Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we're closing out this marathon with something kinda unique. It's an animated pilot film from 2014. That movie is "Stan Lee's Mighty 7".
Now the story behind this movie kinda goes back a ways to 2003, as originally, this particular team was called the "Super Six", and they were gonna have their own animated series produced by DIC Entertainment. Now for those of you too young to remember, DIC was the company that produced quite a number of cartoons in their day such as "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show" "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog", "Captain Planet and the Planeteers", and the original English dub of "Sailor Moon". Now mind you, there's a *lot* more than what I could name off of, but those are the ones that I do remember from them the most.
But getting back on topic, that "Super Six" series I mentioned never made it to airing. Don't really know why, exactly, but regardless, it never happened. Then in 2010, the "Super Six" was renamed as "Stan Lee's Super Seven" thanks to companies like Archie, A Squared Entertainment, and POW! teaming up and made the newly made Stan Lee Comics. However, due to a legal issue involving a toy manufacturer with the same name, that being Super7, the name was eventually re-changed to what it is currently with "Stan Lee's Mighty 7".
Now here's where it gets kinda interesting. See, the Hub Network managed to acquire the airing rights to the pilot movie in 2013 and it was gonna be aired on their network the next year, which it was. Now as I was reading the plot summary on the back of the DVD case, I noticed a particular line where it said that this film is the first of a "fantastic trilogy". Now I looked it up to make sure if the other movies actually existed. And guess what? They don't. Why? Well, thanks to the Hub Network being changed to Discovery Family, those movies never made it to airing, even though they were supposedly finished. So whether or not they will actually see the light of day in any form is up in the air, really.
But with that said, I'm curious to see if this movie will actually be any good on it's own standards. I'm hoping that it is, which will then lead me to wonder if we missed out on a potentially amazing series. I don't know if that's gonna be the case or not, but there is only one way for me to find out. And that 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 "Stan Lee's Mighty 7".
3 minutes later
OK, guys, I'm just gonna say this right now, the flash animation here looks OK...and then I see the character's moving their bodies and their mouth movements as they talk, and it just looks really awkward and disjointed. I'm hoping, maybe, it'll get better as the movie goes on, and perhaps maybe I'll get use to it, but right now, it just looks really off-putting to me.
11 minutes later
Guys, I would love to tell you that I care about these characters, but so far, I haven't been given much of a reason to care about anyone here outside of Stan Lee. Hell, I don't know even remember their names, so far, but I'm hoping that'll change later on once I actually get to know who's who, eventually.
8 minutes later
So, guys, good news and bad news here. Good news is that we're finally getting some establishing names for our characters, thanks to Stan Lee. Bad news, though? I still don't really care about any of these characters yet because they're all still kinda vapid and shallow at the moment. But at least getting some establishing names is baby steps, I guess.
13 minutes later
So Micro, upon discovering that the ocean is made up of salt water, he puts water from a toilet into a cup and gives it to the fat one for him to drink. You know, of all the toilet humor I've heard of involving shit, that is honestly the most disgusting thing I've seen. Just...what the fuck, man?
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Stan Lee's Mighty 7". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well, where do I start with here? I guess I can say that this movie, on it's own standards is just barely average. I wouldn't call it horrible or anything, but it really is nothing ultimately special, even if it's coming from Stan Lee himself.
Let's start by talking about the biggest issue with this movie, which would be it's writing. To start with, I think I know why this movie never got an expanded upon with it's planned trilogy. Now I gave you the reasons as to why in regards to behind the scenes, but I may know another reason why this movie never got anything beyond it. See, when you're doing a pilot film for a television series, your main goal is to sell the viewer on it's premise. Give them a reason to make you want to watch the show beyond it's pilot. And unfortunately, I don't really think this movie did a very good job of that because this story just feels like a very generic superhero story that we've seen played out many times beforehand and doesn't really stand out. The only thing that makes this team unique is because you have Stan Lee's name on the cover. That, and he's also in this movie, not just as a cameo this time. Though I'll talk more about him later when I cover acting.
I want to talk about the characters next, specifically, I want to talk about our new team here, the Mighty 7. Now seeing as how we're working with a superhero team, you want to establish who your characters are, their powers, their personalities, and something resembling an interesting backstory. Well, of the four requirements that I mentioned, there are only two of them I can say that they establish well enough. And those are the characters and their powers. And in terms of the former, they don't really get their superhero code names until a little over the 20 minute mark of the movie. However, what holds these characters back is the other two missing requirements. Their personalities are all shallow and vapid, and though they do have something resembling backstories, it doesn't really feel like there's enough here to make you want to care about these characters.
To give you guys a couple of examples of this, one of the characters in this movie is called Lazer Lord. I know he technically has another name, but I honestly don't remember it all, so I'm going by what he's given by Stan Lee in this movie. So anyway, Lazer Lord's backstory is that he was supposedly framed for a murder that he says he did not commit. In which, I mean he murdered some professor and the one who apprehended him was one of our other heroes known as Strong Arm. That backstory of his is *never* expanded upon again in this movie after they show a bit of it through a flashback. So you never really know if he actually did kill somebody or not, which I thought they were going to at least have that explained, but sadly, nothing ever comes from it.
As for our other heroes, we have Micro, who's basically this movie's version of Ant Man/The Atom, and Kid Kinergy, who possesses psychokinesis, and they both grew up in an orphanage together and eventually had to steal for a living. Roller Man is a victim of war who basically ran off after being one of the only survivors against the Taegons, who are basically just an army of lizard people. Lady Lightning, who's basically just a female version of the Flash from DC Comics, was kidnapped as a child by thieves and forced her to steal stuff for them in exchange for her freedom. It's never really said on how she actually got her powers, but that can also be said for just about all of the other heroes in this movie. There's also Silver Skylark, who's the only character in this movie who doesn't have anything resembling a backstory. It's implied that she has an interest Lazer Lord, but it doesn't go beyond that here. Her main gimmick is that she can fly. That's it. If you really want to stretch it, she could be considered to be this movie's version of the Falcon. But again, that's really only stretching it.
So yeah, while most of these characters do have something resembling a backstory, it's just not enough backstory to work with. Now granted, it is possible that more of their backstories were expanded upon in the other sequels. But seeing as how they have never been released, I don't really know if that's the case or not. So I'm never gonna know anything else about these characters unless, maybe, I actually cared enough to look up their comics online. But after watching this movie, I really don't feel the need to look into these character anymore than this movie, seeing as how they're all pretty generic, both in personality and their powers being rather unoriginal.
I could also say that this thing suffers from a rather short runtime as well. This thing clocks in at only just over an hour long, and I feel like it doesn't really cover enough material here. OK yes, you got our heroes and you also got our villains, both of which are very generic and forgettable. The Taegons, like I said, are essentially just lizard people looking to invade and conquer. And then you have the U.S. military on Earth who are lead by an equally boring General who also doesn't have anything resembling an interesting personality other than leaving a teaser at the end that he'll crush the Mighty 7. Which, that probably would've had some substance, had those two other sequels not been put on the shelf. But since they are, it really means absolutely nothing.
So yeah, writing in this movie is incredibly mediocre. There's nothing about it that stands out, other than having Stan Lee's name on it. And speaking of which, I'm gonna go straight into acting next. And I have to talk about Stan's performance in this thing. You see, unlike his cameos in a lot of Marvel's movies, this one has it where he has more than one line, and it shows. His performance in this thing is very one noted. He doesn't really give out much of a range in his voice. Now I can't necessarily blame him for this because Stan Lee is playing himself in this movie and it's possible that he probably didn't have much to do with the writing itself. But it gives me the impression that Stan's at his best when he's either giving out one line or not saying anything at all. That being said, I wouldn't really say he's the worst actor in this thing. The worst actor, sadly, has to go to Michael Ironside. He plays a character named Xanar, who's the leader of the lizard people, and he easily phones in the weakest showing. His talent in this movie is completely wasted, and I suppose he only signed on for that easy paycheck. Which, if that was the case, then congrats to him. He really didn't have many lines here, and I imagine that he only had so much to do with the script he was given. Regardless, he's easily the weakest actor in this movie.
The rest of the acting, though, is actually pretty good. Despite not having a whole lot to work with for their characters, most of everyone else did a decent job in trying to give some kind of life to their characters. So if anything else, I have to at least grant them that.
Let's talk about the animation. And I'm going to say that some of the animation here feels...a little bit off. I talked about it a while back, but the animation and the mouth movements of our main characters felt off to me. And the reason I thought that is because it looked a little unfinished. I'd say the mouth movements are the worst, because most of it doesn't entirely match up to what the characters are saying. Now I wouldn't say that's prevalent of the whole film, but I would say a good portion of it does look that way. And it's gonna stand out to you, especially if you're looking for it like I did. If not, then it might not be as noticeable to you as much. But when you first see it, you could definitely notice it. Same goes with some of the movements, especially when a character runs. Because the running animation looks awkward and I don't know if that was intended for every character to run like they do, or if that was just the animators cutting corners there. I don't know. But like with the mouth movements, it is something that you might also notice and whether you get use to it or not is obviously up to you. Most of the animation isn't bad, a lot of it, aside from certain moments, is animated decently enough. So I'm not gonna say the animation is wholly bad, it's just something that you're either gonna get use to or you're really not.
Sound-mixing here is fine. The music is really kinda forgettable, if not just serviceable. That's really the best way I can summarize the score in a nutshell. It is what it is.
Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Stan Lee's Mighty 7"? Kinda, sort of. I would say that if you have children, or are associated with children in some way, then I would probably say yes. The movie's barely over an hour long, and if they're a fan of Marvel, then yeah, I would say go ahead and let them see this. However, I would probably only recommend it for children around 7 or lower. If they're older than 7, then they're probably not gonna enjoy this very much. Even if you're a fan of Marvel Comics yourself, there's honestly not much of a reason for you to watch this thing, unless you're a fanboy that absolutely must watch anything with Marvel's name imprinted on it. Other than that, you can really just skip this one. There's nothing interesting about the Mighty 7 themselves as a group, and I may have given this team a bit less slack if the other two movies were actually released. But since they're not, I can't find myself reading anything else about them or even giving this movie a second viewing. So yeah, this movie is very skippable, unless, again, you have children around the age of 7 or below. So now, I'm gonna go and watch a better movie. And seeing as how I wanted to watch a better movie involving a better team, I'm gonna go and watch "Justice League: Throne of Atlantis". That one is definitely really good and I kinda want to watch it again right now. So, that's what I'm gonna go do next.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of this year's installment of "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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