Invincible Iron Man [Blu-ray] [Import]

You can disregard the other customer reviews as they are just people rating their inability to purchase the product they wanted. If you couldn't read the product information page far enough to see that this was a Marvel animated movie and not the live action movie starring Robert Downey Jr that is your own problem. Please don't write negative reviews of something that have nothing to do with the actual product. That is dishonest and doesn't help your fellow online shoppers.

That being said if you like Marvel's other animated movies (The Avengers, The Avengers 2, Dr. Strange etc...) then you will like this movie. The animation is top notch and the voice work is decent. It is a well done Iron Man origin story and I hope to see more animated movies in Marvel's future.

I'm going to take the con side of this debate. Having not really read many comics in the past 20 years or so I really haven't followed any of the Ultimates stuff. I have had it explained to me by a co-worker that's a big comic buff. It seems to make sense to update some heros' origins. After all Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan would be in their ninties these days. I understand that they are also keeping the original origins in place which is fine. Having said that, I don't know if this is an Ultimate storyline or not but I didn't care for it at all.

Taken as a stand alone movie, if viewed by someone with no idea of who Iron Man is, this is really run of the mill. Tony Stark wasn't a very cohesive character. As far as alter-egos go this one is kind of a hypocritical milksap. He makes a big deal out of not building weapons but has an entire room full of indestructible power armor. If the suits are for research why the need for powerful lasers and missles? The writer's seem to face the same dilemma most of Hollywood finds itself in these days. It's politically incorrect to endorse violence but you still have to give the audience a good action packed fight scene. As a result you get unrealistic portrayals of altruistic millionaire industrialists and pacifists with more weapons than Dirty Harry. I may be reading a little too much into a cartoon but the level of some of the violence here (one person gets executed with a gunshot to the back of the head) suggests this is for a mature audience. If this is the case the writers should have given the actions and motivations more depth.

The biggest problem is the time it takes to actually get to Iron Man. Once there the fight scenes are few and far between. The film suffers from the same problem a lot of live action superhero movies suffer from, too much screen time for the alter-ego. The action sequences are lacking visual impact. I think that is partly due to the mediocre quality of the animation. The CG doesn't mix too badly with the hand drawn but it's all just servicable at best.

In the end the movie seemed overly long and convulted with the end being a less than satisfying resolution. Even if I weren't aware of Iron Man before this I don't think I would recommend it as anything more than a rental.

Iron Man was one of the classic Marvel Superheroes that didn't get a 1980's make over on TV, like Spiderman, Captain American, Dr Strange, Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D and of course the Hulk (with Bill Bixby)(which in Hulk TV movies had Thor and an early version of Daredevil )

Lets say this Iron Man is not the Iron Man you see on the cover of this DVD. That is for future DVD animated releases

This is classic Shell Head from the 1960's with the basic grey suit. The origin story changes from Vietnam (as it was in the 1960's comic) to China. However most of the original story line stays the same in this animated feature

This is visually one of the better comic cartoons I have seen, better than the avengers that Marvel did earlier. The voice talent is slightly lacking, but it is better the 1990's cartoon version with the voice of Robert Hayes as Stark/Iron Man

On the bonus features, animators and comic artists discuss Iron Man, the DVD is worth that alone for a true comic fanboy. Also as a bonus, the future released Dr Stange is previewed..wetting your whistle for it

I hope the powers that be at Marvel animation release an Iron Man 2 before the movie version comes out

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD