All right boys and girls! It has been a good long while but I am back with yet another Marvel DVD review. This time I have the (um pleasure may be a stretch) obligation? Yeah that sounds about right, obligation of reviewing Iron Man: Rise of the Technovore. Let me put this out there right away, I strongly dislike anime, (I refrain from using the word hate because frankly it is my New Years Resolution and I hate breaking those) but I saw this DVD and thought I would give it a chance.
Rise starts off with Tony Stark launching a brand new satellite named Howard (after good ol’ papa Stark himself.) The launch is shockingly attacked by Iron Manlites (you know those overused Iron Man like suits that seem to pop up everywhere Tony turns.) Needless to say this does not entertain Iron Man and his good buddy War Machine. They quite expertly handle the initial onslaught of villains only to find a new enemy attacking the control room. This new enemy seems capable of controlling his armor in an almost liquid manner (think Terminator 2).
The following conflict leads to an explosion and the death of James Rhodes (I’d say spoiler alert but it seriously says this on the back of the DVD, if you don’t believe me run to your local store pick up the movie read the back and then sit it back down on the rack. See I just saved you $20.00.) Tony Stark is obviously quite upset by this and proceeds to spend the rest of the movie eluding S.H.I.E.L.D. in a search for revenge against this teenage antagonist (oh yeah I forgot to mention, the crazy liquid metal bad guy, is a teenager. Also he is a genius and a bit of a hippie. Oh and he is Obadiah Stane’s son Ezekiel.)
Tony tracks down the Punisher who has a file on Ezekiel. This is the highlight of the movie for me. I was watching and found myself thinking, hmmm this Punisher sounds like Tom Jane (who played the Punisher in Marvel’s 2nd of 3 Punisher movies. Yes we know you forgot about the Dolph Lundgren version, but I didn’t Dolph, I didn’t) and Norman Reedus had a baby. Turns out, it was just Norman Reedus. Which was totally cool and a fun nerd moment. Anyway, Hawkeye and Black Widow track down the Punisher and Iron Man. Yada yada, fight ensues, Punisher does some cool stuff, and Iron Man escapes (Seems to be a theme. You’d think 2 master spy assassins could track down a billionaire in a flashy iron suit.)
I was slightly enjoying the movie up until this point and I thought maybe I was wrong about anime. Anyway without spoiling too much of the ending, Ezekiel loses control of his suit. The suit begins to take over the Howard satellite, and turns itself into a TENTACLE MONSTER. Seriously, I thought the tentacle monster stuff was a terrible cliche. Right then and there I lost all interest in the movie. I was able to get through the out of focus art, the terrible voice acting (save for Norman), and the generic plot, but a tentacle monster? OK not a monster but still, TENTACLES.
I thought I was being hard on the movie so I decided to watch it again. This time with a friend who is an actual fan of anime. His exact words: “This movie is already bad. It’s not anime, it’s crapime.” I will be brutally honest here because I hate to see people waste money. If you are a huge Iron Man fan then buy this. If you enjoy a deep story with good art and voice acting? You won’t find it here. Overall, I give this movie 3 Robert Downey Jr.s out of 10.
See you kids next time!
Thanks for letting me rant and rave.
Please feel free to send feedback and tell me how you feel!
Brian Isaacs - Executive Editor / Publisher