
 
 The Avengers reunite to take on a new enemy: a silky-voiced, ember-eyed robot named Ultron, played with characteristic suaveness by James Spader. [Summer Movie Guide: Popcorn flicks with a sprinkling of nostalgia] 
 
 It’s just that chirpy, unpretentious tone that sets Whedon’s “Avengers” apart from the superhero pack, and that barely saves “Age of Ultron” from collapsing under its own overdetermined weight. With the villains brought down and their home base in mythical Sokovia emptied, the group moves ahead as Downey’s preening egotist thinks they should, to a gala party in his Manhattan penthouse. While Tony/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) spar about their absent girlfriends, Bruce/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Natasha/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) exchange meaningful glances at the bar. Archery whiz Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) fires his bow as fast as the hammer of Thor (Chris Hemsworth).
– The superheroes are back for round two in Avengers: Age of Ultron, following 2012's well-reviewed original. If you're expecting just another action flick, you may be in for a surprise. Here's what critics are saying: "As he did in the first Avengers, writer-director Joss Whedon avoids the fatal trap of comic-book ­self-seriousness, leavening a baggy, busy, overpopulated story with zippy one-liners, quippy asides, and an overarching tone of jaunty good fun," writes Ann Hornaday at the Washington Post. There are "repetitive, too-long action sequences," but the "flawlessly well-tuned ensemble" of characters are well worth watching. Steven Rea at the Philadelphia Inquirer agrees the best of the movie is showcased in the "quieter moments," when the screenplay's humor comes alive. The theme of the flick is teamwork, but the movie is missing "a sense of spontaneity" because of all the filming in front of green screens and with body doubles, Rea says. "As the franchise thunders on, it's also becoming more and more a bore." "For those more concerned with what the Avengers movies do best—outsize spectacle and wry comedy—Age of Ultron has to be declared a victory," John Anderson writes at the Wall Street Journal. Though its predecessor was often "bogged down by narrative baggage," this flick is more "buoyant" and "pretty amusing." A warning, though: the 3D is nothing special, Anderson notes, adding that a scene of a falling Manhattan skyscraper is "beyond tasteless." None of that seems to bother Colin Covert at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "If future films are as well realized as Ultron, that’s fine by me," he writes. Viewers can laugh along with "a remarkably good series of gags about Thor's magical mallet" as the movie "builds to a bombastic finale, a limitless overstuffed smorgasbord of sky-high battle. It works, where Michael Bay's pointless Transformers films and Zack Snyder's disappointing Man of Steel stumbled."