Avengers: Age of Ultron

The idea of artificial intelligence taking on a life of its own and controlling the humans who created it is as old as the hills, and can be dated back to 2001: A Space Odyssey, when HAL 9000, the computer on board the spaceship Discovery One, starts taking bizarre and independent decisions. Here, in this latest Avengers adventure, the artificial intelligence of the defence program, Ultron,developed by the billionaire genius, Tony Stark, evolves a life of its own and is stricken by a ‘God complex’: it wants to destroy humanity to save it from itself.

This is another 60s contradiction and dates back to the Vietnam war of the same era, when an officer declaimed after the destructive bombing of a city that “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it”. There has always been a striking overlap between fictional and comic-book definitions of the destructive uses of defence technology and the ground reality of war. It is then quite natural when Ultron unleashes its fury, some of the Avengers blame Stark/ Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) for being so irresponsible in creating an artificial intelligence entity without adequate safeguards.

The blame-game is bruising and contributes to disunity amongst the Avengers. Superheros like Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Captain America (Chris Evans) are pretty mad at being put on the backfoot by this grotesque virtual creation who has harnessed the vast power of the internet to gain more power than their combined selves. The premise of this film, thus, is absorbing. There is also some witty banter at an ‘office party’ held at the headquarters of the Avengers. Unfortunately, the subsequent defence of humanity, by the now-united Avengers, is a series of clichéd action sequences, versions of which we have seen several times before in this very franchise.

The volume of the climax is set at such a high pitch, you emerge with your head throbbing.

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Ajit Duara