What do Avengers do for fun on their time off? They attend parties and play party games like who can pick up Thor’s hammer:
Tony Stark: “If I lift it, do I get to rule Asgard?”
Thor: “Yes, of course.”
Tony Stark: “I will be fair, but firmly cruel.”
Thor: “No, I’m sure.”

This is one of the best scenes in Avengers: Age of Ultron as it shows the heroes in their down time and reminds the audience to not take the film too seriously – it’s a comic book movie after all. (Maybe DC should take a hint.)

Writing a review of this movie is almost pointless. Any fan of the first Avengers movie will be going to see Age of Ultron regardless of what I say and those who didn’t, won’t be reading this review anyway. Be that as it may, here are my two cents worth.

While the sequel is bigger and badder, it isn’t necessarily better. The 141 minute film is full of adventure right from the beginning and it has a spectacular ending, which is a good thing. The film does have a few flaws, but for the most part, Marvel is able to hold it together. However, that remains to be seen for the future. The movie is overrun with characters and if they add any more, (and you know that they will), it will become that much more difficult to comprehend. Surprisingly though, Director Joss Whedon was able to share the love between the characters giving characters that we know well (like Tony Stark/Iron-Man) less screen time and giving others that we don’t (Like Natasha Romanoff) more. We also get to see more of their personal struggles.

Though every Marvel film ties in with the ones that came before it, there are some questions left unanswered with the new Avengers film. Like, is this story happening after the movie Iron-Man 3 or before? I ask because in that movie, Tony Stark blows up his army of Iron-Men and basically quits running off with girlfriend Pepper Potts. In the new movie, there is no mention of the previous movie’s storyline and Potts is no where to be found. Her character (and Thor’s main squeeze, Jane Foster for that matter) is mentioned but not seen. However, this film does introduce us to one of the other Avenger’s loved ones and hints are shown about a possible romance between Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and another Avenger. All of this makes the heroes a bit more relatable.

Though convoluted, the storyline for Age of Ultron is fairly simple. With the help of Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) tries to revive a older peacekeeping program to essentially keep the world safe. Sort of like having a giant ADT Security System sign hanging from Earth. But with this being a superhero movie and all, something goes wrong and before you know it, Earth has found a new enemy, Ultron (voiced by James “Blacklist” Spader), who wants to save the world by destroying the Avengers. Ultron finds a way of duplicating a thousand or so metal copies of himself to attack.

Meanwhile, two Russian twins, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (AKA Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, AKA Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) mess with the Avenger’s minds hoping to cause the group to turn on each other. (This is an interesting concept that Christians can relate to. What better way for Satan to attack the church than by creating havoc that causes the congregation to turn on each other?) However, this isn’t played out very long and the tension that should have been there between the heroes never materialized.

Overall, the story is crazy and fun. The moviemakers know it and want you to buy in too. At one point, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) says, “The city is flying, we’re fighting an army of robots, and I have an bow and arrow! None of this makes sense!” Even when a swear word or two come flying out, Captain America is there to correct the others with “Language!” Finally, it’s an old fashioned good buys vs. bad guys and the good guys always win.

The film is rated PG-13, but if your kids can handle other superhero movies, they will be able to sit trough this one just fine without having nightmares later.