Avengers: Age of Ultron vs. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

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Good God this is tough! Both sure to go down as some of the top films of their respective years, but I have to say, Avengers may have just peaked it for now. Just!

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes by an landslide.

i'm still high on avengers but i think in the future apes will be higher

Apes are stronger together than what The Avengers are in this matchup. Both are very good blockbuster films.

The Apes conquer Ultron's army of himself.

Apes by far

Dawn was an absolutely sensational film! The best thing about it... no stupid, pointless comedy moments. No "cute" references to previous Apes installments, no stale pop culture references like calling Koba "Scarface/Al Pacino" or other such nonsense. No "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge" crap. The closest thing to brevity seen throughout the film is "The Weight" playing at a 7/11 It took an admittedly absurd concept, grounded it, and made it work by giving the story and characters the proper amount of seriousness they warranted, and was all the better for it. One of the best post-Nolan Batman films to truly get it right!

^*Facepalm*

Age of Ultron was a much better sequel.

Setting my anti-fanboyisms aside, I actually think Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was slightly better. Despite having largely uninteresting human characters, Gary Oldman notwithstanding, and a relatively slow pacing throughout, I felt that the film worked because it treated its subject seriously (just like its predecessor) and injected it with some interesting commentary on inter-tribal politics and confrontational human nature. This is before you get onto all the ape mo-cap actors being in top form, with a substantial upgrade on the effects of the previous installment and the suitably grey, rain-drenched cinematography adding to the apocalyptic tone of the film. Age of Ultron was a good film, perfectly entertaining and action-packed as we have come to expect from the MCU, with a number of beautifully composed shots encapsulating the dynamism of the team's abilities in all their glory, but I couldn't help but feel slightly underwhelmed. The film is pretty cluttered with subplots which, as some have suggested, appear to be setting up future films in the franchise rather than servicing the film itself (Iron Man 2-itis, though not nearly as bad as the aforementioned abomination). There are a number of moments which, while added for poignancy and character relationship development, feel too fan-service-y for my liking. What's more, while it still issues plenty of chuckles, I was beginning to tire of the overbearing inflections of Joss Whedon's writing which, while they worked in the first Avengers movie, feel pretty overused by this point. I understand that this could be Whedon's last film in this gig, so that problem could be solved in future installments. Maybe it's just because the first Avengers film (still my favourite film in the series, despite all the praise for Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy and this) had a sense of triumph which transcended the quality of the film and elevated it to Dark Knight levels of greatness within the superhero genre, and with IM3, WS and GotG having followed since, proving that the stand alone films work just as well as the team-up films, maybe Ultron just feels more of a mandatory entry than it does big milestone in the franchise. In any case, while I enjoyed it, it's certainly not my favourite film in the franchise, and although Dawn needs another watch, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt here.

I'm with smatticus here. AOU was pretty good as sequels go but Dawn was much better.

I enjoyed Ultron much more.

Avengers is good fun. It does it's job. Dawn of the Apes is in fact fantastic though.