Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Ultimate Avengers

Phex: Dorset Doom

20:16 / 07.02.06

From Newsarama:

The movie is a retelling of the Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Giant Man and The Wasp got together. They formed to fight a bunch of bloodthirsty shape-changing aliens with the aid of The Hulk, and then ended up fighting The Hulk who went a little crazy with bloodlust.

There will be some slight spoilers here, so read on at your own risk. I know how touchy some of you can get.

The shift in story is handled brilliantly as The Hulk starts off as dumb but reasonably tame and just keeps getting angrier. You can actually see him going into a red zone and totally losing control. The fight scenes between the Hulk and everyone else are impressive, as is the surprise ending.

There's clips Here

First impressions: It's not quite The Ultimates, and it's not quite the Avengers, but that's not a bad thing per se. The Avengers brings too much backstory baggage with it, while the Ultimates is too adult. The animation looks crisp and the movement is as natural as anything I've seen, at least in Western animation. It could well be the opening salvo in an assualt on Justice League Unlimited's superhero hegemony in cartoons.
It's coming out on Feb.21st, and will no doubt make it onto Bittorrent about... midday on Febuary 21st, so we'll know if it's Ultimate or needs Avenging by then.

19:15 / 08.02.06

Haven't seen the clip yet, but I am curious about this...I doubt the quality will be much better than, say, X-Men Evolution (which I file under 'decent but not great'), but we shall see...

22:50 / 08.02.06

First impressions: It's not quite The Ultimates, and it's not quite the Avengers

It's Saturday Morning Ultimates, innit. I reckon this'll be okay. Will have less cannibal-rape than the Ultimates and less wife-beating than the Avengers.

They shaved Thor. Bad decision. Unless he's got a secret beard?

12:32 / 11.02.06

brief review from someone at Aint It Cool News:

>> I saw ULTIMATE AVENGERS tonight... and here's the thing. The story is pretty fun, hell, when Hulk shows up... you'd kill to see that Live Action. My problem is that it is grotesquely underfinanced. The animation is sloppy and a grade better than some superhero animation, but not much. Looking at this, I just can't help but wonder what a no holds barred CG animated, in partnership with SQUARE, ULTIMATES would look like.

12:48 / 11.02.06

I don't think I'm going to like this as much as I've been enjoying Justice League, but I hope it good. Oh and, I also think it was a mistake to shave Thor.

13:06 / 11.02.06

I just watched the clip...[the first moments of Capt. America waking up from suspended animation] not bad. Seems like it has potential to be decent...there is a slight cheesiness to the animation, though. We'll see...

Mister Six, whom all the girls

15:20 / 12.02.06

Terrible animation, horrible voice acting and they I can't see how they can deliver the tough as nails storyline in a family oriented cartoon and if that's the case... why not make it the Avengers??

Imagine the poor kid who gets roped in by the cartoon and buys the comic only to see an unshaven Hank Pym in bed with Valkyrie.

Thanks for the cobbled together idea, Marvel!

12:39 / 19.02.06

**Minor SPOILERS**

**

**

**

**

I saw this last night and I quite liked it. It's certainly no JLU, but it was good, dumb fun. Those of you expecting the Ultimates willbe disappointed. While the intro with Cap is lifted almost wholesale from the comic, the story diverges quite quickly, and becomes it's own thing. Think the League of Extraordinaty Gentlemen movie (then dial back a bit, it's not that bad) - they've taken the characters and the sandbox, and told a PG-13 superhero story with it.

There're hints at the book - Hank and Jan are slightly antagonistic, Banner and Betty have been broken up for a while and Bruce wants her back, Tony drinks a bit (but it's not commented on), Thor is basically the same (but has no beard! Not very Norse, that...) but the story is mostly origins, and a fight with some aliens and a fight with the Hulk and we're finished in an hour and ten minutes.

The Hulk fight is quite fun, if a bit tacked-on, but Hulk has muck less of the willful destruction and amped-up fratboy character that he has with Millar (which I loved, btw, the thought that Ult. Hulk is all about sex has made the character much more interesting, but alas, it's left out of the cartoon). The fight is restricted to the environs of the Triskelion, so there's no Hulk rampaging through Manhattan. He does break Pym's kneecap and hand though, so it's not all bad.

Download, steal or rent, save your pennies for the JLU box sets...
**

**

**

**
/NO MORE SPOILERS

02:27 / 13.03.06

Just saw this and although I did think it was cool it wasn't great. I get more out of a 30 min. episode of JLU than this entire movie, but maybe they'll get better with time. (Remember, I didn't like Justice League at first.) Ultimate Avengers 2 looks decent and it's got Black Panther so that should be cool.

It bugs me that Thor is clean shaven.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

03:50 / 13.03.06

I downloaded the Hulk Rampage off Xbox Live and sweet christmas, this animation is just inexcusably ass.

There's really no point in taking the time to animate something if it's going to look so devoid of any kind of style whatsoever. Glarf.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

04:12 / 13.03.06

If Thor had a beard then Giant-Man couldn't have had the line of "Who's the chick with the hammer?"

I liked it. There were hints to the darker subtexts of the book (Hank and Janet's relationship has some definite undertones of Hank trying to be dominant and Janet rejecting him, Tony drinks his troubles away after the team's first failure [though all we see is him with a glass dangling from his hands and a half empty bottle of scotch beside him]), as well as keeping up some of the other bits and pieces (Janet is attracted to Cap, Banner is a totally weanie, etc.).

I'm interested to see where they take Thor; whether he's going to be crazy or actually a god in this. It was nice, though, to see Hulk trying, and at first failing to pick up Mjolnir...and seeming utterly surprised by that fact.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

02:52 / 14.03.06

I'm watching this via YouTube at the moment ... it strikes me so far as being The Ultimates by way of the old Fleischer Superman cartoons...