‘Avengers: Age Of Ultron Trailer’ Offers Shirtless Wet Thor, Pinocchio, Spader, Usual Civic Chaos
The first trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron was supposed to air on ABC on Tuesday during Agents of SHIELD, no doubt to give that show's flagging ratings a boost in its altogether better second year. But even the best laid plans of the rigorous pleasure-engineers at Disney/Marvel can't compete with all the weaknesses of humanity, with its strange impetuous need to leak trivialities into the ether like they were Watergate tapes. Which is why Mickey Mouse is going to replace us all with obedient machines programmed only to smile.
But the first trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron leaked onto the internet to engage our pleasure receptors. Unable to hold back the inevitable tide of duplications, Marvel has decided to just go ahead and post the trailer itself. This is probably very ironic given that this is a movie about a self-replicating machine whose smile is only the beginning of their evils. But I can't think too hard about that, because of shirtless wet Thor.
Yes, Thor is in the trailer -- the best part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the person least well served by the original Avengers movie. He doesn't get to do a lot else but brood and grip a hammer, but he is shirtless and wet in one scene, which I assume will be the last thirty minutes of the movie, and he does a bit of that stiff-lipped "walking forward" thing that he does so arousingly well in all of these movies.
Other, lesser points of note: the voice of James Spader as Ultron dominates the trailer, delivering a sinister monologue about puppetry that must be quite the most delicious thing he's ever eaten given the deep level of satisfaction evident in his delivery. Yes, the superior Spader-Man gives good Ultron.
Mark Ruffalo's Banner is a quivering mess; Chris Evans's Captain America gets to stride confidently around and kick open the doors of old Strucker-lookin' European castles; Scarlet Johansson's Black Widow gets to both stand alone in a big empty room feeling moody and ride a motorbike out of a Quinjet; Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is all burdened and worried like he just accidentally made a whole army of killer robots; and Jeremy Renner is present.
Also present; newbies Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), though we see a little more of her than of him, probably because he he had to go shoot a Burger King commercial or something.
The movie has clearly done a nice job of marrying Ultron's design with the look of the Iron Man suits, and the jagged movement of a zombie Iron Man suit does an excellent job of introducing the threat. And if you're in the mood for <i>more</i> Iron Men, there's a scene where Hulk goes up against the Hulkbuster Iron Man armor.
The trailer also offers some ballet, if you're into that, and a city being destroyed, because the formula works, damn it. The closing images include a glimpse of Captain America's shattered shield, which he'll probably go get fixed by Black Panther just as soon as Marvel bothers to invent a movie version of Black Panther.
In a nice bit of Disney synergy, the soundtrack offers up a spooky rendition of Got No Strings from Pinocchio, sung by a child whose soul was eaten by the creatures from the It's A Small World ride. This is interlaced with the de rigeur throom of a contemporary action movie trailer, which they didn't edit in, it just comes pre-recorded on the tape they use.
All told, the movie looks pretty good. And even if it sucks, at least we'll always have shirtless wet Thor.