While there may be some argument over who is
making the better live action movies, Marvel vs. D.C… I
personally don't think there is any real argument since I kind
of think Marvel is trouncing D.C… but there really can't be
much of an argument over who is making the better animated
movies. At this point the D.C. animated features have
lapped the Marvel animated features three times. But we
are holding out hope for the Marvel features to make a
comeback, hopefully starting with this one here, 'Avengers
Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher'. After
watching Black Widow & Punisher', let's go ahead and
assume the Marvel Renaissance starts with the next animated
feature.
Frank Castle (voiced by Brian Bloom) has had enough of these
gun runners flooding his city with all of their illegal
contraband, and he's in the process of punishing these
suckers. Then SHIELD and Nick Fury (John Eric Bentley),
as well as the Black Widow (Jennifer Carpenter) swoop down and
completely wreck Frank's punishing activities.
Apparently SHIELD has this all under control, they have an
operation taking place and the Punisher is messing things
up. Nick needs Frank to stop. Did Nick Fury just
meet Frank Castle or something? Regardless, The Black
Widow and the Punisher engage in a spirited battle and
eventually this rift gets ironed out.
After some tense conversation, and after Nick comes to
realization that Frank isn't going to listen to him anyway, he
decides to put Natasha and Frank on the mission together,
contingent on Frank following Natasha's lead. Did Nick
just meet Frank Castle or something?
What Nick and Natasha find out is that the
evil conglomerate known as Leviathan has some kind of wicked
Super Soldier plan going on, with Frank going off on his own
to do his own thing, but this time there are repercussions to
Frank's brashness which will play out in a very tragic way
when he makes it back to the SHIELD helicarrier. Natasha
has her own issues with this situation as she discovers her
former lover Elias (Grant George), whom she thought was dead,
is the brains behind Leviathan's evil super soldier plan with
Elias turning himself into a super soldier. Something
along the lines that he didn't think he was badass enough to
be Natasha's man or something… wah, wah wah….
Eventually Natasha and Frank figure out where Leviathan is
holed up with these Super Soldiers that they plan to auction
off to the super villains of the world, and they are going to
take them down. Even the Avengers show up to help.
What the Avengers needed to do was take some time out to beat
up Natasha and Elias. Their whining is literally driving
me crazy.
The animation for 'Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and
Punisher' was handled by the anime house Madhouse and they are
easily amongst the best in the business at what they do, and
the animation here is top notch… I'm just not sure it works
for this particular brand of superhero movie, just like I'm
not sure it worked in 'Iron Man: Rise of the
Technovore'. It could be the exaggerated lines, the
typically over-developed women, or the fact that the animation
is so obviously anime styled… there's something inherently off
putting about it.
But if the only issue that we had with 'Black Widow and
Punisher' was the animation, which will readily admit was
excellent despite our issues with it, then we'd really have no
issues with this animated film. Such was not the
case. First off, I really could've done without the
overwrought melodrama that the filmmakers brought to the
table. I understand the need to humanize our characters
somewhat… or maybe I can't since I already know stories behind
The Punisher and The Black Widow… but let's assume I can
understand the need, but the soaring soap opera levels the
filmmakers took the relationship between Natasha and Elias
felt like overkill.
Another thing which I think affected this melodrama, and how
we related to it, was the dialog. It felt forced and
stilted and not a lot that came out of these animated
characters mouths felt anywhere near anything anybody human
would say, or non-human for that matter. Bad dialog
gives the illusion that we are dealing with bad voice actors,
but I've heard a lot of these actors in other animated dramas
and I know they aren't this bad. So all the blame has to
go to the scripting for this one.
There was plenty of action though, and we will admit that a
lot of the times while Natasha and Elias where whining about
their failed relationship, at least they were doing it in the
middle of kicking one another's ass. Plus one of the
Avengers who showed up was Ms. Marvel, even though she didn't
get any lines. Hopefully she'll get her own animated
feature soon.
The bottom line is that the D.C. animated features has set the
bar pretty darned high for these animated features, and the
Marvel animated features haven't yet risen to the
occasion. We would like to say that 'Avengers
Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher' was a step in the
right direction, but unfortunately we can't even say that.
