MrSCIFI

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Ultimate Avengers: The Movie - SCIFI DVD Review

I am sure it's no surprise that I have been a Marvel Comics fan since I was a kid, and when the Ultimates series was released several years back I was an avid reader. So you can imagine my excitement at the news of a made for DVD Avengers animated movie, however I am sorry to report that while the Ultimate Avengers comic books had a dark gritty tone to them the Ultimate Avengers animated movie has more of a Saturday morning cartoon feel.

Additionally the Ultimate Avengers animated movie skips over much of the character development that gave the comic series depth and realism (well comic book universe realism anyway), and much of the remaining story was rewritten and abridged.

It pains me to say this, but unfortunately I can't give Ultimate Avengers: The Movie any better than a MrSCIFI rating - 2 of 5.

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posted by StockGEEK at 8:10 PM  

1 Comments:

  • I think it has to do with who they were marketing it to. There were plenty of things on there too brutal for television, from numerous deaths to savage blows to the head to the alien tendrils piercing a guard's gut. Yet to make it accessible to a wider audience, they understandably had to tone down some of the more adult themes from the comic. For example, Hank and Jan quarrel but he couldn't very well abuse her as sadistically as he did in the comics.

    I think it was a good marriage/compromise between the Ultimates and their 616 counterparts, hence the "Ultimate Avengers" title. And I liked the things they were faithful to, like Cap's WWII experience. The voiceover scene with his letter to gail was just beautiful.


    As for abridging, it is a different medium. Nothing happens in the first six issues of Ultimates except for character development and a fight with the Hulk. It works for comic books, but not in the span of an hour's worth of animation. The alien invasion in the second half of the first volume of the series is better fodder for animation, but lacks the introduction of most of the main characters. I think they made a good choice in what they could and couldn't keep for the time they had.


    If you want Avengers with a Saturday morning cartoon feel, check out the FOX kids series from the 90s. Bright colors, stock animation, and no Cap, Thor or Iron Man. For 2D, this new one has a lot of nice touches, such as individual strands of hair being animated. And the fight with the Hulk was brutal. I gasped when he goes for Mjolnir, and the stuff he does to Pym...


    I'd probably give it a 3.5-4 out of 5 myself.

    By MCF, at Sat Mar 04, 06:27:00 AM PST  

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