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?
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.
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?
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| Does this look good? |
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| 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.
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.
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