Ultimate Avengers: The Movie (2006)

From the Box: A world in crisis. Age-old enemies on the verge of attack. A mighty tea, is recruited, and Earth's ultimate hero is sought to lead them- Captain America. Unfortunately, he's been frozen in ice for over sixty years.
Inspired by Marvel's best-selling books, "The Ultimates", this is the extraordinary story of six very independent heroes who, like it or not, must fight as one to save the world. Little do they know that their biggest threat would emerge from within their very own ranks; The Incredible Hulk!

What You Get: This movie is loosely based off the Marvel comic The Ultimates, and not so much the Avengers (the original series), the New Avengers (the more recent series), or the Mighty Avengers (the brand new series started in 2007). So right off the bat comparisons between the comic and the animated movie have to be placed there, on the correct comic version.
Ok, story is Captain America was taking down some big Nazi plan at the end of WW2, found aliens running things, stopped a nuke from it's target, and found himself put to the ocean. Flash forward to 2005(?), the aliens are still a secret menace, the government (SHIELD) is trying to create super-soldiers to stop them, but times up and they need a team NOW. Luckily Cap has been found frozen- and alive- and is in place to lead the new team of Iron Man, Black Widow, Wasp, Giant Man, Thor, and even Hulk (kinda).

Movie Rating: 3.5 (of 5) It's a cartoon based on a hit comic book series, but the cartoon isn't as strong as it's source material. The art isn't as tight and detailed, the character interaction/developement is lacking, and the length of 71 minutes falls short of the goal. Maybe if I saw this first and then read the comic my enjoyment for this would've been stronger, but sadly that isn't the case. On the plus side they didn't stray too far from the course and the story is good (if not bordering on cliche)

DVD Features:

• "Avengers Assemble" feature (interviews with the artists and writers for Avengers comic)
• Voice talent search
• Preview of Ultimate Avengers II
• Avengers trivia track
• DVD-Rom game

DVD Rating: 1.5(of 5) While the "Avengers Assemble" feature was somewhat interesting, it's focus should've geared to more modern (would've kept my interest more). Past that, the features were pretty sparce. I mean, they didn't even have a feature that shows comic book art/comparisons!