Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron Blu-ray Review

Reviewed by Lynn Barker on Oct 02, 2015

Rating:

How packed with extras is the new Blu-ray for Avengers: Age of Ultron? Should you add this one to your home collection? Check out Kidzworld’s review.

By: Lynn Barker

Now we’re in trouble! In Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron, brainiac inventor Tony Stark aka Ironman accidentally creates a peacekeeper whose idea of protecting the planet is to get rid of all the human inhabitants. Whoops!

Stark works on Ultron

Story Goes

In the country of Sokovia, the Avengers raid a Hydra outpost where Baron Strucker has been experimenting on humans using Loki’s scepter (left behind from the last Avengers film). Among those are twins Pietro, who has superhuman speed, and Wanda (aka Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch). She can manipulate minds and throw red energy blasts. Tony Stark (Iron Man) grabs Loki’s scepter.

The twins: Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch

Stark and Bruce Banner (human side of Hulk) secretly use the artificial intelligence (A.I.) inside the scepter to initiate Stark's "Ultron" global defense program. Twisted Ultron, believing he must eliminate humanity to save Earth, seems to destroy Stark's A.I./Butler J.A.R.V.I.S. and attacks the Avengers during a victory party. Escaping with the scepter, Ultron uses Strucker's Sokovia base to fix his cobbled-together body and build an army of robot drones.

Bruce wonders if Tony has created a monster

Ultron enlists the twins who hate Stark and his Industries for bombs responsible for their parents' deaths. They get Vibranium (the material in Captain America’s shield) from an arms dealer. When the Avengers try to stop them, Scarlet Witch stops the good guys by giving them visions that exploit each hero’s fears. This messes them up and causes Hulk to go really wild until Iron man has to use his big guy, more powerful “Veronica” suit to stop him. Hulk must hide.

Cappy into battle

After Nick Fury shows up to organize the mentally-attacked Avengers, they learn that Ultron is using a combo of an android, flesh-bearing body, Vibranium and the scepter’s stone to create a more useful body. The Avengers get the body, Stark uploads J.A.R.V.I.S. and a being called Vision is created. He turns out to be a good guy and after the twins decide to abandon Ultron to help the Avengers, the big battle to save humanity is on.

Ultron strikes!

Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer

Special Features

Making of Avengers: Age of Ultron – is a nice featurette that includes comments from all the cast as well as director Joss Whedon as they are on location in Italy. Reunion as well as meeting newbies Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver is discussed and we see great actor James Spader in his weird motion capture suit playing Ultron along with Mark Ruffalo in a suit as well while he is Hulk. Paul Bettany gets made up as Vision and reveals how great it was to be in the movie in person rather than just as the voice of computer entity J.A.R.V.I.S. Overall, a very nice extra.

Can the Avengers save humanity?

The Infinite Six is a really helpful extra in that it explores and explains the six Infinity Stones that are used throughout the marvel movies. Each one does different things. We know evil dude Thanos wants all of them and that, eventually there will be a war over them. Certainly informative for those of us who just didn’t “get” it before.
Global Adventure – We see actors on location. They comment on the huge scope of this film and the many locations world-wide that were used. Okay but short.
Deleted and Extended Scenes – Now these are good! There are several scenes that probably should have made the movie.. You get more on the Black Widow/Hulk (Natasha/Bruce) love relationship that further expands it and is even sadder and we also get a little bit more with Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch. A scene in which Thor jumps in a pool and gets answers on the Infinity Stones from Norse entities is much longer here and maybe makes more sense. Very, very worth a watch!

Natasha and Bruce discuss their relationship

Gag Reel – This blooper reel is cute but not side-busting hilarious.. love more of this stuff. More line-blowing, falling down, face-making etc. is more fun.
Audio Commentary with Director Joss Whedon – This is really good. Joss tells us where he wishes a scene could have been longer, all about story changes and problems with production and just how fun it was for him to helm the movie. A great feature to watch after you have seen the film at least once.

Avengers talk what to do next

Wrapping Up

Avengers: Age of Ultron saw the introduction of new Avengers and the retirement of some of the old. We got into the heads of the Avengers and learned some of their fears in addition to seeing some great visual effects and fights. The Blu-ray set is a mixed bag. It looks and sounds great and some of the extras are really good but others could have been more in depth. Just as we did for the feature film, we go 4 stars for this home entertainment version. Well worth collecting or gifting.