The titular villain of The Avengers: Age of Ultron believes that humans are so weak and helpless that they must be destroyed for intelligence on Earth to "evolve." Ultron was created to protect humans, but he judged that the fact that they needed protection meant they weren't worth protecting. The Avengers, then, must stand up for the worth of humanity.
Ultron comes about from Tony Stark's hubris. Early in the film, he becomes seized with a fear that the Avengers in their current state will be incapable of protecting humanity from future existential threats. So, he teams up with Bruce Banner and uses the Mind Stone, a powerful item recovered in their heroic efforts, to create Ultron, an artificial intelligence designed to help the Avengers protect humanity. Unfortunately, Ultron betrays Tony Stark and decides to replace the human race with his own race of robotic beings that all share one mind.
While Tony faces his hubris, the other Avengers wrestle with other fears that separate them from other people: namely, the Hulk worries over his lack of control over himself, and Thor over the sheer destructive potential of his own power. The Avengers' isolating internal struggles contrast with the perfect synchronicity of Ultron's multiple bodies, and they cannot win unless they cooperate and complement each other.
Eventually, the least prominent Avenger, Hawkeye, takes the rest of them to meet his family, demonstrating that the trials they face need not separate them, as long as they accept their own limitations. Then, an actual deus emerges from an actual machine to give the Avengers the power they need to defeat Ultron.
So, the Avengers proceed to face Ultron one last time. The final battle sequence contrasts with the previous ones in the film. Instead of portraying espionage, discord between allies, or desperation, it portrays the Avengers' acts of heroism, and a battle against a relatively abstract enemy.
But it doesn't feel quite right. The final battle suggests that the Avengers are capable of a good that lies beyond any of their individual claims to greatness, but this is a point already made quite clearly in 2012's The Avengers. For all that Ultron is supposedly an evil born from what the Avengers were doing before, and the film's lip service to development, it feels as though they ultimately defeat Ultron by doing the exact same thing they were doing before. Ultron itself represents the fourth time Tony Stark has needed to overcome his hubris. They fight a monolithic enemy in the form of countless faceless footsoldiers. They fight among themselves, resulting in an elaborate and highly destructive action setpiece. Their struggles lead them to chew each other out, but eventually they unite against a common enemy. All of these echo the earlier film, and not to Age of Ultron's benefit.
The other thing that makes it feel like nothing has changed is the film's mitigating: Tony Stark isn't actually responsible for Ultron, the Mind Stone is, and the brainwashing Tony received from Scarlet Witch, the film's telepathic villain. Her abilities also afflict Thor and the Hulk, meaning the defect of cooperation between the Avengers isn't really their fault either. No one can really blame these characters for what they do. And Ultron is such a big evil that no one who isn't an Avenger can afford to blame them: they may have caused this problem, but no one else can solve it.
This becomes even more vexing in light of the film's globe-trotting plot. The Avengers' self-pity dominates the film across Asia, Africa, and Europe, but is unrelated to the mass destruction inflicted on these places. For all that it harps on humanity's need for protection and Tony Stark's feelings of inadequacy, nothing material in the film takes much concern with their ability to protect people. Even if Ultron represents some kind of imperialistic damage inflicted on people's lives by the Avengers, the solution is just for the Avengers to fight back against Ultron, not that anyone else should start to play a role in protecting the world.
Hawkeye's family have no concern for mortality or transience - maybe that's a lesson the Avengers need to learn, but what about everyone they unleashed this nightmare on? The family doesn't care that his "avenging" threatens their livelihoods in various ways. But I wasn't afraid for the Avengers' lives in this film, and it doesn't strike me that they needed to be either. I was afraid for the civilians around them whose livelihoods they ruined.
Instead of introspection, we get Ultron demoralizing them with the sheer force of its power, followed by them picking themselves back up and beating it into submission. At the end of the day, the MCU leaves no room to question the Avengers. The conflicts that take place therein are preternatural, and increasingly cosmic. Age of Ultron doesn't let us forget this: the constant references to past and future Marvel movies in the dialogue reminds us of all the other battles that couldn't have been resolved by anyone besides the Avengers. As long as that's true, it's very difficult to take seriously any questions the MCU might raise against them, the overwhelmingly powerful and conveniently self-sufficient heroes.
The references to other films also make the film feel awfully slight. What happens in this film isn't so significant compared to what we know future films have in store, or the near-destruction of the entire universe in Thor: The Dark World. The utterly tone-deaf humor doesn't help either, nor does the ugly visual combination of high key lighting and dull colors.
Finally, the film has such empty-headed gall, such a gross lack of self-awareness, that it elects to end with slow pans over marble statues of the Avengers. This is probably the most pretentiously self-important thing I've ever seen in a film. As if its critique of the Avengers wasn't superficial already, the film insists on assuring us that they have overcome, to the point that it poses them as objects of worship. Even if the whole superheroes-as-myth bit wasn't overplayed, this would just be too much, cashing in on the analogy without taking responsibility for what it means to be myth.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a unique and interesting beast, and it's become both popular and profitable for it. Between the expansive yet interconnected world they've created, the amount of time spent with each character across multiple films, and the characters' archetypal personalities, Marvel can create conflicts that feel larger-than-life while letting the audience have their own stake in them. This has allowed them to make some films I would consider successful, but the way they've applied it in The Avengers: Age of Ultron bothers me to no end.
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