GRIMSHAW'S ATTIC MEDIA

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing that you will notice when you pop in the disc for Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United, at least on the UK version, is a preview for Frozen. Because when you want to watch superhero action, you think "Let It Go". But after seeing Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United, you quickly come to realise that maybe this was some desperate attempt to remind you that Disney does make good film elsewhere. Honest.

 

There are a lot of things that tell you that watching this film is a bad idea. For starters, this film was originally announced as an animated spin-off of The Avengers, and while this wasn't the "Oh God" indication, what was is the fact that the film was originally meant to debut in time to tie into Iron Man 3 hitting cinemas, but was then moved to early December 2013 for no official reason. Hell, it was only released here in the UK in March 2014 and when it was, it was almost being given away. Which is how I got hold of it.

 

Don't worry Marvel Cinematic Universe fans, it has absolutely nothing to do with the films, to the point that it's basically a different continuity to them. And thank God for that because yes, Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United is lousy film, feeling cheap and lifeless and far too long for its own good, much like the wide open spaces that occupy most of the backgrounds of this film.

 

In fact, that's the second indication that watching this film is a bad idea, since you quickly come to notice how there seems to only be about 10 character models in the entire film, and rarely more than about seven characters on screen at any one time. And most of the time, the average on-screen character count amounts to three to five. Which would be fine, if they weren't taking a leaf out of the Beware the Batman book of how to fill backgrounds and making them occupy spaces the size of football pitch.

 

All this empty space succeeds in doing is reminding you of the deficiencies in the animation.  The animation, being apparent a hybrid of CGI and hand-drawn animation, reminds me of the MTV Spider-Man series of the early 00s, only worse.

 

Considering the ten years of advancement in CGI animation, and Marvel is owned by Disney, who also owns Pixar, you have to admire how much of an achievement producing animation this bad truly is.  It often feels slow, clunky, and a bit flat, while at other times feeling like it skipped a few frames while it was being rendered. And if you don't believe this, watch this film and ask yourself why we don't see many faces moving in this film asides from the Hulk's.

 

But the bad animation would be okay... Okay, no it wouldn't, but it's not like it's Foodfight! or anything... if it a decent story. And it doesn't. The film features, Hulk and Iron Man teaming up after two HYDRA agents create Zzzax, an energy vampire that eternity reminds me how the action figure they made of him in the 90s always had its head fall off.

The two have the standard "Heroes meet, have a fight thanks to misunderstanding and then team-up" plot, but the cause of the fight makes no sense. Hulk literally punches Iron Man for no reason. Sure, you can say it was an accident, but Hulk never treats it like that. And it gets worse from there, with unfunny humour and just being so painfully dull that by the half an hour mark, I was beyond being simply bored out of my mind.

 

Which to be fair is around about when the film picks up to about weak episode of a superhero show level, but even then, it felt like the film just would never end, with scenes like the random Wendigo fight being thrown in there just to pan out the film and try and distract you from the awful dialogue. All of which is phoned in by Adrian Pasdar (Playing Iron Man) and Fred Tatasciore (Playing Hulk) in the most stiff and lifeless way possible.

 

Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United is a painfully dull film that will involve you struggling to stay engaged with it for the 71 minutes of your life it will rob. From having a story that feels like it was taken from a weak episode of one of Marvel's TV shows and stretched to fit a movie format to, to cheap, lifeless animation, the film fails to create any form of entertainment value, but might be useful if you want to bore yourself to death.

 

And somehow, this warranted a sequel. Oh good.