Iron Man Animated

Iron Man is getting a lot of press these days. With the live action movie coming out in 2008; Civil War coming to a close; and the release of the full length animated feature having just hit video stores he’s big news. Information on the movie is few and far between still, but we’re reporting what we can, and my opinion on Civil War was made very clear in this article; so I’m not reading it, but I did watch the Iron Man animated movie. It was really good. I enjoyed the pace of the film and the animation is very well done. It is a very cool mix of computer and traditional styles. In some instances it looks very similar to cell shading. I’m sure it’s very much like the Ultimate Avengers films, but I haven’t had the opportunity to watch those yet.

 

The villains in it aren’t all that interesting though. The Mandarin’s temple essentially has 5 guardians. Four of them awaken to assemble the Mandarin’s rings so he can be revived. Unfortunately they don’t talk; they don’t show any emotion and, other then one of them, they’re defeated quite easily. So the film definitely lacks in the protagonist department. The finale of the movie has its good moments though. I enjoyed the appearance of Fing Fang Foom, although they don’t ever call him by name.

 

The only real conflict I have with the film is how close it has been released to the 2008 live action version. You’re releasing two films that, on one hand, are identical – Iron Man origin, with Mandarin as the lead villain – meanwhile you need to make them distinctly different. Also, the cartoon updates the origin from the comic books, which is fine - after all it doesn’t make much sense to have Tony get injured in the Vietnam War anymore – but now you’re changing the origin twice within a very near time period. I’m sure that most would argue that the viewers of the animated film will consist of a much smaller audience than the live action film, but the fans seeing both are the ones that truly enjoy the Iron Man character as a whole. Is it fair to give them nearly identical stories back to back in different mediums? Also what if one is preferred to the other? What if the preferred version is the much less costly animated version? That could make for quite the studio upset.

Here's the preview for the film if you're interested.