Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Ultimate Avengers



It's just an animated straight-to-video release, but it's a more competent film than most of the Marvel stuff I've been watching lately. I already saw this movie's sequel a few years ago, and all I knew about this one was the scene where Captain America tells a Nazi that Hitler's dead before bashing him with his shield. But that was misleading, because it's actually a super-advanced alien disguised as a Nazi. I uh... didn't really understand that part of the movie. Were all the Nazis supposed to be aliens? Or were they just disguising themselves like that? Anyway, they hate Earth and want to kill us I guess. Luckily they don't bother us again until the modern day, when the Captain is awoken from a frozen sleep and leads a team of super heroes called the Avengers, most of whom don't actually seem all that interested in it.

But, you know, they do some fighting and wisecracking like good super heroes do. They infiltrate a base the aliens took over, scuffle a bit, fight off a big invasion, and then have to take on the Hulk, who kind of acts like a moron and wastes time trying to make his ability manageable instead of doing the job he was actually assigned. There's not a whole lot of depth to the plot but what is there is generally workable and watchable. The animation comes off a bit clumsy in low-key moments, but it's actually pretty good when shit is hitting the fan. And as far as setting up the universe for the string of Marvel animated features that would follow, it does a pretty decent job. Also, Nolan North is in it so you know it has to be at least decent.

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