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You know, it kind of saddens me to say this but…the direct-to-DVD DC film series doesn’t just outclass the Marvel films, they by and large are in a whole different category. Thus far I have seen five of the Marvel animated films, and I have really only enjoyed one from start to finish (Ultimate Avengers) and two in fits-and-starts (Hulk Vs and Ultimate Avengers 2). If you compare that to what DC has been putting out, it proves that Marvel has a lot of catching up to do in this department.
At least with this version of Iron Man we don’t have to deal with a snarky, fast-talking variation that started off fresh but is now a little played out. Tony Stark does maintain a sense of humor and a healthy appetite for buxom playmates, but the darkness, isolation and the meat of the character only roughly hinted at in the live action films remains intact. And that’s pretty much the only praise I can truly heap upon this film.
The animation and character designs are really no better than a well-produced and glossy cable channel show, or an imported anime. The fluidity leaves a little something to be desired, and the mouth movements don’t always sync up with the voices. Its little things like that which can quickly take one out of the world that’s being developed.
Another (major) problem is the villains who are both annoying stereotypes and severely underwritten and thrown off to the sidelines for much of the film. They offer no true threat, and look like every Street Fighter/anime/Eastern cliché thrown together. Oh, and they’re robots. This whole reductive Western = science, Eastern = magic/mysticism symbolism in the film is highly annoying and offensive failing to take a moment and think that the countries like Japan and China are mass producing and inventing most our newest technologies. If anything, there present day is combination of the two philosophies and an interior culture clash. But for the purposes of this film it’s easier to reduce it all down to the most basic, Cold War-era thinking.
