Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher (2014) DVD

Avengers Crap-fidential

Rating:  2 out of 5 Anime Bullshits

Plot Synopsis:  Some guy is making super soldiers and, for some reason, the Punisher is involved.

The Good:

-We get a pretty good exposition dump in the opening credits that’s accomplished with still images.  I get a good idea of who Punisher and Black Widow are, what they do and the world they live in without a word spoke or time wasted.  I’m a big fan of that.

-The animation is very solid and the opening action scene is crisp and well done.  It is done in an anime style so if you don’t like that then you are outta luck here.

-It has a pretty decent action/adventure feel.  Sort of like a James Bond in that I have never felt that James Bond is a spy movie, it’s just an action movie with a protagonist who happens to be a spy.

-There’s fiber wire, I’m a big fan of fiber wire.  That’s a star right there.

-Amadeus Cho!  That’s got to be a first time Cho has been in anything Marvel.  It’s good to see him.  Too bad he’s portrayed as the helpless virgin and not as his badass comic counterpart.

-Hey, Madripoor!  Don’t hear that place get mentioned much outside of the comics.

-Amadeus Cho with Hulk in tow!

-Carol Danvers in her new Captain Marvel get up!  I’m a fan of that.

-The Avengers show up for the climax.

The Bad:

-Punisher, I guess, is based out Seattle now?  I didn’t really mind when they went to Miami in Punisher 2004 but I always associate him with New York.  I don’t know why it bugs me in one case and not in another.  Oh, I know, it might have to do with how one is an actual story and this is just bullshit.

-It’s something that bothers me frequently but I rarely mention it.  How are they able to fire guns off so close to another person’s face with hurting the other person?  Guns are loud and bright, even if you side swipe the bullet say good bye to your hearing for a while, if not permanently, not to mention the muzzle flash that could potentially blind you permanently as well.  But Frank fires off a half dozen shots at Black Widow at point blank range and she’s just fine.

-There’s a pretty long and boring exposition dump about 20 minutes in.

-I’m just not getting into this.  The story is a bit convoluted and I can’t help but feel I’m missing something.  Maybe I need to see all the other Marvel Anime’s before I can completely understand what’s happening here.  There’s action sure but not very compelling action.

-“When did you become Frank Castles best friend?”  That’s a great question Widow.  At what point did your relationship go from antagonistic to friendly to undying loyalty?

-I’m just kind of bored and uninvolved at this point (50 minutes in).

-The only way this plot could be more fucking anime is if they invited the heroes to a fighting tournament so they could record them and use those recordings to get power somehow.

-You know, I’m not a huge fan of action with no purpose.  Justice League War was guilty of this as is this feature.  There’s a lot of action and you would think that would make it interesting but it just isn’t, I’m not at all invested in what’s going on.

The Ugly:

-There’s something weird about Black Widow’s voice.  I’m not sure what it is, there’s something about her cadence and delivery that just doesn’t sound right.

-There are some very long torso’d people in this.

Final Thoughts:  You know, I usually look forward to the things I watch.  It might sometimes take me a while because watching a movie for review is not the same as watching a movie for fun.  What I write is basically my notes for the movie and I would be writing them regardless but I keep them up just to show that there is good and bad in every film/game/whatever.  Otherwise you have to find an “angle”, a narrative and then bend the movie to the narrative and if the narrative gets away from you then you might find yourself changing the score or the overall “feel” of the movie to benefit the narrative you’ve created.  I tell you this because I try not to go into something expecting to hate it, waiting to tear it apart and I didn’t expect to hate this. 

While I own all the Marvel anime I haven’t watched any of it until now and I was looking forward to this because it was going to be a feature length starring Black Widow and Punisher.  Two characters that get kind of short sticked in the Marvel cinematic universe and I wouldn’t have to sit down to twenty-some episodes.  I am sad to say, though, that I am disappoint.  The characters aren’t that interesting and the plot isn’t that compelling but it is competently acted, for the most part, and drawn so it has that going for it.  If you like anime then you might be more interested in this than I was but I would put a big fat “SKIP” next to this one.