tek's rating:

Ultimate Avengers (PG-13)
IMDb; MAU Wiki; Toonami Wiki; TV Tropes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: none that I know of.

This was a direct-to-DVD movie, though I first saw it on Toonami a couple months after it was released (in 2006). The movie (like the "Ultimates" comics on which it's based) starts in 1945, as World War II is coming to a close. Hitler has just died, but there's still a group of Nazis about to launch a nuclear warhead at America. So, a team of American soliders goes in to stop them, including supersoldier Captain America/Steve Rogers. He manages to stop the missile, but ends up falling into the ocean. Flash forward to the present, when a military group called S.H.I.E.L.D. (led by General Nick Fury) sends an expedition to recover his body, in hopes of reviving the supersoldier program.

The body is found encased in ice, and brought back to the lab and defrosted. Drs. Bruce Banner and Betty Ross want to take blood samples in hopes of reproducing the supersoldier serum, however, much to everyone's surprise, Captain America wakes up. He's then recruited to lead a special team of superheroes. It seems back in his own time, the Nazis had been working with aliens called Chitauris, who are still making trouble now. S.H.I.E.L.D. had recently launched a satellite to track the Chitauris' movements by detecting the near-indestructible metal, called vibranium, that their ships are made of. However, the Chitauris immediately destroy the satellite. General Fury wants to speed up the supersoldier program, but he's given orders to form that superhero team, and launch another satellite.

Fury already has Captain America on the team, as well as a former Russian spy called Black Widow/Natalia Romanoff. Fury also wants to recruit Iron Man, who refuses at first, preferring to work alone; Thor, who seems to prefer to stick to environmental protests; and the Wasp/Janet Pym, but she refuses to join unless Fury also accepts her husband, Giant Man/Hank Pym, who's still resentful of having lost out on the job Dr. Banner currently has. Eventually the team all reluctantly work together, though their first mission goes completely awry because almost no one follows Captain America's orders. Things are further complicated by the fact that Dr. Banner is secretly working only on his own blood samples rather than the candidates for the supersoldier program, in hopes of managing to control his transformation into the Hulk. He also hopes if he can do this, he can repair his relationship with Dr. Ross.

Well, I guess you can see there's more than just superhero stuff going on here. Lots of... well, relationship stuff, human drama, whatever. Even Cap has to deal with most of his friends being dead and the whole world having changed. His old friend Bucky is now... old. As is Cap's former fiancee... who is married to Bucky. Anyway, can't think of much else to say. Don't want to give away the end, or anything. I think it's a fairly decent movie....

Followed by Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise of the Panther


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