Ultimate Avengers: The Movie.

I know, I know, that Public Enemies sequel review but honestly The Sorcerer Supreme was better than all three DC movies I'd just watched and reviewed, so I decided to see what else Marvel had to offer first before going back. Since all of these are fresh and new to me. Enjoy!


I'm going to go right ahead and say, if I had to pick one - Marvel or DC - I'd pick DC first every time. Marvel feels to much like a soap opera for me. I read spandex clad flying people picture books to escape from the shittiness of my own life, not to read stories about drug or spousal abuse. I understand that this added level of realism is the biggest appeal for Marvel fans but I much prefer, for comics at least, the melodramatic 'reality' of the DC Universe.

What this in turn means, I can't really comment on much other than the entertainment factor here, I've read only a few of the Ultimate's comics. So how good this is as an adaptation? I honestly have no fucking clue. Although didn't I fill my quota with all the nerd references I left in the DC reviews?

That being said, Earth's Mightiest Heroes is easily one of my favourite cartoons of all time, I've watched the first season several times. And I mean Sorcerer Supreme was good, this has the Avengers in it, EMH's was great, so this is bound to be good, right? Right?

Opening during 1945 as the US storms the Normandy beach with Captain America on their side they discover the Nazis are working on a superweapon with the help of aliens, despite the fact Hitler is dead, which leads to the familiar freezing of Captain America. I personally felt EMH's did it better. From there aside from all the alien crap getting rammed in everywhere, it's pretty much the same story you've seen a thousand times. Cap gets unfrozen in the present day by SHIELD, they set up the Avengers, tensions of all these heroes side by side etc etc

It feels rushed as hell, coming in at just over an hour including credits. It just makes me wonder why they didn't just make it a proper full length movie, they were clearly strained to the point where there are a lot of plot elements and subplots introduced that are never developed and never go anywhere, it feels like we have half of the actual movie and the other half is missing which is a shame because the set up seems to be leading to something truly epic, it just never feels like it really goes anywhere. This is also easily the cheesiest version of the Avengers origin story that I have ever seen.

One of the most major changes here is Thor is no longer an actual God. I could understand the place of this change if they, say, wanted an Avengers team more ground in reality but it really makes no sense when you still have Cap surviving being blown up and then being frozen for like sixty years and just being defrosted and carrying on as normal and the Hulk on the same team. I mean at least the others can be explained with 'science'. Why does this change exist?

Oh and err, all their costumes are slightly changed too. They all look really shit except maybe Hank and I guess Thor is cool in a nineties sort of way but Cap's and Iron Man's redesigns are as horrid as they are unnecessary.

The changes I did enjoy was the concentration on the fact that these guys are all egos, they aren't just gonna buddy up and suddenly they are this well oiled machine, it takes time to get over yourself, listen and ultimately work together. Sure it's cheesy as fuck but this is something I think a lot of the Justice League animated stuff I have seen has missed out on, anything it does along these lines is superficial.

The animation here is a lot more like a cartoon, than the anime sort of style of Sorcerer Supreme. It is well animated but I don't know, the sort of X-Men Evolution style can often cheapen the animation a bit. Most of this cheapness is avoided thanks to some solid direction and cinematography again.

Although the animation is weaker than Sorcerer Supreme, the voice work is much, much better. I know that isn't really a hard thing to do, considering how little effort it felt the voice actors put in as they yawned through their performances but the voice acting here isn't just better, but it's genuinely good in its own right. It is well acted and they are given good dialogue to play with. Although there are a few dodgy accents here and there.

The action too feels more like it'd be much more happy in the pages of a comic, not a manga. Whether this is a good or bad thing I'm unsure of but know the action is fun. Although I could complain about the fact that the aliens are the threat throughout the movie and then are just kinda dropped to have all the Avengers fighting the Hulk, I just can't because the fight choreography and to some extent the animation make this fight epic. A much more satisfying battle than in Sorcerer Supreme and a much better ending overall.

I can't work out what the audience of this is, imagine the level of violence of your usual 18 certificate action movie, then just take away the gore. What kind of censoring is this?

So do I recommend it? Ultimate Avengers isn't bad, it has lots of problems - mainly centralising around pacing and inconsistent animation but they are never severe enough to make this truly a bad movie, that being said UA isn't a good film either, it's simply an okay one. And despite the fact the Hulk fight at the end is brilliant, there just isn't enough of it or enough brilliance in the rest of the movie to make this worth recommending unless you really have nothing else to watch in the world. I'd stick to EMH if I were you.

Think About It!

-Locke