A fun little direct to video animated superhero movie.
When an alien race threatens the Earth, Nick Fury puts together a team of superheroes, including Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Giant-Man, Wasp and Hulk. However before they can save the world they must learn to work together.
This movie mostly serves as an origin story for the Avengers, and it does a wonderful job at this. Each of these characters is wonderfully set up, each has their own unique and distinctive personality and is given their own time to shine. Though each of them is shown to have their fair share of faults, they are (with one exception) very likable. Because we like these characters, it is easy to root for them and care about what happens. The one exception to this is Giant-Man but compared to how the character can be in the comic books, here he is an angel in comparison. Yet despite all of this Captain America remains the main character of this film as well as the emotional heart. We become truly invested in his story as a man out of his own time and as someone who must lead a group of superheroes that seem impossible to make them work together. As is important for these types of films, what is even more important is that the characters work very well together. Sure, they may spend quite a bit of time bickering but they play off each other very well and the relationships between them grows in a believable and natural way. This film also benefits from some great humor. There were quite a few times when this movie made me really laugh (the introduction of Thor for example). The animation and design work are also excellent here and this film is a joy to look at. The action scenes are also excellent and the climatic fight scene is especially exciting.
This movie does suffer from much too short of a runtime. This film only runs 72 minutes. With the sheer amount of characters here and the amount of time that needs to be spent with each one, something needs to pushed to the background. In the case of this film, what is pushed to the background is the mission the Avengers are on. Because of this, the villains come off as quite bland and the mission never feels as large scale as it should. Because of this we never truly feel that the world is truly in danger.
This movie may have its faults but it is still a really fun superhero adventure and worth a watch for all Marvel fans.
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