Avengers: Age Of Ultron has the vaguest, most clichéd synopsis ever

Stop talking! Drop everything! Yes, even you, guy doing emergency surgery! The official synopsis for Avengers: Age Of Ultron has been released and it's... incredibly generic. It reads like it has been written by an evil AI whose only function is to churn out underwhelming copy to press agencies. The fiend!

The synopsis is a strange old thing. Before the days of blanket marketing and teasers for trailers, a film's synopsis used to be your first official clue as to a movie's content. You very rarely see them in isolation any more - perhaps you'll see them listed on a cinema's website, filling up space underneath the 'Buy tickets' button. Maybe it'll be on the back of the DVD. Probably though, wherever it ends up, it'll be ignored in favour of the whizz-bang trailer/poster sitting right next to it. It feels like a very antiquated part of the process.

Nonetheless, for big movies such as Avengers: Age Of Ultron, literally any piece of official information qualifies as news, so here we are, reading words off a screen that reveal less than nothing and pretending it means something. Dive right in and count the clichés.




Footnotes
1 "epic"
Every sequel is considered "epic" by someone or other. 'Epic' really means "expensive". It used to be reserved for movies like Lawrence Of Arabia; now it seems to apply to films like Pompeii and Ender's Game.

2 "things go awry"
You don't say! I can't believe this movie wasn't about the successful implementation of Tony Stark's peacekeeping program! "Things going awry" is the basis of every story ever written, otherwise books and films would be about events that go ahead as scheduled with no exciting episodes or interludes.

3 "put to the ultimate test"
Will they be put to the ultimate test though? Even though we know Avengers 3 is on the road-map, and most - if not all - of the Avengers have more solo movies lined up? I'd say it's more like they'll have quite a rough ride and maybe one of them will die (*cough* Iron Man *cough*) but most of the Avengers will be fine.

4 "fate of the planet hangs in the balance"
The fate of the planet has been hanging in the balance for so long, it smells like mothballs. More specifically, it hung in the balance in Guardians Of The Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 3, Avengers Assemble, Captain America: The First Avenger, Th- hang on... it's all the Marvel movies, isn't it? Audiences would revolt if the fate of the planet wasn't hanging in the balance. Tell us something we don't know.

5. "villainous"
This is because he is the villain.

6 "terrible plans"
I will be the judge on whether his plans are terrible. Maybe 'nefarious' would be a better description, although that's a bit too 'moustache twirly' for a robot. If the plans are anything like I'm expecting, Ultron's many clones will all drop down dead the moment the original is defeated, which is indeed a terrible plan.

7 "uneasy alliances"
A hugely original concept for an Avengers movie, I'm sure you'll agree. It's not called Superfriends: Age Of Awesome. If all of the Avengers clicked right away, the first movie would have been like 25 minutes long. "Thank goodness we all got on like a house on fire and pounded on Loki from the start!" said alternate universe Tony Stark.

8 "unexpected action"
I was not expecting action from this Avengers movie! I think it's safe to say no one is coming to Age Of Ultron expecting it to be a period romance or a rock musical.

9 "epic and unique global adventure"
Read: "we shot loads of this in Asia, because KER-CHING!" Also, this movie is so epic it needs to be described as "epic" twice to convey its epic epicness, and it is unique in that it is a brand new movie, even though the characters in it have already appeared in 10 previous movies between them.