It sure has been a while, hasn't it? No one has seen much of the Marvel animated features since "Thor: Tales of Asgard", which itself was decent but not too exciting. In the absence of these films, the DC animated features filled the void and have given quite a number grand stories to tell. After having its fun with four anime series, Marvel Animation finally gets back on its feet with producing some films, but this time trying out some CGI instead of hand-drawn animation. Along comes "Ironman and Hulk: Heroes United", which had its release delayed by several months for some reason, but now that it's here, what I think of it? Eh, let's take a look.
Plot: The evil organization Hydra has the Abomination capture the Hulk in order to harness their combined incredible might. However, their gamma power proves too much to handle and soon a new monstrosity is born, Zzzax, a powerful entity composed of pure energy who is literally hungry for power. After initially getting off on the wrong foot Iron Man and Hulk must battle their way through daunting odds from killer robots to man-eating Wendigos to stop this new electrifying foe while getting over their seemingly incompatible natures. Can brain and brawn save the day before time runs out?
What we have here is a film with a good deal of potential, but truth be told it leaves me really conflicted on it. What do I mean by this?
On one hand, we have a good setup of heroes and villains here for the most part. They're all perfectly cast like Fred Tatasciore as Hulk, Adrian Pasdar as Iron Man, Dee Bradley Baker as Zzzax, etc. On top of that, the character designs are pretty darn cool and have some nice details like the various Iron Man armors with their color schemes, the Wendigos that have a savage and scary look to them, and the heroes themselves who bear some resemblance to their live-action counterparts. Zzzax looks, sounds, and acts genuinely menacing, which ups the antics and raises the stakes for this adventure My favorite design (not to mention character) in the whole film is the Abomination, who looks absolutely awesome, like a hulking dragon-esque creature.
On the other hand, while the villains are given some good lines, a lot of the dialog the heroes are given feels very off. Iron Man tends to act a bit immature even to his own tech like Jarvis. At least Robert Downey Jr. had some charm in his role. Then, we have probably the most talkative Hulk ever. I mean, granted he does talk normal in the comic books sometimes and I can understand the filmmakers wanted him to say more than just the simple third-person lines, but this is a bit overkill. Even in some of the recent animates shows, Hulk tends to talk minimally, which is the complete opposite here. This combined with the lame dialog between the two knocks a few points down. Also, there's really no point having the Wendigos around as they serve no real purpose in the plot beyond providing another action scene to extend the movie and while Abomination does play an integral part to the story, he kinda gets shafted after the first act of the movie. I would have liked for him to be more involved in the story.
The sound effects are quite good, nearly every punch and explosion felt natural. The action scenes, when one gets down to it, are good. The environments get torn apart nicely (especially with Hulk vs Abomination) and they come up with some nice twists like Iron Man becoming Hulk's "eyes" during the cemetery fight or when Hulk himself has to wear bits of technology to get the job done.
However, the animation is noticeably imperfect. You'd think with the release delayed that they'd fix up on the animation, but they didn't and so characters tend to move unnaturally at certain moments, especially when Hulk is running, walking, or even talking and Iron Man fighting in general. Because the story is a little short, there are certain scenes that seem to drag on more than necessary. As a result, what is ultimately a 70 minute film feel like a 2-3 hour long one and it kinda feels dull at times, with the action scenes providing the only bit of real excitement around here.
I'm not sure what else I could say about this one. There's some good things here as well as some bad ones. Nice action scenes, great character designs, and a decent plot are mixed with flawed animation, lame dialog on the heroes' part, and moments that feel dull and drag. It seems that Marvel should stick to hand-drawn animation rather than rely on CG in an already CGI-spoiled society. Though not quite recommended, I'd at least rent this one for some superhero entertainment.
1 out of 4 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
