Avengers: Age Of Ultron Reviews Not As Good As Avengers

04/29/2015 11:41 am EDT

With over 100 reviewers weighing in, it's safe to say that Avengers: Age of Ultron is not quite the critical darling that the original was.

Avengers: Age of Ultron currently has a 72 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to the 92 percent "Certified Fresh" rating of its predecessor. Age of Ultron already has 30 negative reviews compiled by the aggregation site, compared to the 26 overall that Avengers received.

It's worth noting that, while Rotten Tomatoes is handy for getting a sense of the general critical consensus about a movie, its rating – and any numerical abstraction of something's artistic value – should be taken with a grain of salt.

Rotten Tomatoes works on a binary system of Fresh (positive) and Rotten (negative) reviews, with no accounting for mixed reviews, which seem to actually make up the majority of the reviews about the film. Most of the negatives give it credit for getting a lot of things right, and many of the positives still feel it was hampered by having to be the hinge movie that swings the door closed on Marvel's Phase 2 in order to open up for Phase 3.

In other words, you should probably actually read some of these reviews instead of taking the Tomatometer as Absolute Truth.

That said, getting a mixed reaction is still a significant step down from the glowing reviews the original film received. Was it crushed under the weight of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's ever-expanding continuity, or was director Joss Whedon simply unable to recapture the feeling of seeing the Avengers assemble for the first time in his first outing?

You can judge for yourself when Avengers: Age of Ultron opens on May 1.

EDIT: As a commenter pointed out, Avengers: Age of Ultron is currently sitting at a 68 on Metacritic, compared to a 69 for The Avengers, making the gap in quality between the two films seem much smaller than Rotten Tomatoes would have you believe. Take that as you will.

Disclosure: ComicBook is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of Paramount. Sign up for Paramount+ by clicking here.