This bird's gonna fly

Due to a lack of feedback on here (I blame me), along with the fact that I post reviews on three sites at a time, I'm gonna downsize a bit.

From now on, I'll be posting reviews exclusively on Manic-Expression and deviantArt. I'm leaving links to both so on the off chance you've been following this blog and just came to visit, eh fuck it, bug me elsewhere.

https://www.deviantart.com/channeleven

http://www.manic-expression.com/members/channe1even/

Longshot review

Never ask about my taste in music.

The late-90s and early-2000s had a certain unique flavor when it came to music (well among other things.) I'm not saying music nowadays is crap (though to be fair, some songs do reek), but it didn't hold as much variety. In the 90s/2000s, we had a little bit of everything, alternative rock and southeners who want to worm their way into teen culture, nu metal (though to be fair some bangers sufficed), and of course(?), pop groups. Won't name any just yet, but there was, well duh, a time when these bands were inescapable, and nobody knew this better than their record label.

So to further bank on their names and because these people know the only thing keeping them out of a McDonalds uniform was trying to keep some presence on the charts, they tried (or were forced into) acting. Some were able to pull it off, Justin Timberlake I guess, but others... I mean you tell me. And we owe a big skid mark in their careers to Lou Pearlman, more in a bit.

The film was directed by Lionel C. Martin of Queens, New York, represent, a music video director who some may recognize for directing the music video for Biz Markie's Just a Friend, as well as videos for certain artists who wound up appearing in this film. This is also one of two movies Martin directed. Before, he helmed How to Be a Player, a film backed by Def Jam Records which wasn't any better.

I can't blame Martin for this, because he wasn't the one who ran countless names through the ringer. That honor goes to Lou Pearlman. Pearlman represented practically every artist who appeared in this film, only to get done in by a Ponzi scheme in 2006, where he would die in custody about ten years later, against a 25 year sentence. Also found a parallel to Colonel Tom Parker, both exploited their connections to their artists by releasing albums under their own labels, Parker on the infamous spoken word album Havin' Fun With Elvis on Stage and the soundtrack to this film was released on Pearlman's own label.

Among the artists featured are Britney Spears (who I admittedly have some respect for due to most of her songs being more clever than I gave them credit for), O-Town (who many of you may know for that one song) NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Aaron Carter (who is better known nowadays for flip flopping on his political views) and those are just the names I recognize. But wait, there's more. They also got some regular celebrities in this too.

Gilbert Gottfried was in this (then again, he also appeared in an Angry Video Game Nerd episode, then again he is also on Cameo.com so James Rolfe probably shelled out enough money to warrant a grander appearance), Dwayne Johnson apparently appeared in this too, we even get appearances from Screech and Lisa from Saved by the Bell. Also, Danielle Fishel appears in this, aka Topanga from Boy Meets World, aka that one girl from Gamebox 1.0 that Brutalmoose covered, and she even appeared in an episode of The Nightmare Room which I covered a while back. She has such a familiar face.

The film was produced on a budget of over 20 million dollars, though it never received a theatrical release. It was aired on Disney Channel and later got a home video release through a company too obscure to mention.

Before I go any further, the above and this were written before I saw the film. Sometimes I go into something thinking I'd hate it, but I find that I just overreacted. On the other hand, a pop group oriented movie is giving me flashbacks to School Gyrls, which I consider to be the worst movie I've ever seen. I don't know how bad this movie could be, but I'd like to consider it better than School Gyrls by default.

Now enough rambling, here's some more rambling

Going into this, you'd think that this movie would center entirely on one of the aforementioned musicians, and you'd be wrong. The artists only appear in what amounts to cameo roles. We gotta place some focus on a young boy who's brother happens to be a gigolo, who isn't Deuce Bigalow. Plus basketball, and being in New York City. If I ask these producers what Albany is I doubt I'll get a straight answer. Ironically, while lower budget productions set in New York often get shot in Vancouver, this movie was shot in Toronto. I have a gut feeling it's cheaper to produce something in Ontario than it is in British Columbia, unless they wanted to be cutting edge.

The film starts with a prologue featuring members of the band O-Town, and as someone who's finger is far from the pulse of musical culture, I admittedly had to look it up. My only clue is that one of the members was referred to by name. In what seems to be a meta joke, the band watches a bunch of obnoxious assholes who even I can't understand who're giving away free copies of the film we're watching.

In some twisted way, this wouldn't make the movie much better, but here's an idea. What if this movie was about a boyband starring in a movie and it's just them watching and riffing on it the whole time? It may be crap, but at least it'd give a sign of a sense of humor on an executive's part. To be fair, they try to incorporate that, but the way they go about it, it just amounts to a funny little thing they do before the movie starts. Perhaps the almighty dollar wasn't enough to make O-Town satisfied.

Then we get to the good shit. B-ball. I will say this, going by the cold open and a general idea on how the actual movie starts, I have more confidence with this than School Gyrls, and this is my first time seeing it. Anyway, rather than establishing our main character right out of the gate, we start with the conflict at hand, him playing a game that unknown to him, would play a big part in his social standing.

After some padding, which suggests that the director believes nobody knows what basketball is, we get a sloppy introduction to the main, Alex. I'm aware that he's about to fuck up because, aside from the fact that if he didn't there'd be no drive to the plot, they spell it out. The coach claims that Alex has the kind of shot capable of evening (or exceeding) the score. If you weren't able to predict a downfall, this is very likely the first basketball-related movie you've ever seen, if not your first exposure to movies.

I don't know if it's better or worse they get the conflict going right away. On one hand, it's over and done with, on the other, it's the first quarter and it may get worse or nowhere at all, and on another hand that sprouted out of nowhere, we could've had a nothing or crap establishment scene(s) before this one.

All I really got from that was reaffirmation that only idiots take sports that seriously. Too offensive? Well how about sports are a case for the theory of evolution. I say while typing away and sitting on my bed. Also pizza...

Up next we see Justin Timberlake as a valet getting scolded and fulfilling his cameo quota. He manages to fuck with his boss by relaying orders to another valet, i.e. the opposite of what not to do. The acting is mediocre in this, though Timberlake looks as though he's trying his best. I did catch one thing, the music overpowers the dialog in short bursts. It's N*SYNC, but Timberlake pretends he doesn't recognize it. Better than stroking his ego, I mean I guess it's better, then again he isn't the star and it's all about getting the music out on a shallow husk of a movie. Then we get narration out of nowhere, and I get the idea that the movie was made on the basis that every minute of it was its last. The narration comes from the brother who's getting mental tail as a fitness trainer, and may be on the onset of Salmonella as he goes for the number one fitness stereotype in the book, drinking a glass of raw eggs. 

Gilbert Gottfried comes in, and, okay, he's in his element. With that kind of voice the element of surprise is gone. After dealing with some assholes, one of which being dead by 101 in 2015 Ellen Albertina Dow, we see Alex and Topanga and we get some good ol' awkwardness. Then again, this is carried out better than in Reanimated, though it's still dull. It gets cut off by some bitch, though this bitch automatically has more likability than Bambi (School Gyrls), only because she doesn't have as many lines.

Back to the brother, we get an introduction to his gigolo work, along with a desperate meta joke about how this is some dumb cheesy teen movie with a lot of cameos. The joke alone is better than any of the fourth wall breaks in The Garfield Show, and I really hope this is the last time I compare anything to this movie. Anyhow, what's the one thing a forgettable yet idiotically cheesy needs? Why an over-the-top villain of course. The brother gets assaulted by two thugs, yada yada blows his car up, car chase through the city, helicopter, all just to get to the villain's mansion, Laszlo Price.

Along with an incredibly lazy name, Price's drive is that one of the brother's clients was his wife. For renumeration, Jack (and why did I take so long to say his name) is forced to take on a client who has a connection to a failing business, less he wants to get baseballs perpetually launched into his testicles. Price comes off as uncaring yet somehow hammy at the same time. Of course Jack seems to care just as little, which is why this is the only thing he has ever worked on, and he wrote and produced it. Though something tells me he wants to make Alex sound better by comparison, which he does by the way.

However, in spite of caring less than Alex, Jack has a more interesting plot on paper, Alex just goes through the high school drama checklist.

Then it occurred to me, I don't really need to go any further. It's a trainwreck, but not a must-see kind of trainwreck. I cut out early, not because it was that bad, but because it was actually kinda boring. The copy I saw was divided into ten parts, I got a few minutes into the third. The movie essentially peaked too early.

Overall

With a mediocre atmosphere, some familiar faces and exploitation of stars in the right areas, along with a small sense of bearability, this movie is mostly better than School Gyrls. Whether or not I sit through anything all the way through shouldn't matter. The only reason I bothered seeing the latter all the way through was because I did so when it was new.

I also bothered to watch that film in its entirety because I felt like I struck gold; I found my own worst movie ever, one that hasn't really been touched yet, so I needed to get as many details from it as possible for a cohesive review (as with MP4ORCE). For this, it seems like the perfect "worst ever" film, going by how it was made, but really, this is just a mediocre movie.

Somehow this film feels more like a ponzi scheme with more legal intentions. They promoted a movie that involved various artists, well the songs were played and the artists themselves appeared in some capacity. I don't know what anyone would've expected from something like this, if they wanted more money they should've pushed for a theatrical release.

Did this movie entice me to check out the artists present? I already know about many of these, so this movie is lost on me. I think the producers behind this would've been fucked no matter what route they took.

Pauly review

Say what you will about Pauly Shore, at least Bio-Dome has an audience of sorts. Pauly Shore is basically a very one-note comedian, performing that note as off-key as he possibly could. However, when it comes to throwing shit at him, it feels more like an obligation, like someone wants to immediately set up a negative perspective on something they're about to review. While I do agree Pauly Shore is shit, he didn't appear in Norm of the North (and I bring that up because Rob Schneider was the biggest star they could get, call it desperation.), no one knew how bad Bio-Dome would be and that would apply to a potential TV series. Which happened.

Pauly

In 1997, Pauly Shore made his first foray into sitcom territory. For better or worse, the show wound up on Fox, and something tells me the big three would've somehow made it worse had they picked it up. The show is part of a sub-genre related to sitcoms that have the first name of their stars (Jenny, Freddie, Sammy, Ellen, Emeril, if you could figure out what I'm referring to... eh screw it, you all probably just googled it)

Whatever'd be said about this show coming up, just know it wasn't necessarily a vanity project. Pauly starred in and produced it, but he didn't create it. The show was created by James Berg and Stan Zimmerman. Both have worked together quite frequently prior to this series, working on The Golden Girls (hey, I'm getting The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer vibes here), Roseanne, Gilmore Girls and A Very Brady Sequel.

Okay, this is too big of a coincidence, for Pauly and Pfeiffer, they were created by two individuals, both of which had worked on The Golden Girls as well as a movie from 1996, and their respective sitcoms blew. Well at least Berg and Zimmerman received WGA nominations for their work on Golden Girls. Maybe they just couldn't salvage Shore.

Anyway, they produced this show, Shore did as well and they were represented through 3 Arts Entertainment, who within the same year helped bring us King of the Hill.

Seven episodes were made, but only five of which wound up airing. The show was very short-lived, even by Fox standards, then again this was only not even a year after Bio-Dome was released. Going back to Pfeiffer, the two episodes that didn't air were both directed by Matthew Diamond, and he directed the Pfeiffer episodes that did air. Maybe Fox did us a service.

Anyhow, Pauly fever was low to the point of nonexistence. It's essentially lost media, with only one episode available. The pilot was briefly available, but the channel it was posted on got terminated, and the only evidence of that is a logo combo from the end of it. It's a recurring trend for lost sitcoms, their episodes aren't on YouTube, but the logo combos sure are. We have a chance at preserving lost media, and all we aim for are the logos.

Aside from Pauly, this is the first I heard of many of the main actors on this. The show included Theo Greenly from Jerry Maguire, David Dukes who would pass away in 2000 and Amy Hill, who's the Asian equivalent to Hattie McDaniel in that she's most likely found as a maid in her roles.

Premise

Going by recurring summaries for the show at large, the series centers on Pauly, who's living it up in California with his rich dad. He had recently been hooked by a gold digger and Pauly wants to ruin their relationship because... He wants to get in the golddigger's pants? He realizes that she wants more from his dad than what she promised? He hates his dad and wants to make his life miserable by ruining his chance at love? Okay, I only have one episode to go by, and it's not the pilot, so unless someone managed to save the copy of that before it got deleted, I'm gonna be lost.

The one surviving episode features Pauly getting swooned by a woman who happened to be a co-star for the golddigger's adult film days, and the golddigger threw her his way to keep him from ruining her plan to get a celebrity spokesperson for a vein cause.

I saw this episode once, and recently as well. Nothing stuck with me from it, not even Pauly's obnoxious comedy. Would it be good or bad that I forgot about Pauly Shore in this? I can piece together fragments of most of the characters, and the only one I forgot cold turkey was David Dukes' character.

Basically, what unites Pauly and the golddigger is that the faux fiance the latter found intends to exploit Pauly's father in order to live lavishly for the rest of her life, so the latter's celebrity spokesperson deal comes into play. Previously, she sent her son (and by extent Pauly's stepbrother) to find a schoolmate with a celebrity parent.

What did we get out of that? Erik Estrada, though to be fair this is a better gig than what he did on Cool Cat Saves the Kids. They had tried to find a fake celebrity to get rid of the fiance, but Estrada wasn't it, and they're left with a fake Michael Jackson.

Basically, Pauly's attitude makes up a bulk of the episode, they make some attempt at visual humor, but I could only recall one gag from the cold open. Maybe deep down I really hate Pauly Shore and I blocked this episode from my memory. And since this is a comedy with no grounded continuity, it's just a matter of one episode to inspire confidence to check out the rest of the series... and frankly I'm in no hurry.

Overall

This is another one of those short-ass-fuck reviews, or as I'd like to call it, another reminder that something existed. So, is there anything nice I could say about this show? Well the intro was good, and given Pauly's level of comedy it's saying a hell of a lot. I didn't quit the episode early so I guess I was able to stomach Pauly throughout, then again I'm in no hurry to see the episode again.

Now this leaves one of those ever famous questions. Is this worse than The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer? Honestly, no. Why compare both shows? Again, created by duos who worked on The Golden Girls.

At the very least, Pauly was just a thing of its own, a vehicle for a comedian who had been on thin ice at this point. It was a shot at the dark for him to regain some footing in the comedy industry, and did it prevail? Well sorta. He tried his hand at voice acting and some lesser known family films, but he didn't get as lucky as Adam Sandler (say what you will, but Sandler knows what he's doing). Pfeiffer went on an offensive route and did nothing to commentate on it. Plus its comedy sucked ass.

Perhaps it's for the best that this series remains obscure, Shore has gone through enough grief as is, because at the end of the day, he didn't appear in Norm of the North.

The Brothers Flub review

Compared to the what the big three had geared out over the years, Nickelodeon had to have some of the most infamous cartoons, bar none. The worst Cartoon Network did was, what? Thundercats Roar? (and if I don't bring up the quality shows I rag on, I don't have to bring up the popular ragging targets) For Disney I don't think anyone remembers (two nuts one shell and euphemism), and I actually didn't hate Fish Hooks, then again I don't hate Mabel Pines either.

But when Nickelodeon fucks up, nobody forgets it. They lack hindsight and foresight when it comes to many of their decisions (that or people embellish something flawed in the hopes of getting famous for it.) The only smart thing they ever did in their more recent years was turn down Adventure Time (and there goes that promise.) But even for Nickelodeon's worst decisions, we remember them years later, I mean even if it wasn't a desired impact, they still left some kind of impact.

But what if a show sucks so hard it gets forgotten about, and only acknowledged fleetingly for ragging?

The Brothers Fallopian Tube

The Brothers Flub turned up on Nickelodeon in 1999 and got burned off nearly a year later in 2000 (it started and ended the same month, but nine days before crossing the one year mark). The show had two creators, one who did nothing before or after this, and another who used to work at Klasky Csupo as a background and character designer. He also worked on an animated short that got mentioned by RebelTaxi, the short being Bojack Horseman several years in the past.

Speaking of RebelTaxi, a key reason people know about this show is because he talked about it in one of his videos. That, and MrEnter included the theme song in a countdown for some of the worst theme songs ever. In watching an episode to make sure I get the gist of it, I had to sit through the song and to sum up... it's noise, just pure, unadulterated noise.

Just to prove this show aired on Nickelodeon, here's a promo.

Anyway, the show's backstory is fairly interesting, well to me it's interesting. It's an American/German co-production, and Germany is known for high-budget/high-quality productions. They gave us Uwe Boll (then again his non major efforts are technically better), helped fund Warner Bros.' crappy syndicated programs and gave us MP4ORCE, a show so bad you'd have a hard time ironically liking it just to poke fun at me sperging over it. Germany's participation in this stems from funding through Ravensburger, a board game and toy manufacturer. In spite of their roots, they didn't gear out merchandise, and I bring that up because it actually happened.

The show was produced by Sunbow Productions, a company with an implacably sad tale backing it. Sunbow started out producing cartoons in the 80s, being best recognized for producing the Transformers and My Little Pony cartoons, as well as their respective movies, Bucky O' Hare, Jem and the Holograms, G.I. Joe. and The Tick, going by notable ones.

They were a respectable firm back in the day, but by the late-90s, without guidance from Hasbro it became clear that Sunbow were thirsty for original ideas. From 1997, they produced two forgettable educational programs, one ranks lowly while the other was likely forgotten, in 1998 they produced Fat Dog Mendoza, which never aired outside of Europe (though admittedly I found myself watching more episodes of that than I thought I would), then this. Afterwards, we got Generation O!, which... well it has an interesting style and I did make it through every episode I've watched from it, though I doubt I could recommend it to anyone, and it all ended with The Cramp Twins, which they couldn't even keep up with. I used to like that show but now I hate it, if you accuse me of hating it for that reason, the shows I defend had class.

While this came after Fat Dog Mendoza, that show wasn't as known so it couldn't have left that big of an impact, this was the first Sunbow show to lay the seeds for the end. Only thing more ambiguous about this show is its merchandising. While this show was in production, merchandise was immediately prepped for it. You know, TV shows usually come after a toyline or whatever gets popular, or vice versa.

It wasn't toys (well separately) this show dished out, going by brand promotions, there was a KFC kids meal, branding for trays at Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, yo-yos with children's vitamins from GNC, appearances in back-to-school promos at Macy's, a Skechers deal, and I'm starting to doubt these actually happened, because if it did, someone would've filed for bankruptcy. There were also two four episode tapes released through Sony Wonder, Nickelodeon's former video distributor and then owner of Sunbow, and I know that happened because a VHS cover for that appears on its Wikipedia page.

Apparently, Sunbow's reputation was still stable at the time, because a marketing push for something ambiguous at the time didn't get questioned.

The show featured a roster of well known voice actors, many of which had worked on Klasky Csupo shows in the past. Aside from them, we also had Scott Menville, Sally Struthers, Richard Horvitz, Nick Bakay, Tom Kenny, Vanessa Marshall (or Irwin as I know her), and Harvey Korman apparently. I'm calling bull on this cast, but I'm pointing it out because it caught me by surprise. If the cast list is anything to go by, Kath Soucie surprisingly didn't appear in this, and I only bring her up because she tends to appear in a lot of things and was also a regular in Klasky Csupo's programs. Respect. But wanna know who did appear in this? Candi Milo, someone I hate for no particular reason aside from how often she pops up.

Charlie Adler worked as a voice director on this. Just thought I'd let you know.

Premise

The show is non-serialized. It centers on the misadventures of two alien delivery boys and trouble they face at their home base or in worlds they deliver to. Each world is themed around one particular thing, which sounds interesting on paper, but anyone could make up worlds where one thing is the central focus.

Some may call this a rip-off of Futurama because of the delivery aspect, but this came first by a few months. Then again, it's not like Futurama has aliens- well aside from Kif, but aliens aren't the focal point in the delivery crew- well Zoidberg and maybe Amy Wong, well it's not like Futurama goes to separate worl- well planets but it's mostly the same and the worlds are better fleshed out because its Futurama, and don't worry, I still love Futurama, even though people think Pixels ripped it off (it didn't, it was just a crappy movie.)

The characters don't go beyond stereotypes you'd find in other shows. To sum up, fat idiot, annoying skinny guy, levelheaded girl, fat boss, drawing a blank with all else. To put this into perspective, I can remember and identify characters from Sunbow's other later shows, well for the most part. Okay, for the sake of helping people follow along, the fat idiot and annoying skinny guy are Guapo and Fraz respectively.

Their bickering makes up a bulk of the conflicts in nearly every episode, because that's the easiest way for anyone to make up a plot. They don't do much to help make the episode stand out, well aside from padding with annoying dialog to fulfill a runtime quota.

An episode I saw centered on the last slice of pizza. For those of you thinking I'm gonna continue a running gag where I bring up The Loud House, especially because of one of their pilot shorts and assume I'm gonna make a rip-off allegation with that, the episode is radically different, and it came first. No, this episode has sentient pizza toppings on an old pizza shrink Fraz and Guapo down and we see they've created a full society. This basically ripped off an episode of The Simpsons which ripped off an episode of The Twilight Zone. It took seven minutes to get to this point, with the only thing holding it together being hunger and annoying dialog.

Not to mention, I predicted what the ending would've been like and, I was wrong. I expected the toppings to grow back with them once they got to the shrink ray, then a monster they carried with their cargo would eat the sentient pizza toppings, but instead, the pizza with everyone on it gets eaten, and then spit back up, with the shrink ray wearing off and nobody getting eaten. The episode would've sucked either way.

This was one of two segments on the episode I saw. I had no interest in seeing the other, so you could say this episode didn't fill me with confidence.

Animation

Some have accused this show of trying to rip off Klasky Csupo's style. A key reason why I bring up background trivia is because these things can likely get answered. It looks like a Klasky Csupo show because one of the creators worked as a designer for the company before making this. And since Klasky Csupo is so associated with Nickelodeon... on second thought it sounds like it'd lead to redundancy.

The animation is nothing special, it doesn't stand out from other Nicktoons, or on its own either. The fact that it tries to emulate Klasky Csupo's style makes it feel like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Not to mention, the animation itself is stiff and very limited, and I even caught a lip-synching error. The art direction is so shallow that I couldn't help but look for errors.

Overall

If the rest of the show was anything like the episode I've seen, I can safely say this show deserves to be forgotten. It seems Nickelodeon shared that sentiment whole-heartedly, they didn't co-produce it and they did nothing with the characters later on down the line. It got to the point that Nickelodeon's license on the show expired, something that wound up happening to Pelswick as well, though that was a Canadian import which somehow got as much promotion as Nick's original productions at the time.

Oh yeah, this show sucks too.

Ultimate Avengers review (blind)

And by blind, I mean I'm going by my memory on this.

If you're curious about my stance on the Avengers movies, I respect them, I feel that their box office records and praise is well deserved, but I'm just not much of a Marvel fan. The only Marvel films I like are the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, Hulk and Deadpool 2.

The new Avengers films are generally fun, but I'd like to remind you that this wasn't the only time the Avengers reared their head onto any screen, and I'm not saying there's some obscure 90s TV movie based on the Avengers (though I wish there was.), though it's been a little over a decade since these came out.

The year is 2006, Marvel had reached their fifth year in their original cinematic universe, and at this point they wanted to do more. Perhaps to extend their reach, Marvel decided to dip their feet into the direct-to-video market and had released eight films between 2006 and 2011 through LionsGate, back when they weren't the kind of company that'd release just about anything, and by anything I mean a Dinesh D'Souza documentary, Alpha and Omega (and their bastard children), Norm of the North, and I could go deeper.

Ultimate Avengers was the first to be released, with a sequel immediately following the same year. I had caught the second on Cartoon Network years ago and remembered it, but I could never figure out the title. Once I did, I decided to seek out both films (coincidentally, around the same time I tried rewatching Mosaic, another Cartoon Network film I saw in the late-2000s)

I felt nothing, this goes for all three. So I'm going to cover both films. For them, I'm primarily going by memory, you can just go by plot fragments and nothing of value would be lost.

Ultimate Avengers

The first Ultimate Avengers movie primarily exists to establish the roster of Marvel characters that'd be used, with a thin conflict wrapper to get them altogether. Among the Marvel characters used are The Hulk, Ant Man, Wasp, Thor and Captain America. All get approached by Nick Fury to unite to take down an alien threat.

I might've said this a million times already, but in case I didn't, my biggest hangup with the action genre is that it's incredibly formulaic, moreso than any other genre. At least with horror we have satirical versions along with comedic ones, and for comedy, we have dark comedy and stabs at tropes. Here, this is an action plot down to the bone and just barely scrapping past the marrow.

The only thing that could save this is its characters and... let's see.

Captain America is portrayed as is, full stop. He had fought in World War II and was frozen solid during combat, only to be thawed out years later, where he comes to the realization that his faction isn't immortal, and we had no survivors, they all died. At least with the Munchkins from Wizard of Oz, or the Little Rascals, we had some survivors.

This gives me so many mixed messages. Is this meant to cause an existential crisis for Captain America where he realizes that he is essentially cursed due to him being a super soldier? Well the way I saw it, this had little of an effect on him. He holds the same mentality any generic hero would on team-oriented deals. Plus his girlfriend is still alive in this.

Is this meant to be some anti-war kind of message? Because I really don't want it to be, Spec Ops: The Line would make this obsolete six years later.

There's Thor, who now works on a fishing boat and drinks. It seems he's the designated comic relief here, but it feels kinda forced here. A highlight to his first appearance is him incorporating two belches in a verbal middle finger to a team-up proposition. A theme around this is that the heroes say no to the team-up, at least in the better known films, they get together and voice their aggressions.

Then we have Ant Man, and boy, nobody favored Ant Man. I don't know what S.H.I.E.L.D. did to him, but man, he is a dick. It gets old very quickly, to the point you'd want him to become a casualty, but don't lose that thought just yet.

Also we have Wasp, and my main hang-up with her is her voice acting. Wasp is played by Grey DeLisle, using one of many of her incredibly known voices. In a nutshell, imagine Daphne Blake cosplaying as Wasp. This could've been a good opportunity to do some against-typing, but she didn't deliver. I don't consider DeLisle to be one of my favorite voice actresses, at least Nika Futterman stuck to what she was good at and has a unique voice while Kath Soucie is more of the same and has good range with it. If you hadn't figured it out, I can't say much about Wasp other than that she's a bland foil to Ant Man.

Then there's Black Widow, basically has, well some sort of accent, don't want to jump to conclusions since I'm basically going by memory here. From what I remember, there's some romantic kindling between her and Captain America (or is it Iron Man, I forget.) Don't remember, don't care to, but the fact that I could remember everyone else may be building to something more major here.

I completely forgot about Iron Man in this, don't shoot me, but I don't even remember him much, if at all, in this movie. How is it that I forgot Iron Man when I could recall everyone else in this?

Lastly, there's the Hulk, traveling the downtrodden path of trying to get control of his savage form. Now sure, that is integral to his character, but why not try and bring back what happened in the Pantheon saga, where he had successfully merged his human and hulk personalities.

In the past they were able to incorporate comedy into Hulk's adaptations, which alleviated the dark and predictable aspects regarding the circumstances behind his powers (every Hulk cartoon up to this point.) because let's face it, we know inner turmoil is as dark as it is predictable. This movie is dark, so their portrayal of Hulk is predictable. A scientist dulled by the world around him, to the point he places his own priorities over all else and fucking over a plan to attack an arriving alien race just for his own good.

In other words, I hate everybody here, and I'm saving an obvious analogy for the end.

A good reason I bring up the characters now is that a stark majority of the film is spent establishing the characters. Not their origin stories, but rather where they are now. I don't know if it's done from scratch or continuing from a comic arc I couldn't be bothered to know about, but that's the entirety of this film. Heck, the alien invasion just amounts to a typical action battle.

As I watched the film, in the back of my head, I wanted so bad for it to be a film based around the Hulk. In trying to control his form, after a false sense of hope, Banner loses it in combat and winds up getting detained. If they're going for the "rage is too strong" business, yeah, that's a whole other downtrodden path.

And for the sake of running it for more mileage, they sack up and unite as a team.

You know, I think I saw a story like this in just about every dark niche superhero team origin story. Or maybe they just didn't make good use of it here. These team-establishing joints face the same problems, too much glut when it comes to establishing key players and their relationships. They could've easily just made separate films to establish each member, then have them come together. It'd mean they could easily appeal to fans of each hero with their own solitary films and give Marvel more money. The fact that the sequel only came months after shows it could've been done.

Ultimate Avengers 2: The Boogaling

Before I discuss the plot, I'd like to bring something up. This was the Ultimate Avengers movie I saw on Cartoon Network years ago, and I watched this when I revisited the two films a while back. To put this into perspective, I remembered everything but the title of Mosaic, I had seen bits and pieces of the second animated Hellboy movie and I remembered those pieces I saw.

I can hardly remember much about this film aside from a few key aspects. Call it ridiculous that I wouldn't go back to watch the film to get a better understanding, I'd call it a sign that this is the most forgettable of the two, because I didn't have as hard of a time going by memory on what happened in the previous film.

From what I remember, this movie's antagonists were the Skrulls, or some kind of shapeshifters. They receive help from Black Panther to take down the threat and Bruce Banner is held for questioning regarding the events of his rampage. Some of the less important characters get Infinity Stoned and Banner is gassed to death, later Hulking out and realizing how much of a threat he is.

Then Ant Man dies and I get super pissed off. I didn't like Ant Man in this, which is why I glossed over a plot point involving him in the previous film; he wanted to modify his suit to allow him to grow big, and at that point he becomes Giant Man. Due to the suit's affect on his body chemistry, he winds up dying in conflict, and we're apparently supposed to feel emotional?

Ant Man had been a pain in the ass since the start. Killing him off felt more like a favor to the audience or a false sense of belief that he truly sacrificed himself for the greater good. It felt hollow to me and left so little to think about. Sacrificials are moderately easy to pull off, and they really missed the mark, either by going the most obvious route or making it so that the death is ruined by the fact that we'd recall how much of a dick Ant Man was in this.

I know what you're thinking: "You're just being a dick, we don't know what S.H.I.E.L.D. did to Ant Man whether it followed a pre-existing comic arc or something that was exclusive to this universe, and dying for the grater good should be separate from who the departed was, besides could you think of someone better to kill off?"

Why yes, Wasp. Think about it. Wasp was Ant Man's closest rooter. If Wasp was the sacrificial character, Ant Man would use this as an opportunity to rethink his attitude, mature, and become the best damn superhero he can be. It's cliched, but I'm going against what feels like an ever-typical dark superhero film. Gotta fight fire with fire.

Animation

Was the animation that good?

Does this look good?

How about this?

I'm no fan of the style here. It looks rather ugly, and somehow bland too. The animation was produced by Dong Woo Animation, who was also behind the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and the first three seasons of The Boondocks. I don't know why, but the animation here just feels off to me. Nothing exactly stands out, and I have a feeling I've seen a show with a similar art direction to this before.

But I guess this gritty art direction compliments the gritty tone of the two films. If they screened this at theaters, a slaughter would've been imminent.

Overall

When this was new, it was fairly popular, but now that the new Avengers movies are out, this had been knocked to another footnote in Marvel's history, and frankly has little to show for it. I complain about Avatar, but nowadays I do respect it to some degree (though I'm no fan of it.), as schizophrenic as Teen Titans was it was still memorable. If you're sick of me ragging on both shows, I think I found a new target.

Ultimate Avengers 1 and 2 are honestly some of the most bland, forgettable films I've ever seen. Even after a single reviewing of each, I can't even remember that much of it. Once more, a key reason why I hate action is that they tend to rely on certain tropes more often than other genres, often going beat for beat. This is the best possible example of an action cartoon that follows the cliches, or at least feels like it does. It's not darker than other action cartoons, it's not cheesy in a good way, even its art style is incredibly bland and kinda ugly.

In other words, this is basically the Avengers if it was directed by Zack Snyder.