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Marveling at super science

The elements came

together for Ruffalo
in Age of Ultron
BY FRANK LOVECE

Special to Newsday

MARVEL

Mark Ruffalo, left, as the Hulk, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Scarlett
Johansson as Black Widow, and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye reunite in Avengers: Age of Ultron. ] Video: newsday.com/movies
Stark suggests studying it for a
few days.
In Frankensteinian fashion,
this leads to the creation of
Ultron an artificial
intelligence who thinks peace
in our time means engineering a global-extinction event to
give new, hopefully improved
life a chance to evolve. And
where A.I. is concerned, both
in film and in real life, Theres
this uncharted territory were
moving into, Ruffalo says.
And maybe we see technology as the answer to everything,
but at the same time it could
be the end of everything.
Not that making the movie was
all existential doom and gloom.
The day they shot the scene in
which were all sitting there
playing with [Thors] hammer,
trying to pull the hammer up off
the table that was just one of
those magical days where we
were all together and really just
kind of hanging out, Ruffalo
says. We were improvising a lot

and it was just delightful.

Plus, later in that scene,
Ruffalos Banner finds himself
lying atop Scarlett Johanssons
Romanoff. Honestly, Ruffalo
says with a laugh, that was
funny because she was
pregnant and we had to figure
out how to do that scene without hurting the dear, dear, dear
new baby inside of her.
As any fan will attest,
Banners closest relationship is
with fellow scientist Stark,
played by Robert Downey Jr.
I think thats informed a lot
by [longtime friend] Downey
and our relationship and who
he is in my life. Ruffalo says.
Theres an ease there because
of where weve come from and
where we find ourselves today.
Plus, he adds, I just think
its fun to see those dudes do
science seeing those bros
bro down over science.

REVIEWS B10

WHAT THEYRE SAYING

n his two-star review of

The Avengers: Age of
Ultron, which ran in
Wednesdays Newsday,
Rafer Guzmn wrote that
its Thin on story, crowded with characters and
padded with extraneous
action. In other words,
a sure hit!
Read the full review at
Newsday.com/movies
Heres what other
critics had to say:
] Entertaining as much of
Avengers 2 is, especially
when its just hanging out
with the gang in between
scuffles, Joss Whedons
picture meets expectations without exceeding
them. Michael Phillips,
Chicago Tribune

] Lovable characters, just the

right amount of humor and
spectacular action make
Ultron a worthy bridge to
whatever happens next in the
Avengers universe.
Tony Hicks,
San Jose Mercury News
] First, you try to understand
what the hell is going on. Then
you slowly realize that you will
never understand what is going
on. And, last, you wind up with
the distinct impression that,
if there was anything to understand, it wasnt worth the sweat.
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
] I walked out of the theater
feeling like the survivor of an
all-you-can-eat buffet.
Chris Nashawaty,
Entertainment Weekly

HOT PURSUIT An action-comedy

starring Reese Witherspoon, right,
as an uptight cop assigned to guard a
drug dealers widow (Sofia Vergara).

TUESDAY Selma, with

David Oyelowo as the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

THE MOVIE Batman v Superman: Dawn of

Justice

5 FLIGHTS UP Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman

are a longtime married couple living in fast-gentrifying
Brooklyn who decide to sell their apartment.

TUESDAY Fifty Shades

of Grey
MAY 12 Still Alice

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

comingattractions

SAM EMERSON

dvdalert

THE DEAL Clash of the superheroes

IN THEATERS March 25 next year

Watch the trailer at newsday.com/movies

NEWSDAY, FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2015

nextweek

newsday.com

he words gods and

monsters show up in
proximity more than
once in Avengers: Age
of Ultron, the Marvel
Comics superhero movie
opening today, echoing a
scientists famous toast in Bride
of Frankenstein: To a new
world of gods and monsters!
Coincidence? No. Writerdirector Joss Whedon knows his
genre antecedents, and James
Whales 1935 classic is, like Age
of Ultron, about artificial
intelligence and artificial life.
We happen to be living in a
time when just about anything
you can imagine, someone can
bring into being, says Mark
Ruffalo, who plays scientist
Bruce Banner and his alter ego,
the Hulk. That makes us feel
very powerful and probably
godlike, but it also opens up a
whole other plane of monsters.
Is he talking about the movie
or the real world? I think both,
now, he says. I was talking
about real life, but thats also
what the movie is talking about,
in a more extreme way.
Age of Ultron, the latest in a
novelistic succession of Marvel
movies, follows Tony Stark (aka
Iron Man), Steve Rogers
(Captain America), the Norse
god Thor, superspy Natasha
Romanoff, preternatural archer
Clint Barton and the Hulk as
they retrieve the powerful
scepter wielded by Thors
brother, Loki, in The Avengers
(2012). Thor will deliver it to his
interdimensional realm of
Asgard for safekeeping. But first,