After a successful raid on a HYDRA base, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner create an Artificial Intelligence called Ultron, a peacekeeping protocol designed to help the Avengers protect the world from their enemies. But things go wrong when Ultron sees the human race as a threat and sets out to destroy it along with the Avengers. Now the Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, must reassemble to stop Ultron from causing mass destruction. Aside from this, the Avengers also must take on the powerful twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch as well as the new entity called Vision. Also, the Avengers find that things may never be the same again after discovering a power beyond their comprehension.
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The magnetic gauntlet that lets Cap yank his shield back to his arm feels like slick movie tech, but it's actually pulled straight from the comics, where Tony Stark built a similar magnet-based retrieval system for his star-spangled teammate long before this film came along.
Sam Wilson pops up briefly here, joking that he's busy working "missing persons" cases while Cap handles the actual avenging. It's a low-key tease that he's quietly helping Steve track down Bucky Barnes, a thread that would pay off properly once Captain America: Civil War rolled around.
Clint's new suit in this film borrows a bit from three different eras of the character: his classic comic-book costume, the Ultimates version fans first saw referenced in the original Avengers, and his stint running around as the masked vigilante Ronin.
Both Kevin Feige and Joss Whedon went out of their way beforehand to tell audiences not to expect a post-credits scene this time. Whedon reasoned that the shawarma gag at the end of the first Avengers had already set an impossibly high bar, and he didn't want people sitting through ten extra minutes of credits only to walk away disappointed.
During the hammer-lifting party game, every Avenger gives Mjolnir a go except Natasha, who sits it out entirely. It's a nice little inversion of an alternate-reality comic story where Black Widow is actually the one deemed worthy enough to pick it up.
Age of Ultron reportedly cost around $365 million to make, which at the time put it just behind Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides as one of the priciest films ever produced, even once you account for inflation.
That brief mid-credits shot of Thanos grabbing the Infinity Gauntlet and grumbling "Fine, I'll do it myself" actually created a small continuity headache down the line. Infinity War later established the real Gauntlet wasn't forged until the dwarf Eitri built it on Nidavellir, and Thor: Ragnarok revealed the one sitting in Odin's vault was a fake all along, so co-director Joe Russo eventually explained this particular scene must be set on Nidavellir itself rather than Asgard.
Eagle-eyed fans noticed the Infinity Gauntlet glimpsed in Odin's trophy room back in the first Thor movie fits a right hand, while the one Thanos slips on during the credits here fits his left. It's a tiny detail that ended up fuelling years of fan theories about fake gauntlets and hidden vaults before later films sorted it all out.
