Marvel aspires to set their superheroes in stone, marble, or bronze, like a monumental statue of the ancient gods, or of tireless labourers that the world can't live without. The end credits of Avengers: Age Of Ultron testifies to that ambition. Like in a Soviet sculpture exalting workers, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, The Hulk — who did I forget? — yes, the new additions Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Vision, appear as sombre figures set in a giant, smooth slab of stone, eyes gazing intently into the future.
Or into the next and next sequels and spin-offs, that's more like it — until the world decides to demarcate the limits of overdose and overkill, which is not until 2019 at least. The Marvel mash-up is expanding, its tangled mythology and comic-book Old Testament slowly revealing its layers and sub-layers on the crowded screen. For casual fans, the detail is heady. The Inifinity Gems are, like, what? Is that Thanos at the end, and what is he exactly? Is the Quicksilver we see whizzing around the war zone here the same as another Quicksilver, in the X-Men series? (No). There's a point in Age Of Ultron that I believe some audiences may decide to stop trying to understand the particulars of the plot, motivation and context, and settle for the comfort and pleasure of Joss Whedon's cataclysmic choreography, as well as Iron Man's endless repertoire of one-liners, Thor's hammer-wielding swagger, Captain America's chivalry and Black Widow's raspy purring.
The good thing is: we still enjoy that, sometimes a lot, sometimes in a giddy trance. Director Whedon (whose previous film, after the first Avengers, was a sly and witty Shakespeare adaptation Much Ado About Nothing) deploys his superheroes with strategic symmetry, making sure that each of them gets a mandatory share of shots and banter even in the thick of the bullet-flying mayhem (it's trickier this time with three new characters). In every new superhero flick, we expect something "refreshing" — at least something to console weary-eyed viewers that this is not just more of the same. Here, Whedon gives us a moneyed sequence in the climactic battle in a ruined church: a series of slow-motion tracking shots that compose a tableau of the superheroes like animated ancient paintings. Keep it comin', Joss.
Age Of Ultron — whose arch-villain is an artificial intelligence in the form of an aluminium cyborg with the voice of James Spader — dabbles in the themes of transplanted consciousness and a semblance of immortality (Ultron lives on the internet). But that's too serious for the frivolous Avengers, who always seem like kids in a candy store despite the gravity of their save-mankind-mission. What Whedon does better here, I believe, is how he cares to discern the individual characters in this much-ado-about-everything Marvel universe, and as he plies the usual requirement of massive destruction and cluttered street brawls, he does a professional service of making sure that each of the Avengers registers as a person (or a species). We go to this movie expecting the cast — Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo — to appear as their superhuman alter-egos, but along the way, Whedon seems to enjoy scenes in which they appear as human beings sitting around and talking and making jokes, like the party scenes at the beginning before Ultron wrecks it, or at the safe house where they nurse their mental health back after a mind-bending hexing match by Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).
Of course we can't expect any genuine drama — even a prospect of someone's death never crosses our minds, because these warriors can't be dead and their shelf value has to be extended indefinitely. This is the rule we're complicit with, a heightened version of the essential rule cinema usually asks from us. That we know, deep in our pop-cultural consciousness, that we'll live with this crew for a long time (longer than the crew from Fast And Furious, obviously) is at once a comfort and a disenchantment. No one lives forever, even on screen, and when they do, they feel less real and less serious than they already are in the first place. In comic books, this tacit agreement may work better. With actors in a high-flying movie that will be seen around the world, their immortality seems like a superficial marketing ploy.
But let's not spoil the party and get along with it while we can. The Marvel Universe is exactly that, a universe, and not a planet, and a universe is vast, expanding, and overwhelming. Avengers will have two sequels in 2018 and 2019, called Infinity War; Captain America: Civil War arrives next year, featuring Iron Man; and Thor: Raknarok will come in 2017. It has been all planned out. It is fated, and us mere mortals should just count our blessings and enjoy.
