I love superhero films very much so you can imagine my excitement when this film was announced. I thought to myself " maybe Marvel has decided to get serious on the animation front and produce quality films"...then I saw the movie and was reminded why I should never have high hopes for an animated Marvel film, this should give you some idea how this review is going to go.
Plot: In an all too familiar setup, you have opposites in Black Widow and Punisher being forced to work together in order to stop a global threat, they fight each other but then start to develop a level of camaraderie and eventually overcome the big baddie. Like I said, it's pretty run of the mill but even by those standards it's lackluster. It's supposed to be a clash of opposite styles but Widow and Punisher aren't that extreme to create a major conflict; hell Widow is known to kill people so she isn't exactly a saint and there is almost zero chemistry between the characters. The movie also suffers from an identity crisis; one minute its Punisher on the trail of a arms dealer, next thing it's about Widow and her past lover, then bioweapons, random appearance of a few avengers and a "global threat" that is easily taken care off by two non powered people. Speaking of Avengers, the title and image is misleading as hell, the avengers appear in the last like 20 mins of the film and serve zero purpose, seriously they don't even speak aside from one line from Hawkeye and a few from Stark ( Captain Marvel is there and doesn't even so much as grunt)...it's just a clusterfuck; it's like they wanted to force the Avengers in there but don't even do them justice and just threw random Avengers together with zero explanation ( I guess continuity is too much to ask). Grade: D
Animation: For some reason, Marvel keeps going to Madhouse for their films and the style just does not work with the characters. Animes are known to have exaggerated movements but in the Marvel Universe you need to be aware of the characters you're using. Widow and Punisher seem straight up superhuman at times, Widow moves with almost DBZ levels of speed at times and Punisher is able to kill people by slamming their heads against stuff with way more force than he should be capable of.
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| This is the coolest fight scene in the film and it happens about 10 mins in |
The fight scenes are serviceable but use too many static shots and lack the fluidity you'd see in an anime or a DC animated film, the movements were outlandish, which add to the coolness factor, but the effects were too gimmicky for my liking. You'd think an anime company would excel fight scenes but the scenes have almost no energy to them. Grade: D
Voice Acting: To put it bluntly, its subpar. Widow sounds like she doesn't want to be there at all and her grunts during fight scenes are so phoned in ( well to be fair that's everyone). Punisher is serviceable but lacks that grit that you would expect and both the voice actors have no chemistry with each other, which shows during their interactions. The sole bright spot is Nick Fury, voice by John Eric Bentley , who unfortunately has very few appearances. Grade: C-
Overall Score: D+
This film just felt like one giant missed opportunity. They could have delved deeper into the backstory of Widow or at the very least offered a compelling villain, sadly they opted for a buddy film with zero chemistry, lackluster animation and subpar voice acting. I don't know why Marvel insists on going this route when they have a plethora of characters to choose from, this whole Marvel Anime is just not working out. The film would have been much better if they would have just focused on one character, preferably Widow, and maybe added Hawkeye or Winter Soldier to the mix; not this mess of random heroes making useless appearances that do nothing for the story. This could have been a good step in the right direction, but instead we get another stumble from Marvel. They should have used this idea for a Spider-Man/Wolverine film, that would have worked way better than this. If this is any indication of how they are going to treat Widow in her solo film(s) then I am not looking forward to them in the least. I recommend you pass on this film, you will be doing yourself a great favor.
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