Marvel has already pushed the limits of the superhero movie and Avengers: Age of Ultron proves it intends to keep raising the stakes.

Buffy creator Joss Whedon returns to the director’s chair after helming Avengers Assemble - the first meeting of Marvel’s A-team - and delivers a script and a movie that rips through 142 minutes like a rock band through their greatest hits on a stadium tour.

It’s an over-the-top, colourful crowd-pleaser stuffed with attitude and just the right amount of self-awareness.


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Bursting into action from the outset, the movie more or less picks up where Captain America: The Winter Soldier left off, with the Avengers going hell for leather to dismantle a secret Hydra lab and recover Loki’s magical sceptre.

We’re treated to some early ass kicking but, worringly for Cap’ and the gang, there’s a pair of freaky twins (Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver and Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch – in the words of Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill: “He’s fast and she’s weird”) making things tricky.

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Then we get into the meat of the film: Tony Stark (Iron Man, Robert Downey Jnr) reckons he can use the recovered sceptre to create AI which can keep the world safe.

It backfires and the result is Ultron – an all-powerful artificial intelligence in robot form (and capable of getting anywhere through the internet) who misinterprets Stark’s desire for peace on earth as the eradication of humans.

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Stopping him is not an easy task and it’s made even more challenging by Scarlet Witch getting in their minds and driving them apart.

On paper, much of the ensuing action sounds totally nuts. And there are two ways of combating that: you can go ultra serious, which is how the new Batman v Superman movie seems to be doing it, or you can embrace it with the odd wink here and there.

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Whedon’s script does just that. There are a couple of self-aware nudges – such as gags about lifting Thor’s hammer and what happens if it’s in a lift – and plenty of one liners that really do fly.

The dialogue is sharp and there are laughs the whole way through.

If you’ve seen Marvel’s grand 35-year plan for their next 172 movies (or something like that), you’ll probably think that would take away from the tension – not so.

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For starters, with a large cast someone’s always ripe for offing.

There are also a few teases to future films which get you on the edge of the seat, particularly glimpse of seeing how Civil War might be possible.

It always helps when you care about the character and this time around Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, a lesser character in Avengers Assemble, gets fleshed out.

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Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, meanwhile, turns in exactly the kind of vulnerable yet dangerous and smashy performance that the green beast has always deserved on the big screen.

Which is not to say the rest of the cast relents, either.

The movie is paced well. It never feels like it lulls but you can feel the movie ratchet up, rollercoaster style, for explosive set pieces like a massive Iron Man/Hulk showdown.

The final part is arguably a bit too scene chewing, but how else do you top the last picture’s battle for New York?

Avengers: Age of Ultron (12a) is out Thursday (April 23)

FIVE out of five stars.

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