(The top portion of this review will not contain spoilers. However, if you have seen the movie or would like to hear a few more specifics, I will go into details below. That section will contain significant spoilers)

In a way, Avengers: Age of Ultron is the Iron Man 2 of the Avengers series. It makes a lot of the same mistakes as IM2 did, primarily by trying to stuff in too many plot elements and sequel set-ups for the movie to come together as a cohesive whole. You can feel Joss Whedon stressing out over the movie, as more and more things get piled on while he tries to wrangle a decent Ultron film out of it. I counted at least ten different stories and new character/place introductions in the first half hour alone.

Unlike Iron Man 2, though, Age of Ultron somehow manages to bring a lot of this together in its final act. The sequence feels like a bigger, longer version of the first Avenger film’s Battle of New York, but Whedon manages to work several character beats into the action that close out the movie’s arcs. It’s smart, efficient filmmaking, and justifies the sequence’s scope and length through its characters.

But character and plot aside, is the movie fun? After all, that’s what 90% of moviegoers are looking for when buying a ticket to something called “Age of Ultron,” and yes, the movie is a lot of fun. The aforementioned overloading of plot elements mean that most of the fat has been trimmed, and what is left is almost all great.

The very first sequence is a kick-ass assault on a Hydra base that audiences may be familiar with if they’ve been keeping up with all of Marvel’s movies. We get no explanation as to why the Avengers have re-assembled, and there are some logic gaps (such as why Iron Man is back in his suit and fighting with the Avengers after seemingly giving all of that up at the end of Iron Man 3), but it’s ultimately the right decision here. We already have an entire movie about bringing these characters together in the original Avengers. If you’re seeing this movie, then you are likely less concerned with the “why” of it all and more concerned with seeing The Hulk smash things.

Luckily for you, much of Ultron feels like a “greatest hits” film for the central Marvel Cinematic Universe characters up to this point, a last hurrah before handing the major movies off to a new set of heroes. Remember Iron Man taking out rooms of people with his homing bullets? Or Hulk jumping between buildings and smashing structures by running at them? Or Captain America’s shield boomerang, or the “combo” attacks, like using Captain America’s shield as a beam reflector? Not only are those things here, but they’ve gone from occasional flourishes to the cinematic language of the fight scenes. It’s rare that two characters will simply beat up on each other. Everything looks interesting and feels specific to an Avengers movie.

Whedon takes some time to indulge in character beats and pairings, too. The party scene that occurs shortly after the opening action sequence is as fun as the moments leading up to it, as the characters are given the opportunity to bounce off of each other without any immediate threats. Outside of these more indulgent character sequences, Whedon continues to deepen the characters by placing them in different contexts. There is a romantic subplot, for instance, between two characters who have never been set up romantically in any previous films. Both characters come out stronger and more defined.

Finally, I’d like to discuss Ultron a bit. While I think the origin of the character is somewhat botched (yet another casualty of a script that tries to do too many things), the character himself is a blast. Despite being pulled from the pages of the comics, Ultron feels like a Whedon creation, a villain with strong beliefs and convictions who also happens to be a smart-ass. Some of the snarkiest dialogue of the film comes from Ultron, and Spader puts loads of character into his delivery.

So, is Avengers: Age of Ultron worth your time and money? Well, if you’re excited enough about it to read this review ahead-of-release, then almost definitely. Ultron is full of fan-service and incredible action sequences, and never gets boring. But you should probably know that this is a deeply compromised picture, one that feels like a potential danger for future Marvel movies. After Iron Man 2, Marvel dialed things back and started making films that, while interconnected, functioned entirely as their own stories. Hopefully Ultron (and Edgar Wright’s exit from Ant-Man) doesn’t signal a move away from the storytelling that has made Marvel so successful.

SPOILER SECTION

I will be discussing spoilers here, so turn away if you would like to see Age of Ultron fresh.

As mentioned above, the biggest problem with Age of Ultron is that it feels like a checklist of fanboy indulgences and sequel set-ups. Take, for instance, the ending: most of the avengers have retired or gone away, some for well-explained reasons, some not. Then we get all of the new characters showing up out of nowhere at the new Avengers headquarters in action-poses. The Marvel universe is looking at this as the end of the current Avengers line-up and the start of the new one, but Joss Whedon really just wants to make a cool movie about Ultron and to develop his favorite characters.

The new romantic relationship, between Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff, is one of the highlights of the film and clearly one of the aspects Whedon values the most. What starts as an out-of-nowhere subplot ultimately makes narrative sense and deepens both characters. Banner (and the Hulk) is primarily afraid of loss at this point. As somebody who is essentially physically invulnerable, being emotionally vulnerable is the only way he can be damaged. Becoming attached to Natasha is creating a weakness that otherwise doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, Natasha’s active interest in becoming attached to Banner re-characterizes her as somebody who, despite being very good at her job, actually does want a life beyond being a spy. It’s not something she’s entering into lightly, either; her description of her past and the horror of her “graduation day” paints her as an individual who is damaged in a way that is compatible with Banner.

Even with all of the muddled subplots, the desire for family and attachment shines as a major theme in Ultron. The reveal that Hawkeye is happily married with two children (and a third on the way) causes a lot of the characters to re-evaluate their lives. Unlike with Spider-Man and the Batman movies, the Marvel universe films do not typically position being a superhero as a burden. However, on the cusp of a new Avengers team, it becomes more thematically relevant.

Similarly, at the party, Tony Stark and Thor both argue about how amazing their significant others are, and at least on Stark’s part, it doesn’t seem to be just talk. Stark essentially retires at the end, so that he and Pepper can live a life together without all the risk. Then again, this is the second movie in a row in which Tony Stark retires from being a super-hero, and he is set to appear again in Captain America 3, so perhaps this decision is not as weighty as they let on.

Aside from the desire for personal lives and families, the other major theme of Ultron seems to be whether the Avengers are heroes or part of the problem. Ultron’s motivation is to wipe out most of mankind so that we can start again, as even the “good guys,” like the Avengers, are killers and responsible for lots of death and destruction. However, this gets lost in the muddle of the film. You can practically hear Kevin Feige pestering Joss Whedon. “Joss, I know you just introduced Ultron a few scenes ago, but can we take a break and introduce the nation of Wakanda? Then can we have the heroes go there and introduce Andy Serkis’ character from Black Panther? And can Iron Man fight against the Hulk there, just ‘cuz? A lot of fans want to see the Hulk-Buster suit in action. And we need to explain the Infinity Stones a bit more, so include one of those. And Thor: Ragnarok needs an introduction, so maybe a few sequences there? In fact, can we get a few dream sequences from everybody? Tony Stark? Black Widow? How about cameos from War Machine, and Falcon? Can we kill somebody off? And…Joss? Did you hang up?”

This bloat means that some characters end up interesting (I quite liked The Vision, and how he played into the Thor’s hammer running joke), and others, like Scarlet Witch, feel like plot devices. Aside from the fact that she loved her brother and initially hated the Avengers, I can’t think of a single characteristic that defines her. Instead, she’s used as a device for the aforementioned dream sequences, and to spur the Hulk-Iron Man fight. It’s strange that she’s going to be one of the new Avengers (alongside Falcon, War Machine, and Vision) when she’s had such little development. Then again, Hawkeye had had even less before this film, and he emerges as one of the best characters in the movie.

I could go on and on from here, but it would be something of a formless mess. There are so many tiny elements that pop in and out of the movie that it is impossible to make a cohesive review. But that’s pretty much the movie in a nutshell: lots of nuggets, some fun, some interesting, some seemingly extraneous. It’s definitely worth seeing, but more for the fan service and a teaser for things-to-come, and less as its own unique story. Perhaps that’s what the stand-alone films are for.