Theme: AI

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) – Robert Downey Jr and Elizabeth Olsen

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)

This movie tells the tale of an AI being, determined to kill all life on Earth, and the Avengers try to stop it. These Avengers include those we’ve met before, plus a few new ones.

Doubling down on the mind-control theme from the first Avengers movie where Loki was able to turn Hawkeye into his puppet and caused everyone else to argue among themselves; this movie sees Loki’s sceptre used to create a woman (played adequately by Elizabeth Olsen) with the ability to trap people’s minds in their own worst nightmares, and when she eventually becomes an Avenger she starts throwing red Chi Balls around with her mind. Her normal name is Wanda Maximoff but she’s due to eventually become known as The Scarlet Witch (the main antagonist in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, 2022). Only the AI antagonist called Ultron is immune to her mind control powers in this movie, and becomes her leader early on. As a result, all the superheroes start daydreaming and living out their worst nightmares – a sneaky way to bring an extra large dose of horror, or at least irritation, to our screens. This, combined with a much larger helping of slow & muddled drama throughout, means I can’t rate this movie any higher than Bang Average, on a par with Guardians Of The Galaxy from the year before.

Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, they’ve also doubled down on fighting among themselves (even when not mind controlled). It’s like an episode of Eastenders on steroids. Not what a smooth action hero movie connoisseur really wants to sit through. But there are some good bits of course. There’s even a good bit of humour once or twice.

Like most Avengers movies, Robert Downey Jr playing Tony Stark and Iron Man is probably the main character here. Chris Hemsworth has some good screen time as Thor, but not as much as I’d like, and Chris Evans has a lot of screen time as Captain America – probably more than I’d like. Samuel L Jackson makes a strong contribution as always, playing Nick Fury, the Director of SHIELD. Mark Ruffalo puts in a curious performance as Bruce Banner and The Hulk. Scarlett Johansson puts in a decent performance as Natasha Romanoff, although not as strong as her appearance in Iron Man 2 when she seemed younger and more energetic. There were many more significant characters besides these ones too.

Iron Man 3 (2013) – Robert Downey Jr

Iron Man 3 (2013)

The first 10 minutes are a mix of plot-building drama with mild humour, and a couple minutes of irritating anti-Islamic conditioning. We also get a nice little action scene where Robert Downey Jr shows off some of his Wing Chun skill, before putting on his latest Iron Man suit at super high speed.

The plot takes some refreshing twist within the first hour, and although it dries up a bit in the second hour, the action is generally decent throughout – there are some really strong scenes from time to time, and plenty more mediocre. There’s also several instances of good humour in this movie. So I have to say it outperforms Iron Man 2 (2010) as well as The Avengers (2012) where Iron Man was one of the main characters and pretty much stole that rather muddled show. But Iron Man 3 is not quite as original or awesome as the original Iron Man 1 from 2008 of course, so ultimately I rate Iron Man 3 as just Above Average for an action hero movie – just one step down from the original which I rated as Decent. With a bit more of a smooth & comfortable, confident vibe, and a bit less scary, depressing and irritating, I would have rated this movie equal to the original. It would have been nice to see at least one of the women being kind of happy but every single one of them is a tormented soul – especially Iron Man’s woman Pepper Potts played by Gwyneth Paltrow who is literally tortured throughout this movie. It’s not meant to be a horror movie, it’s meant to be a cool action hero movie, but what do you expect from Hollywood – they’re addicted to horror and usually find a way to make it ruin an otherwise pretty cool movie.

Guy Pearce plays the main villain in this movie, called Aldrich Killian. He does a decent job of it.

Ben Kingsley plays the villain early on – a terrorist called The Mandarin who’s really just an actor called Trevor Slattery who didn’t think anyone was being hurt. His acting was excellent here.

Don Cheadle also returns as a core character, Tony Stark’s old friend Colonel James Rhodes who has his own suit and calls himself Iron Patriot – formerly called War Machine. He does an alright job here.

Iron Man 3 is eventually rounded off with a strong dose of conditioning against those who preach caution toward technological advancement. I’d guess this plus the anti-Islamic conditioning earlier on were probably what got this movie sponsored.

Iron Man (2008) – Robert Downey Jr

This already feels like an old movie because it’s been around so long and was one the very first movie produced by Marvel Studios, and the first to come under the umbrella of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s still pretty cutting-edge by today’s Marvellous standards.

Of course it’s not the first movie based on Marvel Comics – there were over a dozen before it, including the early Blade, X-Men and Spider Man movies, and even Howard The Duck going back to 1986.

Iron Man stars Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, the main shareholder and chief inventor for the world’s top weapons designer & manufacturer. Then he sees the damage his weapons are doing even to Americans and turns his back on the former business, instead focusing on developing his Iron Man suit that turns him into a one man army and a superhero.

Gwyneth Paltrow (in her mid 30s) plays Pepper Potts – Tony Stark’s beloved PA.

The main antagonist – initially the friendly VP of Stark International, called Obadiah Stane – is played quite convincingly by Jeff Bridges. He eventually builds his own Iron Man suit after analysing the wreckage of Tony’s prototype, and becomes known as Iron Monger.

Of course, as with any war related movie, there’s a lot of narrative pushing and conditioning built into this movie, which sickens me, but looking past that, the budget is good, the action is good, the acting is good, and the plot development is not bad either.

Iron Man has some slightly stomached churning moments, bordering on horror, such as when Tony realises his heart has been replaced with a device powered by a car battery, and when the main antagonist pulls out that device later on. This, and the rotten America vs Middle East typecasting, also brings down my overall score of the Iron Man movie, causing me to rate it about equal to the likes of Doctor Strange, Venom, Black Panther and Blue Beetle. I rate it slightly weaker than the likes of Aquaman, Black Adam and Wonder Woman, mainly because their most thrilling moments are a bit stronger and/or their plots are a bit richer, and/or their downsides are less of an issue – but there’s not much in it. I rate Thor even higher. If we compare the best moments in Iron Man (such as when he makes his escape from the terrorists’ cave, and when he has a run-in with the F-22 raptors) vs the best moments in Thor (such as when Thor infiltrates the black site to go after his hammer, and when he regains his powers just in time to deal with the Destroyer robot that Loki is controlling) – they’re not massively dissimilar in terms of entertainment value. Thor’s scenes – especially the one where he goes after his hammer – may possibly be more credible, relatable and built up with better momentum, but the general entertainment value including good humour and healthy vibes throughout the movie Thor go a long way towards its ranking too.

Universal Soldier: The Return (1999) – Van Damme, Goldberg and Michael Jai White

Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)

This movie offers a novel twist on the already creative concept established in the original, while also featuring strong new co-stars in Bill Goldberg and Michael Jai White. This is actually the fourth movie in the Universal Soldier franchise, but the second & third did not feature Jean-Claude Van Damme or anyone else of note (the main protagonist in both was Matt Battaglia) so you’ll be forgiven for watching the first movie then jumping straight to this one – the fourth.

We don’t see enough of wrestling superstar Goldberg in this kind fast action movie – he makes a very convincing tough guy. Plus, this is easily one of Michael Jai White’s better performances – the robotic superiority-complex role matches his real life demeanour.

Overall I rate this a Decent movie – it’s a bit less of a revelation than the original but still quite creative with a fresh new concept, and features multiple action superstars, but on the downside the plot is a bit one dimensional – the script could have easily been developed more to make it an even better movie. There are multiple females in this movie, including a reporter and a fellow UNISOL, but none of them are particularly worth mentioning – they all deliver bland performances.

Fun fact: this was actually Van Damme’s last widely-released-in-cinemas English-language movie until 2 and a half decades later, when he released Darkness Of Man in 2024 (excluding movies where he wasn’t the main star, such as The Expendables 2 in 2012). Maybe he wasn’t totally playing ball with Hollywood’s sickest shenanigans, but they eventually rewarded him for keeping quiet during the deceptions of the 2020 era? Or maybe his movies had only a small niche audience? The fact that Inferno (1999) had only a limited cinematic released is odd, and the fact that The Order (2001) went direct to video is outrageous.

Further Sequels

If you enjoyed the original Universal Soldier movie from 1992, as well as this one – Universal Soldier: The Return – from 1999, which is the second one starring Van Damme; then you’ll be pleased to know there are a couple more decent Universal Soldier movies to enjoy after this one.

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009) rekindles the rivalry between Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, then they both come back again for Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012) with the addition of Scott Adkins as the main protagonist in the final movie. Both of these movies from 2009 & 2012 also make a significant role for Andrei Arlovski, the former UFC heavyweight champion who still holds the record for the most wins in UFC heavyweight history to this day.