Avengers Confidential: La Veuve Noire et Le Punisher

I read some Punisher Comics and really liked them for their dark atmosphere and more or less discussing that whole thing about if it's OK or not to take justice in your own hands. And guess what? That was not a topic at all in this movie. And why did they have to team up Punisher and Black Widow? I have no idea, they don't really fit together... So the story is basically to stop the evil organization Leviathan from doing a very bad thing. The cool thing is that I liked the idea of this organization cause it was kinda vaguely described and fitted quite well as a placeholder for the Freemasons, Zionists elites, mafia or whoever really controls major crime stuff like weapon and human trafficking in our world. So the antagonist concept worked for me but the execution lacked. The movie starts OK but gets worse and worse, worst point the ending where suddenly some of the Avengers appear and they barely say a word and they are seriously unnecessary for the plot. So that was just a marketing thing I guess. Another thing is why does it have to be an anime style movie? I really don't know but the animation was well done so it's OK yet not the way it should be. This whole movie feels a lot like an 80s action movie and I think that's why I like it but it can't reach the emotional deepness and suspense that many DC animations reached so far - and I'm saying this as a true Marvel fan.

Recently added to Disney Plus, so now showing up near the top of my alphabetical trawl the films there, was this 2014 Anime film, that has decent action scenes, but very little else going for it.

Having initially worked against each other, and ruined a SHIELD operation, Frank Castle (Brian Bloom) is convinced to team up with Black Widow (Jennifer Carpenter) to locate a black-market weapons dealer named Caine (Kyle Herbert). They track him to the base of LEVIATHAN, a terrorist organisation and there come up against Elihas Starr (Grant George) a former SHIELD Agent, and lover of Widow, who was presumed dead.

I really struggled to maintain much interest in this. It's not without any merit, visually it's pretty good. It was the last thing produced with Madhouse Animation studios and their style is fun and dynamic. The story of this one is . . . Fine. Former agent assumed dead and now a villain is . . well, the Winter Soldier, I guess, but it's rehashed again here with the added twist that he was Black Widows lover at the time he was 'killed'. It actually does the thing that, realistically all Marvel movies should do, and calls in the rest of the heroes at the end to make sure that they don't fail. The story does have a reasonably sensible reason for keeping them out of it earlier though, which is a nice touch.

The vocal performances are really poor though. There are notable actors involved, such as Jennifer Carpenter, but there's a disconnect between the speech and the visuals (perhaps because it was designed around a Japanese performer?). There's also a lifelessness in the sound design, with no background noise in a lot of the scenes and the editing leaves a lot to be desired.

Because I'm watching everything on Disney Plus (or at least trying to) I'm sure I'll get around to the other collaborations with Madhouse, but I hope they're a little better finished than this one is.

Didn't really love this movie! But it was somehow interesting!

I'm probably not the best suited person to analyze this movie as I am not the most knowledgeable of neither anime nor comic books. I like anime, and enjoy comic book films and television series, but I'm not a hardcore fan. Comic book fans go into movies already knowing the characters for the most part, whereas for me it's like I'm introduced to each character for the first time. In a way that makes me more objective as I don't know what characters are supposed to be like, and simply watch the movie for what it is. At any rate, I watched this movie and here are my thoughts.

I know anime fans have a debate on "dub" vs "sub"—that is whether they prefer anime movies dubbed into English or with English subtitles. While I normally prefer subtitles to maintain the authenticity of the work, in this movie's case, it is more like this is the English version of the movie than simply a dubbing.

As indicated by the title, this movie focuses on the character The Punisher. Even having seen "The Punisher" (2004), my memory of this guy is vague. He is a vigilante character, who is neither good nor bad, who does whatever it takes to protect the innocent regardless of whether his actions are with in the laws or not. He is arrested by the international organization S.H.I.E.L.D. and they plea bargain with him. An evil crime organization, Leviathan, has stolen weapons and plans to auction them off. The Punisher is sent on a mission with Black Widow to stop the sale of these weapons.

While the artwork was vivid, the animation was minimal—I suppose to keep the feel of reading a comic book. There was not a whole lot of movement in the animation, even in action sequences, and still shots of characters' faces or long pans of people or scenery was common.

Overall, the film is formulaic of any episode of a super hero animated television series. The bad guys have an evil scheme and the good guys have to stop it. That's not a bad thing, it's just what it is, and I happened to like that.

For having so much potential the writing or story telling is simply abysmal. The dialogue is some of the worst I've heard, well... period. The voice acting is solid and the animation isn't bad. Like I said, lot's of potential. So much excellent source material to work with. I have no idea how anyone can write dialogue this terrible.