Marvel Animation has just released a new entry into their “Heroes United” line, this time featuring Iron-man and Cap. Do the two Avengers come together to create something truly wonderful? Not really… but it is one of the better products to come out of the animation studio. Poor animations and a clunky story hold back what is otherwise a decent way to spend an hour, if you’re 10 years old.
The story is as follows; the Red Skull has partnered with Taskmaster in order to kidnap Captain America and steal Tony Stark’s armor. With Cap’s blood, the Red Skull planned on turning the world into Hulk-like super soldiers under his control, thus turning the globe into his own HYDRA. The armor was simply to have another powerful weapon in his arsenal. That is essentially all there is to it.
The real meat of the film comes from the action and voice acting. The fights between all of the characters are all pretty fun. Cap uses his shield in interesting and unique way while Iron-man kind of just flies around and shoots stuff. The fighting animations on Taskmaster and Cap are very well done, as for Iron-man and Skull, not so much. The flying is incredibly stiff and some of the laser effects are poor. the quality dip between some of the characters can be kind of jarring, going from the fluid action of Captain America and Taskmaster to suddenly watching what looks like a rusted over Iron-man barely keep up with the people on foot. They say the devil is in the details, Marvel Animation simply dropped the ball here. The facial animations are also disappointing. The character’s expressions look forced and sluggish making the voices (that are one of the better aspects of the film) seem unnatural.
Adrian Pasdar (voicing Tony Stark) and Roger Craig Smith (playing Cap) do a great job bringing these heroes to life. It’s a shame that their talent is wasted on a mediocre product. Clancy Brown also does a commendable job as Taskmaster, his arc of jealousy and betrayal is genuinely quite interesting but once again, the other elements of the film outshine the positives.
Negatives aside, there is some fun to be had. With a small and random cameo from the Hulk (Fred Tatasciore) and some cool action sequences (the aforementioned Cap/Task battle and the opening Iron-man/Cap bout) will provide kids with more than enough excitement. Plus, the run time isn’t long at all making “Heroes United” a decent way to help your children pass the time.
While “Iron-man & Captain America” does nothing to help legitimize Marvel’s animation endeavors it does provide some laughs (albeit not all are intentional) and good times for younger audiences. Hopefully their future animation projects are more up to par with the stellar stuff they are doing over at DC or even in their own TV department (Ultimate Spider-man rules!).
Overall I give this film 4.5/10