The title "Marvel Rising: Heart of Iron" of course gives away already that this short film of 44 minutes here takes us into the Marvel universe. And the photo on imdb makes clear it is an animated movie. It is an American production in the English language, even if the names of directors Choi and Gimeno sound Asian/Hispanic. There were many writers in charge of the script here and looking at how udnerwhelming it turned out story-wise eventually, I'd say it is surely a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. It was released at the end of March 2019, so it is pretty much 9 months old not, but it really is not the child Marvel fans have been longing to see. There are more "Marvel Rising" (short) films from pretty recently, but this is one of the most known. The cast is really female-centered, so in here you will get many double Y chromosome characters, some pretty well-known, others not at all. The famous one swould be Captain Marvel, even if she just appears early on and very late as an observing force basically who judges how capable another character is. She is the easiest to recognize, but Gwen Stacy / Ghost Spider is also not unknown at all. As for those I have never come across before there is that quirrel girl, who also brought in some comic relief and quite a few others. As for male superhero characters, there are some, but none are at the center of the film at all action-wise. Maybe it is a better watch for girls I am not sure. Iron Man is in it too, well sort of. Actually early on, it is a girl who designed her own Iron Man uniform that looks so similar that it takes the other characters a while to figure out it is not really him. Shoes always give girls away don't they? Anyway, so it is again another female character in this uniform, really the central character you could say, but where was the real Iron Man Tony Stark I wondered. There was a massive danger coming from a(n again female) antagonist named Hala, but he just like most of the other Avengers were nowhere to be found. Maybe they did not have the tights to use them? I don't know. It's not important either. The whole general idea here is struggling already because all the heroes are basically teenagers, which makes it difficult to believe they are capable of defending the planet from all those being a danger to it, not just Kree girl Hala.
As for Hala, she confused me too. I mean she managed to hold her own against all the kids early on, but when she managed to gain control over the Iron man uniform and have it (or her?) fight for her evil cause, she just leaves the planet and lets the uniform do the dirty job it seems. Of course at the end good prevailed as expected, but it was a long and strenuous road to victory. Then again, it is just kids. They cannot easily dominate the enemies I guess. They made this decision to make these characters more appealing and easier to identify for the teenage audiences this film was made for I suppose. In addition, they also added bevioral patterns and comic relief that made the characters seem normal like everybody else their age. I am talking about one character crushing on Iron Man for example. Or two other characters being romantically linked to each other in a slightly awkward fashion that involves tentacles. Or also one character not only being an orphan, but also being enough of a nerd that she focused on science and lost all her friends because of that. Or one character that the other people her age do not want to go to a concert with. There is more really. As for comic relief I already mentioned the chubby squirrel girl, but it is not just her (by the way come on if you lost your bracelet, then look at your arm and you know that is the reason), but also her little squirrel that is entertaining, especially when it interacts with this big dog that is able to teleport. Also something you would not find in a film, animated or not, that is mostly for grown-up audiences. So there are solid inclusions and ideas here that could have served as a nice background for a good little superhero movie, but what they eventually made of it in terms of the story at the film's core was just not enough for my liking. This one has its moments and maybe the rating is slightly too low here on imdb (surprises me it is this low actually), but I still think I have to give it a thumbs-down as well. Marvel of course also attracts solid actors and familiar names. These would be the Descendants' Dove Cameron and Teen Wolf Tyler Posey here. But also the others are more experienced in film (not just voice acting) than you'd expect given their ages. But yeah, it's all not enough to make this project really work, even if the animation kept growing on me the longer it went. I say watch something else instead.
As for Hala, she confused me too. I mean she managed to hold her own against all the kids early on, but when she managed to gain control over the Iron man uniform and have it (or her?) fight for her evil cause, she just leaves the planet and lets the uniform do the dirty job it seems. Of course at the end good prevailed as expected, but it was a long and strenuous road to victory. Then again, it is just kids. They cannot easily dominate the enemies I guess. They made this decision to make these characters more appealing and easier to identify for the teenage audiences this film was made for I suppose. In addition, they also added bevioral patterns and comic relief that made the characters seem normal like everybody else their age. I am talking about one character crushing on Iron Man for example. Or two other characters being romantically linked to each other in a slightly awkward fashion that involves tentacles. Or also one character not only being an orphan, but also being enough of a nerd that she focused on science and lost all her friends because of that. Or one character that the other people her age do not want to go to a concert with. There is more really. As for comic relief I already mentioned the chubby squirrel girl, but it is not just her (by the way come on if you lost your bracelet, then look at your arm and you know that is the reason), but also her little squirrel that is entertaining, especially when it interacts with this big dog that is able to teleport. Also something you would not find in a film, animated or not, that is mostly for grown-up audiences. So there are solid inclusions and ideas here that could have served as a nice background for a good little superhero movie, but what they eventually made of it in terms of the story at the film's core was just not enough for my liking. This one has its moments and maybe the rating is slightly too low here on imdb (surprises me it is this low actually), but I still think I have to give it a thumbs-down as well. Marvel of course also attracts solid actors and familiar names. These would be the Descendants' Dove Cameron and Teen Wolf Tyler Posey here. But also the others are more experienced in film (not just voice acting) than you'd expect given their ages. But yeah, it's all not enough to make this project really work, even if the animation kept growing on me the longer it went. I say watch something else instead.
