Ultimate Avengers

Ultimate Avengers (2006) directed by Curt Geda, et al

Ultimate Avengers was the straight-to-DVD movie released last fall and shown on Cartoon Network a few weekends ago. Despite the "Avengers" part of the name, it's really a film based on the Marvel comic book "The Ultimates." Apparently, the producers thought the Avengers had more name recognition than the Ultimates, so they combined the names to produce the new title. The story in the movie, however, stays mostly true to the first story arc of "The Ultimates" comic book series, covering the revival of Captain America, the creation of America's first sactioned superteam, and that team's battle against an alien race that's been on Earth since the '40s. They even include the team's battle against the raging Hulk, though they clean that up a great deal for the cartoon.

Overall, I enjoyed this film. It was a little slow at times, and the ending was a bit abrupt (they really could have used a rewrite on those final few scenes), but the characterization was good and you got what you'd expect out of a straight-to-DVD animated feature. Nothing amazing, but solid animation and a decent story. I would recommend it to most comic book fans, though they'd be better off renting it than paying $20 for what you'll most likely only watch once. Also, if you're not familiar with any of Marvel's "Ultimate" line of books, you may want to get the trade paperback collecting the first volume of "The Ultimates" before seeing this movie. Otherwise, you may go in thinking you know the Avengers, and then get confused when few of the characters directly match their original Avengers counterparts. For example, in "The Ultimates," Thor is a crazy Norseman who thinks he's a god sent to earth to save it from polluters and large corporations. But in the original "Avengers," he really IS a god. Small distinction, but it effects how other characters interact with him. Also, I don't know if I'd recommend this movie for kids. It has just enough violence to scare away the younger kids, and goes just slow enough (especially for the first half of the film) and has just enough adult concepts to bore the rest of today's youth.

My one hope concerning this film is that Marvel makes it the first of many. I'd love to see an Ultimate X-Men animated film, and especially an Ultimate Fantastic Four (of course, both of those exist or will soon exist in toons already, so it may not be likely).