Welcome, one and all, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're closing out this edition of "Tales of the Longbox" with another Marvel animated movie. It came out in 2014. That movie is "Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher".
As you can probably already see, if you're viewing this review on Deviantart, I had a problem getting that entire title to fit within DA's current title system. I genuinely thought I wasn't going to have a problem with the title, until I tried to type it all in, and...I had to make more than one adjustment. For starters, I had to remove the hyphens from R-A-R, because I usually put those in for past reviews for movies with longer titles. And since DA doesn't allow ampersands to be used in their titles for...reasons I'm not totally sure why, I would write the word "and" between Black Widow and Punisher. But because the limit space for that title was too long, I was sorta stumped on how to shorten it. So, I didn't have any choice other than to use the "/" symbol to try and separate their names. And it almost didn't work, because trying to space their names from the "/" symbol was STILL too long, so I had to patch it in together. So, this is honestly the best I can do when trying to work in that long ass title into this review.
So, setting that bullshit involving the title aside, I'm gonna tell you what I do know about this movie going in. I know that it's another animated Marvel movie. I also know that it's animated by Japanese animation studio; Madhouse. Which is totally cool, because they also animated another movie I covered at the start of this marathon, that being "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore". And I also know a little bit about the plot to this movie. Basically, from what I can gather, Black Widow and the Punisher are working together to stop a terrorist organization from selling stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. technology. Which, I'm gonna be honest, sounds like a downgrade, when compared to "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore". Because in that movie, Iron Man was up against this kid, who had an organic-techno suit that was able to hack into other machines, such as satellites and computers. And then we have this movie, where the concept of Punisher and Black Widow trying to stop a terrorist organization from selling stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. tech sounds like it came from an episode of G.I.Joe. At least, that's what I got out of it when I read the summary on the back of the DVD case.
Now, even though the plot does sound like a downgrade, this movie could actually turn that basic plot into an amazing movie. I have no idea if this movie's gonna accomplish that, but I'm gonna hope for the best here. So the only thing for me to do at this point, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher".
8 minutes later
Well, guys, even though it is a little bit early in this movie, I can already say that I am loving the Punisher in this thing. In fact, he is more of a badass here than what he was in "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore". Which isn't saying much, considering that his time in that movie was really short. I'm hoping that this movie will continue to make Punisher look awesome, because, already, he's quickly becoming the best character in this entire movie.
14 minutes later
So...Cain got away from Punisher by a bright flash from his phone. That's...kinda stupid, really. I was honestly expecting something more from that, but a bright flash? That's probably one of the stupidest things I've seen, especially considering that Punisher kinda set him up to use it. Granted, I can't entirely blame Punisher on this, because it's something that kinda came out of nowhere, but it's still a little bit stupid on his part.
18 minutes later
You know, guys, how I commented earlier that the Punisher was a complete badass? Well...he still is, but now with those red eyes he's gotten, he actually looks a lot more terrifying than before. I didn't that was actually possible, but somehow, this movie was able to pull that off. Wow.
6 minutes later
Wait, wait, wait, wait! So, let me see if I understand this. Fury has just explained that because Elias was dead, they closed the case file on him after he supposedly "died". And then he just explained that the soldiers that were being created in these pods were a part of some blood serums that were stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D. And those blood serums were from certain Avengers members, such as Thor, Iron Man, and Hulk. If memory serves, Elias was a scientist for S.H.I.E.L.D., so why the fuck did Fury prematurely close the case on Elias? He KNEW that that there was important shit that was stolen, so why was there any need for him to stop investigating Elias in the first place?! Guys, this shit is the reason why I fucking hate Fury in the first place, is because of his ass backwards way of thinking. Jesus Christ...
20 minutes later
Wait, is that suppose to be Captain Marvel? OK...I don't recall her hairstyle ever looking THAT, but I will say that it looks sorta different.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher". And that...was a pretty satisfying way to end the movie. Let me go ahead and shut if off here...OK. Well, first question I want to get out of the way is this: Is this movie better than "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore"? Honestly...I couldn't pick a better film out of the two. Because both of them have their strengths and weaknesses that balances each other enough to where I couldn't really pick a better film. So, I'm sorry if you weren't expecting a straight answer, but I really couldn't pick which one was better, because both of them kinda range on being rather average.
So, with that out of the way, let's get into the writing. I brought it up earlier, and I may as well just get it out of the way here. So, around the halfway mark of the film, we get established from Nick Fury that Elias, who we've seen as Black Widow's former lover after he was presumed "dead" from S.H.I.E.L.D., had stolen valuable Intel from S.H.I.E.L.D. And the part of that valuable Intel involved blood serums that were taken from certain Avengers such as Iron Man, Thor, and Hulk. And no one at S.H.I.E.L.D. bothered to investigate the stuff Elias might've stolen, because according to Nick Fury, he's dead and, apparently, we're not interested in investigating even further because of that. What sense does that even make?! Who gives a shit if Elias was supposedly dead? That shouldn't stop you from investigating even further! Mind you, Fury already knows this, but apparently he has to go on this persona of "trust nobody" and I'll only give you Intel that's worth noting because fuck you, that's why. And I understand that Nick Fury has done this kind of shit before. One good example I can think of is during the story of the first Marvel Ultimate Alliance game. Basically, the entire plot of that first game was that Dr. Doom had recruited a bunch of Marvel villains, so that way they can help him obtain Odin's powers so that Dr. Doom can become a god with them. It's a bit of a long story as to how he obtains these powers, so I'm not gonna tread too deep into why here. You're just gonna have to play the game yourself to know how he gets it. But anyway, my point was that Fury knew full well that Dr. Doom's plan was to get Odin's powers. And the only way you would've known that is if you talked to a certain NPC character known as Weasel, who is secretly gather the information as long as you guide him with the correct answers. Again, it's a bit of a long story, so you'll have to find that out for yourself. But I'm getting off track here. So, Nick Fury knows all this Intel, and is not even gonna bother telling certain members of the Avengers because he has the 'trust no one' mentality. OK, I kinda get that you don't want shit leaking out to the enemy, but Elias was already going to do this shit, mainly because he didn't think that Black Widow loved him for who he was, because she was too busy being an Avenger. And that he had to do more to gain her love...which was to develop bio enhanced soldiers using blood serums from a few members of the Avengers crew for a terrorist organization. Great job, Fury. You know how to stay on top of shit.
Speaking of the Avengers, that's where my second problem comes in with this film's writing. I honestly don't know why they had to be in this movie at all. OK yes, I did bring up the blood serums involving them a moment ago, but their actual inclusion in this movie doesn't really make much sense. For example, when Black Widow and Punisher are invading the auction for the bio enhanced soldiers, they do end up getting pursued by them. So naturally, they try to fight them off. And at one point, Black Widow tries to play the pacifist card onto Punisher, because Punisher is doing what he does best and just kills them. Black Widow tries to convince him not to do so, because they were once civilians that were dragged into this crazy experiment. Begrudgingly, Punisher ends up doing this, as he sets his gun to stun mode, and just paralyzes a few of the soldiers. Now the reason why I bring this up is because a few minutes after they get cornered by the enhanced soldiers, all of a sudden, the Hulk barges in and just destroys solider after soldier. To which Black Widow replies by saying that she invited a few friends, Hulk being one of them. So...basically, according to Black Widow's logic, it's not OK for Punisher to kill the soldiers, but it's perfectly fine for the Hulk to do it because...well, fuck you, that's why. That's literally the only reason I can think of for that kind of logic. Also, what I find a little bit odd is when the rest of the Avengers come into play. So, of the entirety of the Avengers that Black Widow had invited to help out, those end up being Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, War Machine, and Captain Marvel. I'm not totally sure why Captain America wasn't a part of this, but I'm going to assume that this movie takes place within the Cinematic Universe at some point, or maybe some other timeline of a different comic universe. I don't know, and I particularly don't care. But what I'm getting at is that of those five members, only TWO of them get any dialogue. Those two being the Hulk, which is just the same "Hulk Smash!" shit you've heard plenty of times before. And the other one is Iron Man. Why don't the other members get any dialogue? I have no idea. I guess, maybe, it was just too difficult for the writers to come up with some decent banter as the Avengers were fighting the enhanced soldiers. So really, they are only there for the sake of being there and nothing the fuck else. So, that's also another disappointment. And also, our villains are also bland as shit. For a terrorist organization, nobody has any real character to them. And the reason why for that is because we don't get introduced to them until we get to the auction. And that just kinda makes me question as to why they were even in here to begin with? The only one who has any real depth was Elias, and his character wasn't that bad. It wasn't amazing, but it was sure as shit more developed than what we got at the last 10-15 minutes by introducing them at the last moment.
So, writing here is definitely flawed. And you might think that with all of what I said about this movie, I would say that it sucks. But I'm not, because, like I said, the movie is rather average. At least, to me, it is. But there are moments here that I genuinely liked. For example, the Punisher in this movie is great. Part of that has to do with the acting, which I may as well get into right now. The acting is pretty good from just about the entire cast. Like I said, Punisher was great. And what made the character even better is his voice actor, who goes by the name of Brian Bloom. Bloom does a great job as Frank Castle. He really has that voice that suits the Punisher perfectly. I would love to see another animated film with Bloom doing that same voice for the Punisher, if he was given the chance. Sadly, I don't think that will happen, seeing as how Disney is so uptight about some really stupid bullshit. But anyway, Brian Bloom stands out as the Punisher very well. I should also mention, before I get to the Black Widow, Matt Mercer once again voices Iron Man. And I will say that he actually does a pretty good job here, too. I didn't feel like I was just listening to Matt Mercer speak, such as his performance in "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore". Here though, I could here the cockiness out of Tony Stark here, which is perfect for the character. As for Black Widow's voice actress, I didn't mind it for the most part, but I felt like she could've fine-tuned it a bit. Because I felt like, on a few occasions, that she sorta phoned it in. However, you would really have to notice it like I did. Most people will probably not notice it at all, so it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth. But for the most part, she did a fairly decent job. So overall, I can say that the acting works fine here.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, this movie was animated by Madhouse. And Madhouse usually puts out some awesome stuff here. This movie is no different. The animation and the art style looks great. And similar to "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore", the character designs on the comic book characters look great, too. Although I'm not entirely certain why Captain Marvel has a different hairstyle. But again, it's just minor bullshit that no one's going to care about, save for me. CG, for the most part, is perfectly fine. There were a couple of moments of rather noticeable CG, such as when the big brawl happens at the auction, and the camera will zoom out and turn as the battle escalates. And you might happen to notice CG on the Hulk as he's charging at the soldiers. And that bit of CG looked rather iffy. There are also CG ships here, too. However, I can also say that when it comes to these two animated films from Marvel, both this and "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore", the CG is vastly better utilized here than how DC does it for their animated films. However, that's just me comparing apples to oranges, so I should probably just drop that subject entirely. Overall, though, the CG is fine for the most part. And the overall animation of this movie looks great.
Sound-mix here is mixed well, and the score here is pretty good. It's nothing amazing, but it works well enough for this movie. Ultimately, guys, am I able to recommend "Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher"? Um...kind of. I would say that if you are curious to see how a Japanese animation studio is able to translate Marvel characters into their art style, then sure. I could totally recommend it on that end. Or if you're a die-hard fan of Marvel, then I can easily recommend it with no problems. However, if you're not a fan of superhero films, or you just don't care about Marvel, then you can skip this easily. There's really nothing here that will grab your attention, mainly because this movie is rather average. Again, I want to clarify that the movie is 'average'. And I would rather take an average movie over a bad, or boring, movie any day. So yeah, if you're curious go ahead and find a copy of it somewhere. Or if it's airing somewhere on, say, Netflix, or Hulu, or Disney+ (I'm not entirely certain about the latter), then go ahead and watch it there. I believe there's also a copy of it somewhere on YouTube. So if you want to watch it without having to buy a physical copy of it, then go ahead and check it out there. As for myself...well, I'm not totally sure I would watch this thing a second time. But considering that I traded in my copy of "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore", I think this one will probably meet the same fate. Mind you, I did enjoy watching this movie once. However, I'm not really sure if this thing is gonna be worth watching a second time. Then again, I'm not a huge Marvel fan, so that may just be me being kinda biased. But still, I liked what was here. Just not enough to keep watching it again and again.
And with that, guys, we come to the end of this installment of "Tales of the Longbox". Overall, not a bad marathon. I found a few decent movies from this bunch, so, at least, it's better than nothing. But anyway, guys, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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