Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United

I have a theory. Marvel is SO successful on the silver screen, that they've decided to throw whatever is leftover on DVD, not really giving two craps if it's any good or not. While DC pours all their love into their DVD's, Marvel just give us mediocre nonsense like Iron Man.... I'm not writing that long ass title again.

So what's wrong with it? Short answer. EVERYTHING. Like Black Widow & Punisher Heroes United (damn! wtf is with these titles?!) IMCAHU also has horrible animation (see example below), boring voice casting and a story NOBODY cares about (Red Skull is the bad guy, Hail Hydra, you get the idea).

My biggest issue with this movie was the animation. Not even good enough to be on Saturday morning cartoons. IMHO, this kind of animation weakens a story, because it's stiff and affects the pacing badly. Action seems stilted and slowed compared to what's suppose to be going on.

There's not much else to say other than if you miss this, you aren't missing much. Only watch if you're some kinda die hard Marvel fan. Otherwise, stick to DC for the straight to DVD movies based on comics. Trust me, they might be stumbling on their big screen adaptations but they are consistently hitting home-runs on our flat screens.

Okay, stop me if you've heard this...

Have you ever watched a movie or a sequel (seeing how this acts like one) and felt it was just doing the same thing the first was doing?

Certainly felt that right there.

The plot is a bit different from the Hulk one but unfortunately all the same problems you hated about the Iron Man & Hulk film are still here...

And they turned up the badness volume to 8000.

Of course you know what that means...

The childish dialogue no sane hero would ever say is still here... except it's somehow even more childish and cringy to listen to. Well done writers.

The humour that wasn't funny in the Hulk film is still here... And if this doesn't ring a bell, I don't know what will but it still isn't funny.

The rather monotone voice work is still here.... except it's more monotone than ever before and when you even have Clancy Brown in your cast, that is not a good thing.

The painfully bad and lifeless animation is still here.... except it looks more lifeless with everyone moving more jerkily than ever before and some really REALLY bad fight choreography. You'll swear it looks like they're trying a spot of ballerina dancing instead.

Basically, I could have just copied and pasted everything I said about the Hulk film and the whole review would be almost identical.

Because that's what this miserable piece of crap is, identical. Identical in how poor the animation is, identical that no one in the cast seems to be giving it his or her all and identical in that you shouldn't even be thinking about plunking your money on something like this.

"Groundbreaking CG Animation!" I've seen more ground-breaking animation on an old Atari 2600 game, and that is truly saying something.

Now Marvel has been making successful films on the big screen with The Avengers, Captain America and Iron-Man.

So you think they would make a great movie with Captain America and Iron-Man joining forces.

Well I'm afraid I've got some bad news this does not even give you anything redeeming about this direct to video animated movie. If Animated is what you call it.

Iron Man & Captain America: Heroes United has too many problems to even considering making it watchable.

I don't know where to begin but what I can tell you is that it is not worth owning in your collection.

The plot for the film is clearly design to be a cash in on the success of the two Avengers. Even with Red Skull as the main antagonist with Taskmaster at his side don't help the film at all.

The Animation and graphics in the film are simple awful it's hard to even call it computer animated when it feels like some kind of anime with boring artwork. I have seen video games with better designs than this one.

Also the voice acting is very boring it feels like the actors are being forced to give a performance and that puts into no effort what so ever so.

Perhaps the best thing about this film is that is not apart of the Marvel story line so passing on it will not limit your enjoyment of the other films from Marvel.

Iron Man & Captain America is a failed attempt to team up these two Marvel Legends.

If you want to see them work together watch The Avengers or the Avengers TV series.

I give Iron Man & Captain America: Heroes United an 3 out of 10

Captain America and Iron Man team up in this adventure. After HYDRA troops break into the helicarrier and steals the Stark Repulsor Cannon, a prototype weapon powered by its own arc reactor, the two heroes fight, However, the heist is nothing more than a diversion, as Taskmaster has been hired by Red Skull to capture Cap for his blood, the last ingredient he needs for his plan to replicate the Super Soldier Serum and make a new army.

Basically, the story is okay, but it suffers from the two heroes having a sort of rivalry and bickering (excusing some things as being "part of the plan") and the animation is a bit iffy (mainly when it comes to mouth movements, as they look robotic and devoid of showing any emotion, making this look like it was made in the late 1990's for a TV show than the 2010's).

Riding on the popularity of Robert Downey Jr's live action IRON MAN movies and this year's CAPTAIN America: THE WINTER SOLDIER, HEROES UNITED 2 sees Iron Man and Captain America caught up in H.Y.D.R.A's latest plot to steal advanced technology and learn the secrets of the super soldier serum coursing through Captain America's veins. Mind control, bickering heroes, secret antarctic bases and other clichés riddle the already boring story and flat characters. All this is set to the worst computer animation to ever soil a screen in the last 15 years.

In repeating the mistakes of its predecessor, HEROES UNITED 2 plays out like a 5 year old enacting a captain America story with his action figures. And just because he is so popular, Marvel goes and shoves Iron Man into the mix and allow him to steal the spotlight. But who cares? The characters are nothing like their live action counterparts or their comic book incarnations. They are uninteresting and borderline unlikable.

Tony Stark sounds like a pretentious teenager, more like Spiderman with all his wise cracking. His nasal voice and attempts at mimicking the more witty humour of his live action counterpart just fails. Captain America is that one dimensional boy scout with "generic hero voice" and a chest designed by Rob Liefeld; a huge disproportional chest that seems to change size throughout the movie.

That is least of the visuals' problems however. The cel shaded CGI is inconsistent and at times looks worse than 2003's Spiderman CGI series. Animation is jerky, stiff, looking like it was made in the late 90s right along side Reboot and Jimmy Neutron. There is little sense of weight to the CGI models, surfaces do not seem to connect (e.g. between a metal strap restraining captain America and the hero's chest or between laser shots and unfortunate victims), and many fight scenes look like they were done with stop motion puppets. Don't even get started on the embarrassingly bad human facial animations.

The whole show in a sentence: Two kids playing with their action figures on a boring Sunday morning. This is proof that Marvel's direct-to-video department is dead in the water. Zero effort at being even marginally entertaining, pit bottom production values, groan inducing dialogue. This here is a sequel to a dismal excuse for a CGI Direct to video movie that manages to one-up its predecessor in how horrible it is. IRON MAN AND CAPTAIN America: HEROES UNITED is 2014's scrap from the bottom of the barrel. Look up youtube and one will easily find Computer animation done by students with their off-the-shelf software that looks way better than this drivel from a so called "Multi Million dollar production company".