Another May, another action-packed Marvel mega-blockbuster.

Avengers: Age of Ultron follows up the second phase of Marvel comic book hero movies in an extravagant fashion to say the least. It was all hands on deck (save a few lesser characters like Pepper Potts, Jane Foster, Bucky Barnes and the beloved but defeated Loki), which means the casting budget to get all these A-listers was probably higher than the GDP of some countries.

In typical Joss Whedon fashion, there were at least a dozen lines that had everyone roaring with laughter, and a high number of action scenes that somehow succeeded in choreographing 10 superheroes all fighting an army of robots with a number of team-combos that felt straight out of a video game.

The action scenes were probably the highlight of most viewers’ experience, with cinematographer (Ben Davis), fight coordinator (James Grogan), editors (Jeffrey Ford and Lisa Lassek), writer / director (Whedon sits in both chairs) and actors all coming together to produce grandiose shots of action that flow seamlessly through the epic battles of each of the heroes.

Another gem was James Spader’s performance as the voice and motion-capture subject of Ultron, an artificial intelligence created by Tony Stark and Bruce Banner to protect the world, who, in typical AI fashion, goes rogue and decides that in order to protect life, humanity must perish. Being created by Stark, Ultron inherited the same wit, the same sarcasm and comical timing as Robert Downey Jr.’s character.

Ultron’s evil plan was certainly original, which I give major props for. There were also some parallels drawn between Stark and Ultron, the very reason why the Daredevil show was so good, but the various other character developments and stories overshadowed that aspect.

This was the film’s biggest problem: it was big — TOO big.

Whedon tried to introduce new characters while developing old ones, and the result was the viewer not caring about Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver other than his witty exchanges with Clint Barton / Hawkeye and not knowing much about Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch and Vision other than basic back story and that they are quite powerful.

Kevin Feige, the evil genius at Marvel Studios responsible for getting you to see three new Marvel movies per year, admitted that the original cut of Age of Ultron was almost three hours long, and the cuts didn’t help the countless number of jobs this movie had to perform.

Age of Ultron had to set the next big one, Civil War, by escalating the tension between Steve Rodgers / Captain America and Tony Stark / Iron Man to the point of fighting, had to introduce Black Panther’s story by stopping by his village and his first villain, played by the brilliant and completely underrated Andy Serkis, had to create a dangerous and almost tragic (I say almost because it wasn’t fleshed out enough to be a very prominent concern) romance between Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow and Bruce Banner / Hulk, had to establish the Avengers team in a world without SHIELD to watch over them, had to set up Thor’s next film, had to introduce three completely new characters who play central roles in the comic book Avengers, had to further set up the Infinity War with more talk of the enigmatic Infinity Gems, all while simultaneously functioning as a story of a dysfunctional and volatile team hold themselves together while protecting the world from and beautifully terrible rogue AI and his army of robots.

Somehow, I think it succeeded, though. Not perfectly, but certainly better than any other team could do. It wasn’t made to win an Oscar (though it will almost certainly be nominated for Best Visual Effects with a solid chance of winning), it was made to be a flurry of action scenes with witty, lovable heroes and equally witty, equally lovable, more powerful villains.

While Ultron was certainly a threat, I felt like his defeat was assured before the climactic battle even began; not because the good guys always win, but because “Earth’s mightiest heroes” have a really difficult time being challenged by anything but each other.

While the first Avengers and this sequel currently have near identical IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes user ratings and Metacritic metascore, I think the first will go down as the better of the two simply for its being first, it was the film that proved Marvel Studios could replicate the success and quality of Iron Man.

Avengers: Age of Ultron was a thrill ride for its entire two hours and 22 minutes, it was incredibly ambitious and I think it achieved as much as it possibly could in that time. I’m afraid that with all the new heroes getting introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, another team-up film will be TOO big, which is obvious in the fact that the “third” movie is actually two whole films. Regardless, millions of people (myself included) will line up and wait for hours to throw their money at this film franchise, and Marvel will not likely let them down.

Oh, and on a side note, how come Falcon didn’t get to join the fight? He was literally the only member of the Avengers that didn’t see any action! Even Maria hill and Nick Fury got to shoot some robots! Anyways, Avengers 2 was pretty fun.