Marvel Super Heroes: Les gladiateurs de la glace

The live action Avengers will probably never do a 'Christmas special' - too expensive, and, y'know, stupid. So, to fill the void, we've instead been graced with an animated kids cartoon equivalent, pitting Earth's Mightiest Heroes against arch-foe Loki in a quest to track down…um… Santa Claus. And, as you'd imagine, Marvel Super Hero Adventures: Frost Fight, rather than filling the viewer with festive spirit, instead recalls the uncomfortably hallucinogenic madness of the Star Wars Christmas special Lucasfilm would pay any price to have you forget. For Disney's sake, let's hope young Marvel fans have shorter memories…

That's not to say that Frost Fight is a complete waste of time. Marvel has really stepped up the production values in their recent animated work, and Frost Fight shines in its relatively fast-paced and intense fight sequences, including working in some creatively designed Frost Giants and other monsters for the heroes to smack around (even if the animators recycle several background or transitional templates, a-la 1960s Spider-Man cartoon, giving the film a visibly cheap look at times by comparison). That said, the film as a whole struggles with a pretty intense identity crisis in terms of how young or old to skew, contrasting the slicker fight choreography with some pretty abrupt 'kid-friendly' tonal shifts – poke in the butt/cartoon sound effect/massive double-take, etc. – which is thoroughly distracting and vaguely unpleasant throughout.

It doesn't help that the 'quest for Santa Claus' is an unmistakably goofy premise, and it's hard to imagine even younger audiences not raising an eyebrow in disbelief at the disjuncture in plausibility (though I will now always lament never getting to hear Tom Hiddleston suppress a smirk while saying "Santy Claus" in full live action Loki garb). Still, the script handles the silliness as gamely as possible, and there's a certain campy fun in having Santa grounded in Asgardian mythology – and we can now look forward to industriously nerdy kids correcting their peers by referring to Santa as 'Jolnir' - as well as a knowing dig at Santa nonbelievers, here represented by both the hyper-logical Iron Man and Loki, both of who are forced to extensively eat their words. 'Tis the season for shaming non-practitioning parents?

That said, the tonal whiplash takes an even more frightening turn at the arrival at the ludicrous land of the Elves. The setting - a flurry of nonsensical candy canes, like Hallmark threw up in the middle of a snowstorm - is rendered a surreal nightmare for adults let alone kids, as gratuitous guest stars Rocket Raccoon and Groot battle a wasteland of sentient, evil gingerbread men… and subsequently massacre them, shooting and bashing them to pieces, as the gingerbread men howl in agony. And if this wasn't bad enough, Rocket and Groot are then pursued by the disintegrating, occasionally two-headed 'zombie' gingerbread remains, like a Calvin & Hobbes snowman sequence directed by David Lynch. Anyone deranged enough to think this was suitable viewing for children deserves coal in their stocking indefinitely. There's also some dubious gender politics regarding the 'maternal instincts' of a reptilian behemoth, but even objectionable ideological content in kids programming pales in comparison to the Zombie. Gingerbread. Massacre. I'm shuddering just thinking about it.

But in the end, the Avengers lineup is too much fun to ever be a complete write-off. Including Captain Marvel is a fun plug for the upcoming MCU Phase 3, even if the inclusion of requisite teen sidekick Reptil and his vaguely defined dinosaur transformation powers (what…?) is predictably annoying. Mick Wingert does a plausible Robert Downey Jr. impression, though voice vet Kevin Michael Richardson disconcertingly appears to forget to inflect while repeating "I am Groot", while having Fred Tatasciore's Hulk become a Christmas-obsessed carolling pun-machine is…disconcerting, at best (Thor uttering war cries while driving Santa's sleigh is a different story altogether, though).

Frost Fight is occasionally fun, though mostly uncomfortably enjoyable in a delirious 'how is this happening' sort of way. It's undeniably one of the more short-sighted and demented Marvel cartoon offerings, and ultimately one worth passing on, save for the most obsessive and forgiving youngsters (and those with a pretty sturdy tolerance for freakish sentient snack food violence, to boot. Seriously. ZOMBIE GINGERBREAD MASSACRE. Yeesh).

-4/10

When I had seen the rating of this movie I expected poorly animated movie with few stupid jokes... But I was totally surprised because I could not resist to smile to so many classic Avengers jokes - people on train had to think I was watching some really great comedy.

To sum up: This movie is holiday special and should be watched with that in mind. But to be honest I hardly saw better Christmas movie than this one...

Those who look for some "serious" Avengers movie, pick some of Marvel Animated Features collection but if you are looking for funny movie with some original idea how to bring Christmas topic to Avengers movie, it is worth the shot.

This swings far far away from Avengers Assemble to the point of Marvel Super Hero Squad. There's a lot of kid humor and it's too child friendly. 'Frost Fight' offers nothing to an older audience. Teen fans will hate it, adult fans will immediately notice how cheaply this was made, and anyone under the age of 10 will have a lot of fun with it.

It presents the Carol Danver's version of Captain Marvel which I was hopeful about, but I found myself missing Hawkeye & Black Widow. Her look is kind of dated and is out-of-place with the other artwork. Basically a completely different art-style.

There's a trainee kid who goes by 'Reptil' that I found incredibly annoying. His power is having pterodactyl wings. It's a throw-away character that you might expect to be killed off (for sake of showing death) without erasing a major character.

Steve Rodgers/Captain America and Tony Stark/Iron Man have different voice actors. It sounds close, but it's a little weird. I personally have a pet-peeve about Marvel changing voice actors just for the films.

Santa Claus & Mrs. Claus make their way into the story and it's the Kiss Meets Santa joke from Family Guy. Yeah - Somebody threw out a movie really fast and whoever did it should be fired. Grossly incompetent choices were made about this release.

Being a Marvel fan one thing that always frustrates me is the lack of demographic consistency. The animation can range from 15's down to U's and this one is certainly the latter.

In this adventure aimed directly at the tiddly winks the Avengers must team up with Rocket & Groot to stop Loki from gaining the power of Santa Claus.

Yep, that wasn't a typo. Santa is now part of the Marvel Universe I suppose and essentially has his own Christmas realm full of candy canes & gingerbread men.

As you can imagine the whole thing is very low-key (Pun intended) and childish. The animation is all very colourful, the action scenes are cutesy and the humour is aimed at the young.

The whole Santa Claus thing made it difficult to take any of it seriously, that and the addition of Reptil who Marvel just can't seem to stick with an ethnicity of. He was originally hispanic but I've seen both caucasian and african american incarnations.

Great for your kids, not so good for adults.

The Good:

Well made

The Bad:

Humour is infantile

Reptil's ethnicity has changed repeatedly

Santa, really?

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Ironman has a Stargate

If people watched this movie understanding what it is-a vehicle for the characters appropriate for the 3-10 crowd-they wouldn't be so disappointed. My toddler loves the Avengers but the live action movies popular in theaters are not appropriate for him. Movies like this and the Marvel LEGO movies, with kid-oriented plots and jokes and less violence, let him see his favorite characters without the graphic content. Don't watch this expecting it to supplement the canon from the comics etc.-it's just a capitalization on the Marvel universe's popularity and make it accessible to a wider audience.