Joss Whedon is something of a geek God. After the uphill struggle followed by a course of plate spinning that was “Avengers: Assemble” , we were satisfied, elated and not a little bit surprised that he could pull it off with such ease. On 2nd, 3rd, 4th viewings however, little quibbles started appearing like “What happens to the innocent bystanders during all this destruction porn?”, “Hulk really didn’t “SMASH” that much did he?” , “Why did Hawkeye turn up?”Etc Etc.
Joss heard our prayers and answered them in the form of 2+ hours of Blockbuster bombast that follows the sequel rule book down to the letter but rarely feels like working from template. Bigger and darker, yep that’s a given but not as kiddie friendly this run around. Kicking off with more Hydra nonsense, there’s a lovely excuse for a comic style splash page money shot to keep the punters and the money men happy before we get to the catalyst for our evolving storyline.
The preliminaries dealt with in the first outing means they visibly work as more of a cohesive unit and although the dick measuring is minimised ,nobody is looking to put the tape away just yet. When Stark (RDJ) has a prophetic vision from Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen – going for some kind of “Asian Extreme” Marvel Superhero performance) that plants the seed that Earth needs a peacekeeping force to stop what’s “Up there” from invading and that. Robots get sentient, James Spader voiced robots gate crash parties, yadda, yadda, yadda.
The fact that you know the course of action that they’ll take and how they’ll have to get there is once again under Whedon’s veil of mis-direction, his “quip-as-you-like” style dialogue always hits it’s mark even if it seems shoehorned into a vast battle scene, it’s a comfort zone of quality writing that has managed, yet again to be set up in what should be enemy territory. Standout set pieces are Hulk heavy “Go to sleep, Go to sleep, Go to sleep.”
On the fanboy front but Hawkeye is given a hell of a lot more Whedon loving this time out and is shown as a lot more than just “The Arrow guy”. With this much work put in to not only tail off “Phase 2” but to put down building plans for a lot more to come, it’s a shame there couldn’t be a bit of subversion with the handling of Marvel’s generic “Big Bad”, once again played with looming gravitas by a slowly descending threat but that’s picking at nits somewhat.
It’s a sequel that simply works, owing more to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” in terms of mood and moral ambiguities than it does “Guardians Of The Galaxy” or “Iron Man 3” but still brings the funny with the expected Whedon “Quips & quirks” style . In short: Bigger, Darker, Funnier, Smarter. Jurassic World has it’s work cut out for it.
4.5/5
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