Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher

Didn't really love this movie! But it was somehow interesting!

I'm probably not the best suited person to analyze this movie as I am not the most knowledgeable of neither anime nor comic books. I like anime, and enjoy comic book films and television series, but I'm not a hardcore fan. Comic book fans go into movies already knowing the characters for the most part, whereas for me it's like I'm introduced to each character for the first time. In a way that makes me more objective as I don't know what characters are supposed to be like, and simply watch the movie for what it is. At any rate, I watched this movie and here are my thoughts.

I know anime fans have a debate on "dub" vs "sub"—that is whether they prefer anime movies dubbed into English or with English subtitles. While I normally prefer subtitles to maintain the authenticity of the work, in this movie's case, it is more like this is the English version of the movie than simply a dubbing.

As indicated by the title, this movie focuses on the character The Punisher. Even having seen "The Punisher" (2004), my memory of this guy is vague. He is a vigilante character, who is neither good nor bad, who does whatever it takes to protect the innocent regardless of whether his actions are with in the laws or not. He is arrested by the international organization S.H.I.E.L.D. and they plea bargain with him. An evil crime organization, Leviathan, has stolen weapons and plans to auction them off. The Punisher is sent on a mission with Black Widow to stop the sale of these weapons.

While the artwork was vivid, the animation was minimal—I suppose to keep the feel of reading a comic book. There was not a whole lot of movement in the animation, even in action sequences, and still shots of characters' faces or long pans of people or scenery was common.

Overall, the film is formulaic of any episode of a super hero animated television series. The bad guys have an evil scheme and the good guys have to stop it. That's not a bad thing, it's just what it is, and I happened to like that.

In Kenichi Shimizu's animated film Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher, two Marvel antiheroes-Black Widow and Punisher-go on a mission against a mysterious organization. The animation in the movie is amazing, and the battle scenes are expertly coordinated. Popular heroes like Captain America and Iron Man are included to spice up the story. However, the movie lacks the depth and complexity of Marvel's more popular animated features, and it struggles with character development and storyline execution. A deeper investigation of the Marvel universe might be explored through the film's emphasis on Black Widow and Punisher, while several character motivations are left unexplored. The movie ignores a more interesting story in favor of action scenes.

Did not like it.

It was more talk than action. I kind of hate it when animation is all talk, what's the point? The animation does not even look cheap it looks like some effort went into it. Enough effort for it not to be just the characters talking for 90mins.

Maybe it would be worth the talk if it was not a story I heard many times. Though the addiction of the Punisher is some-what refreshing, listening to the Black widow and Nick fury defend their occupations as spies is only interesting when Sam L Jackson and Scarlett Johansson do it.

The voice acting was not worthy of all that talk. It was like they were just reading their lines and not really well.

I've seen better action sequences and the character design was weak. When The Avengers finally made it on screen, I was not excited to see them at all.

I do like seeing the villain Graviton done for animation but his appearance was to minimal too salvage the film.

Found it uninteresting.

"Marvel" should stop butchering our favorite heroes by badly reworking them as Japanese anime. I like anime (the good anime) but in this movie the plot, the dialogs, the direction were just as bad as the worst anime titles.

Illogical cuts, characterization of protagonists (especially Punisher), shallow Fury, shallow BW; unnecessary love twist and motivation of the evildoers is so bad that this film could easily be one of the worst comic adaptations ever.

All falls apart in trying to explain the moral code of the main characters and, as we know from the comics, the question of morality for Punisher and Black Widow is the shadow line if there ever was one.

Marvel should employ some good comic screenwriters for their animated movie section and make them see DC's "Dark Knight Returns 1/2" to be sure that the characters and the storyline will be treated properly. That is, if "Marvel" really care about animated section at all. With the last year "Iron Man: Rise of Tehnovore" , "Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United" and now this; Marvel is making themselves a bad reputation as far as the animated movies go.

Terrible movie. Not recommended to anyone. It doesn't matter if you're comic book fan or not. The people who did it just don't have the slightest idea about the characters on which they were working, and I should say even about good Japanese anime either.