February 21, 2018

MCU Chronological Viewing Part Seven: Avengers Age of Ultron, Agents of SHIELD, and Ant-Man

Falon Marvel 2 Comments

Guys, I am struggling with this MCU challenge. I maybe should have calculated the hours needed to fulfill this mission before setting out. Actually, it’s probably better that I didn’t. In order to make life easier, I am going to be skipping out on the full plot summary portion of these recaps, because they take forever to write, and there are plenty of great summaries already out there. So I’ll just link to one of those instead. Because ain’t nobody got time for that. If this is your first time checking in for my MCU challenge start here. Then catch up with Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, and Part Six. And if your eyes aren’t bleeding at that point, come back here! Okay, let’s dive in!

Avengers: Age of Ultron

The Basics: Released in 2015 by Marvel Studios and Disney, Ultron reunites the original Avengers gang. The main casting addition is James Spader as the movie’s villain, Ultron. As of this posting, Age of Ultron is available for rent on Amazon for $3.99.

One Sentence Summary: Tony, along with Banner, creates a program he thinks he is going to protect the world, only to discover he has created a crazy robot who is going to destroy the planet.

Full Summary: You can find a detailed plot synopsis here. But an important takeaway: by the end of this movie, we know the location of four of the Infinity Stones. Vision has one, the Tesseract is on Asgard, Tivan has the Aether, and Nova Corps has the orb. Two are unaccounted for.

End Credits Scene: There is only one credits scene. Thanos seems to be frustrated with his minions. We see him putting on the Infinity Stones glove and saying “I’ll do it myself.”

My Reaction: While I don’t love this one as much as the first Avengers movie, it is so important in the MCU that it is worth watching multiple times. Since I’m not a huge Tony Stark fan, I can live without the whole Tony going crazy storyline we’ve seen multiple times before. But there are some moments I love in this movie. Every time Nat flirts with Banner, the look on Thor’s face when Cap wiggles the hammer, our brief glimpse of Peggy-all awesome. I also like that this movie plants the seed for Civil War. Cap and Tony have two very different ideologies, and though we caught glimpses of that in the first Avengers, we really see it start to develop here. Also, since it’s Black Panther month, I should mention that this is the first time we really hear about Wakanda, and we meet Klaue, who appears in BP. Some other thoughts I had while re-watching this movie: I really want a Cap/Thor crossover film (don’t think that’s going to happen since I’m guessing one of them is going to die in Infinity War), I love the development we get of Black Widow re: her not being able to have kids and live a normal life, and for the first time, I kind of understand the government concerns about the Avengers. They really do destroy a shit-ton of property.

My Rating: 9 out of 10, don’t love it as much as the first, but it’s still an awesome movie.

Agents of SHIELD, Season 2 Episodes 20-22

The Basics: Check out Part Six of the blog post series for the first chunk of season two.

Important Plot Points: Since Coulson came in and saved Sokovia at the end of Ultron, the other faction of SHIELD decides to work with him. The other group becomes the advisory board and Coulson remains director. One of the board members, Gonzales, heads to the Afterlife to meet with Jiaying and come to some sort of agreement. Jiaying doesn’t want to work with SHIELD, so she kills Gonzales and shoots herself to make it look like he attacked her first. This spurns a war with SHIELD, with Skye joining Team Inhumans. Ward kidnaps and tortures Bobbi for her role in Kara’s abduction by Hydra. Ward sets her up so that the person who comes to rescue her (presumably Hunter) will be shot when they enter the room. Bobbi takes the bullet instead, to save Hunter. Cal begins to see Jiaying for the killer that she is, but Skye cannot be convinced. Raina confronts Jiaying about killing Gonzales since Raina can see the future, and Jiaying kills her. Skye witnesses the murder, and turns on her mother.The Inhumans plan to release Terrigen into the atmosphere, killing all the non-Inhumans, and transforming all those with the gene. Fitz, Coulson, and Mack are able to stop them, though Coulson loses a hand in the process. Skye takes possession of the crystals from Jiaying and sends them crashing into the ocean. Jianying tries to kill Skye, but Cal stops her and kills Jiaying instead. SHIELD wipes Cal’s memories and sets him up with a new life. Skye is tasked with creating a team of Inhumans. May heads off on a vacation. Ward begins to resurrect Hydra.The Terrigen crystals start to leak into the ocean. Simmons is sucked into the Monolith.

My Reaction: I’m so glad that Jiaying is dead because the actress playing her was terrible. I hate that Ward continues to be so bad (but look so good), but it seems like he is fully crossed over to the dark side at this point, which is easier to handle than thinking he might actually be doing all this for some good, only to be continually disappointed. The ending of the season was pretty intense, and not what I expected. Lots of death and heartbreak, but nothing more heartbreaking than Simmons disappearing right as we were about to see a love connection between her and Fitz (I just want them to kiss dammit!).

My Rating: 9 out of 10, if Ward could be redeemed, we might be in perfect score territory, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

Ant-Man

The Basics: Released in 2015 by Marvel Studios and Disney, Ant-Man stars Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, and Michael Pena. As of this posting, Ant-Man is available to rent on Amazon for $3.99.

One Sentence Summary: Criminal Scott Lang must redeem himself in the eyes of his daughter, and chooses to do so by becoming Ant-Man in order to save and protect the technology of its creator, Dr. Hank Pym.

Full Summary: You can find a full plot synopsis here.

End Credits Scenes: In the first scene, Pym gives his daughter Hope the Wasp suit. In the second scene, we see Cap and Sam talking about finding Bucky, which will lead into Captain America: Civil War.

My Reaction: I love Paul Rudd, and I have since Clueless, so I will forever love him and anything he does. This movie is up there with Guardians on the humor scale. Michael Pena does these Drunk Historyesque retelling/lip syncing scenes that are absolutely brilliant. We haven’t had an origin story in a while in the MCU, and this one is a nice break from the heavy drama and problems we’ve been seeing in some of the other films. It’s nice to break up the world-ending with some humor. We also have a scene with Sam in this movie, and I love him, so that was cool. The one thing that is weird in this movie is that Evangeline Lilly looks a lot like Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Michael Douglas plays her dad. So yeah, awkward. Not a huge fan of ants in life, but I’m totally down with Ant-Man.

My Rating: 8 out of 10, of the origin stories, it’s one of my faves.

The next section of the checklist to tackle includes Daredevil Season 2, so I’m dreading it. But I am looking forward to jumping back into Agents of SHIELD, so at least I have that to look forward to! Stay tuned!