well on the big screen the year before and Thor: The Dark World doing a similar job in 2013, the stars of the Avengers storyline continue to go strong all by themselves. However, for Marvel fans the pinnacle is to see them all coming together and this time they faced down the might of Ultron.
The cast obviously has a lot of big names with all of the characters contained in the same film, including Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow. Joss Whedon returned to direct the film following on from the success of The Avengers and you can check out the trailer below.
Release date
Cinema release:
Avengers: Age Of Ultron had a UK and worldwide release date of the 1st May 2015, but there were rumblings about the sequel as far back as 2011, so we all had a long time to wait to get to see how the epic confrontation played out. However, with the likes of Guardians Of The Galaxy and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 filling out 2014, there was more than enough comic book movie action to keep everyone good.
DVD, Blu-ray and digital release:
The film arrived on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download rental on the 14th September 2017 with the digital purchase available a week earlier.
Story
The plot picks up not too long after the events of The Avengers with its epic showdown in New York City. The appearance of Ultron, an artificially intelligent robot with a chip on his shoulder, played by James Spader (Lincoln), signifies the start of a terrifying age of destruction for the world.
Created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner in a bid to safeguard the world from enemies like the Chitauri, it goes on to reel against humanity. Inevitably, considering the title, the Avengers are called on once again by Nick Fury and the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to save the day and put a stop to the seemingly unstoppable mechanical force.
Cast
This time around the Avengers: Age Of Ultron cast has a couple of new members to add to their superhero potential in new Avengers, twins Quicksilver – played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick Ass fame – and his sister Scarlet Witch – played by Elizabeth Olsen (Kill Your Darlings), who first made her appearance in a brief cameo in Captain America: Winter Soldier. If you’re not up on your comic book characters, Quicksilver has superhuman speed and Scarlet Witch can control probability to bend the odds in her favour. Although to complicate matters, there will be another version of Quicksilver in the upcoming release of X-Men: Days of Future Past, played by Evan Peters (bizarrely, also of Kick Ass fame).
The rest of the cast from the previous movies will be back in the team Avengers mix, with Chris Hemsworth reprising his role as Thor, Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man, Mark Ruffalo as Dr Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / The Black Widow, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America, Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury and Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton / Hawkeye.
Don Cheadle is also back as Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes / War Machine and Cobie Smulders picks up again as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill. However, there’s no word on Clark Gregg appearing as Phil Coulson, following on from the breakaway TV show, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Production
The movie sees Joss Whedon picking up the directors chair and writer mantle again after helping to make the first Avengers movie such a success and he’s had the producer might support from the Marvel lexicon that is Kevin Faige.
Review
Blistering action, great visuals and a great cast combine to make Avengers: Age Of Ultron a big hit with Marvel and superhero film fans, while still having a broad appeal. It did than enough to set things up for the more dysfunctional story of Captain America: Civil War before things kick off with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 in 2018. Read our full review for more details.
Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer:
Sequels
Two sequels have followed AoU with the first, Avengers: Infinity War coming out in 2018 and the second, Avengers: Endgame released in 2019. The DVD, Blu-ray and digital download for the final film is due for release on the 2nd September 2019 in the UK.
