By Allie Pino ’15

In the hugely anticipated film “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” directed by Joss Whedon, a dormant peacekeeping program goes haywire, putting Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to the Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans.

The movie begins with a huge action scene involving the main Avengers: Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). They’re in an East European country called Sokovia, closing in on the mountain compound of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann), a last representative of Hydra, the organization of bad guys.

Even without knowing much about the Marvel franchise, one could predict how things would play out; like Hawkeye and Black Widow kicking a bunch of Hydra hooligan’s butts, Thor swirling into the picture shortly after, Captain America throwing a motorcycle at some bad guys while punishing Iron Man for using harsh language over the intercom system. Hulk smash. You get the picture.

The only issue with this sequel is that viewers grow familiar to seeing the same hits and stunts. There’s no way to recapture the magic of seeing something like that for the first time. But if you’ve never seen any of the past Marvel films, such as the case for me, the intensity is real!

On the mission to clear the Hydra base, the Avengers find technology that leads Iron Man to conclude that artificial intelligence is the only way to keep the world permanently safe.

But it’s not all fun and games for the supers, who once again assemble to save the world from a threat in which the future of humanity lies in the balance. That threat is Ultron (James Spader), an artificially intelligent super-villain. As if its intent to wipe the human race from the face of the earth wasn’t bad enough, the Avengers must also contend with two mysterious super-powered newcomers – the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

Mixed in with the chaotic and climatic action scenes, Black Widow and Hulk contemplate mutual romantic feelings, archer Hawkeye shows he can shoot an arrow like Cupid, and Thor challenges all his super buddies to try to lift his hammer-of-the-gods after an evening of drinking.

Thankfully, Whedon doesn’t lose sight of the fact that a superhero movie is meant to be fun, at least most of the time. He uses his flair for dialogue to great effect, leaving plenty of touching and entertaining parts, but the banter between battles is what’s best.

Overall, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is definitely worth seeing. With the direction that modern blockbusters are going, it doesn’t get much better than this. It has a confident and engaging tone, and the action scenes deliver the goods, setting the bar incredibly high for future superhero movies. As Marvel Studios gears up to keep reeling out more of these superhero flicks (six movies from the company are scheduled to be released by the end of 2017), the pressure will be on the filmmakers to make each and every single one of them feel as unique and entertaining as possible.