Iron Man: Rise of Technovore

Plot synopsis:
While racing in a desert with War Machine (James "Rhodey" Rhodes), Iron Man is ambushed by a mysterious new enemy who tries to destroy Tony Stark's new security satellite, "The Howard". War Machine is killed in the struggle and Iron Man sets out for revenge. He is intercepted by S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury who needs to talk to him. He escapes and make it over to Pepper Potts who is on vacation.
They discover that A.I.M. Advanced Idea Mechanics has been conducting research into techno organic weaponry for some time and pinpoint one of their warehouses in Karachi. S.H.I.E.L.D. locates them and Tony comes out the front to be surrounded by Mandroids. He activates his suitcase armor, destroys all the Mandroids, and heads to Karachi. The scene then cuts to a member of A.I.M. trying to sell weapons to a buyer. Punisher comes in and breaks it up. Just as Punisher is about to kill the A.I.M. member, Iron Man saves him in order to get some answers. Iron Man and Punisher then work together and discover the identity of the new enemy being Ezekiel Stane. Hawkeye and Black Widow are given orders to retrieve Iron Man. Iron Man escapes with the help of the Punisher and continues on to Shanghai where he meets Ezekiel Stane, the son of Obadiah Stane.
Ezekiel paralyzes Iron Man with the Technovore and details his plan to replace humanity with his new technology utilizing the technology on the "Howard" satellite to hack into all computers and satellites. Hawkeye and Black Widow show up and arrest both. Later on the Helicarrier, Iron Man discovers War Machine is barely alive. Then the Technovore hacks the craft leaving Iron Man to uses his arc reactor to stabilize the Helicarrier and drive the Technovore out of the systems. Ezekiel is now betrayed by the Technovore and taken over by it causing a big fight with Iron Man resulting in the Helicarrier crashing into Shanghai. When all hope seems lost, War Machine miraculously wakes up and helps Iron Man fight the Technovore.
In a last ditch effort, Iron Man is able to use a backdoor he built into the Howard's system to hack back into it temporarily. He is purposely captured by the Technovore and orders War Machine to fire the satellite's defense laser at Tony's arc reactor before the Technovore is able to use the other satellites to destroy the world. War Machine fires, and the Technovore is defeated with Iron Man seemingly sacrificing himself. Miraculously, Iron Man is saved by War Machine and lives. Ezekiel Stane is seen in the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tags: violence

Review:
The animation was good, like most Japanese animes.
And the story is pretty much crap.I see a pattern here: somewhere between the releases of big Hollywood productions, some low budget animation features appear, usually straight to video, and usually made by the Japanese.
Probably both.The problem with this idea is that the difference in quality between the big budget movies and the animated features is huge, and not always in a predictable direction.
Look at the Resident Evil animated movies; some of them were way more enjoyable than the live acting ones.So, what am I to think of Rise of the Technovore when the Stark hero is way off the image that Robert Downey Jr. created (let's face it, he pretty much carries the films by himself), the villain is practically copy-pasted from Japanese animes (bad ones) and, as many reviewers observed, the dialogue is boring and pretentious.So I have to mark it as a failure.
Not a big failure, mind you, we are talking about comic book heroes, so the expectations were low to begin with.
To coincide with the release of IRON MAN 3 in cinemas, Marvel has returned to direct-to-video animation with Iron Man: Rise of Technovore.
Iron Man Rise of Technovore has more clichés in it than its title, showcasing all that is good and bad about modern Japanese anime.Our story seemingly takes place within the Marvel Cinematic universe.
The characters look like their live action movie counterparts, and there are references to events in the live action movies.
We start off with Tony Stark about to launch a "Big brother" surveillance satellite that will be able to track all criminal activity worldwide.
Well, we never touch on these instead moving into an attack by mobile suits piloted by the silly named "Raiders" intending to stop the launch.
Lives are lost, and since Stark is the only survivor, he is taken in by SHIELD for questioning.
Now here is where things stop making sense.
Instead of hearing Nick Fury out and joining forces to stop this new threat christened "The Technovore", Iron Man bails out on SHIELD and stupidly makes himself a wanted man.
Now with SHIELD agents Hawkeye and Black Widow on his tail, Iron Man has to find a way to defeat this Technovore despite being outclassed in every way possible.True to modern anime, this movie favours flaire, extravagance and all round coolness over narrative, pacing and the usual things that matter.
Take a leading Japanese anime studio, give them an American sized budget and technological backing and Iron Man Rise of Technovore is the end result.
The CGI (computer generated images) are blended seamlessly with the traditional animation, action is fast paced and in-your-face, character movements are smooth while still keeping an insane level of art detail.
Overall, the show is a real thrill with wicked aerial combat and state of the art tech.For fans of anime, this is truly a visual treat.
Yet like most modern anime, the visuals are about the only thing good going for it.
As stated earlier, the story makes little sense.
Stark could have saved himself a lot of trouble with SHIELD if he just stopped for a bit and listened.
Our character of Stark is a one trick egotistical pony, dead set on having things his way.
The other characters also come across as flat personalities, more typical anime fodder for fanservice than actual contributors to the story.
All in all, the story bears a lot of similar elements to Steins;Gate and Texhnolyze, 2 other anime series directed by Technovore director Hiroshi Hamasaki.
The script is a hodge podge of, again, anime clichés.
Thankfully, the voice cast do great job of becoming their characters, both English and Japanese cast.
They bring their best performance to the roles, especially Keiji Fujiwara and Matthew Mercer as Tony Stark.
This is not Robert Downey Jr's Iron Man, which is refreshing; you do not have any of the corny humor that plagues the live action movies.
Instead you have a Tony Stark that is not as comedic as the movies but still as snarky; more like in the comics.
On a whole, Iron Man: Rise of Technovore is merely superficial entertainment.
There is no way anyone can be emotionally invested in any of the characters thanks to the cliché ridden script and story.
Oh and the Punisher gets shoehorned in for absolutely little reason.Pretty graphics and good acting cannot save an otherwise unimpressive, uninspired, and mediocre anime movie.
At best, this is an extremely long showcase of studio Madhouse's animation capabilities when given the right backing.
The "Invincible Iron Man" animated movie from 2007 is still a better animated feature than this..
The Animation is probably the strongest part of this installment of this Iron Man production.
The story begins as we are placed dead centre in the middle of another technological marvel as Stark is trying to change the world.
The only sense of urgency seems to come from Stark and its not very convincing because the Antagonist is way too enigmatic.
Another example why most Marvel animated series and movies are crap..
A best way to describe the torture of watching Technovore is to compare it to a late 60s to 70s Sci-Fi from Russia.Then you got the dialogue which is god awful crap.
Half it sounds like those horrible anime dubs.
While we are at it the voice acting also boarders on the same quality of those anime dubs.
Mathis III was the only one did a good job.To sum it up it is the most unrealistic, illogical, boring, pretentious crap.
Madhouse has yet to repeat their success for making an animated movie for the English market since Vampire Hunter D and their only good release after that was the Highlander direct to video movie.Not even worth renting unless you are a die hard Iron Man or Madhouse fan..
Iron Man Rise of Technovore: Passable Marvel animation.
Marvels animated history has always been spotty, the fact that each one seems to be animated by a different studio and there is no consistency with the writers probably has something to do with it.Rise Of Technovore is one of the better efforts I've seen lately and tells the story of Tony Stark on the run from Shield after being setup by a new cyber villian.Also featuring Nick Fury, War Machine, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Agent Hill and surprisingly The Punisher.Sadly the Punisher's contributions are rather brief and for a host of reasons I didn't like this version of him.
Here he is voiced by Walking Dead star Norman Reedus who I'm not sure was the best fit.The story is solid, the animation is mostly decent and the films execution is more than passable.
It's only let down by some shoddy editing and not the best action sequences (Which is pretty unforgivable for a Marvel movie)Watchable shlock for the fans.The Good: Decent storyThe Bad:Tad dark in placesNot keen on this version of The PunisherThings I Learnt From This Movie:Authorised to use lethal force?
Don't think much of Stark do they?Seeing Ironman getting spanked did nothing for me.
The animation and the Punisher aside, this was a big mess.
Iron Man: Rise of Technovore did have some good ideas going for it, and considering the characters and that a good deal of animated superhero films are good, there was good potential here.
Unfortunately, while with a couple of things that keep it from being unwatchable, Iron Man: Rise of Technovore wasted almost all the potential it had.What saves Iron Man: Rise of Technovore from being unwatchable is the animation and the character of the Punisher.
The animation is crisp and vibrant in colour, smooth in drawing and the backgrounds are incredibly dynamic and detailed, with a couple of funky visuals in the action.
The Punisher's screen time is far too short, but when he is on screen the film actually is diverting and entertaining.Everything else just doesn't work however, with the script and story being the biggest failures.
The story is one big, drawn-out, incoherent mess, stretching everything(with the rambling dialogue being the offender here) to the point that the running time feels like an eternity.
There were some really cool ideas here but nothing ever is explained(hence the incoherence complaint), and the pacing was like trudging through the thickest mud, that's how dull the film was.Iron Man: Rise of Technovore has action scenes that are the very opposite of fun or suspenseful.
The film does a very bad job with the characterisation, only the Punisher is interesting.
The heroes are bland and not always with much personality(Stark is stripped of everything that made him such a good character in the live-action films)- this is unforgivable seeing as when done well they are among the most entertaining superhero characters ever.
The voice acting, with the exceptions of a good job from Norman Reedus and a reasonably acceptable one from Matthew Mercer, often sounds like the voice actors were very unmotivated and like their hearts weren't in it.
The music is forgettable at best and lacks energy, momentum or atmosphere, but the poor sound quality doesn't help(flat and distorted).To conclude, Iron Man: Rise of Technovore has good animation and Punisher is a good character, to a lesser extent too two voice actors fare better than they deserved to, but despite the potential that's all the film has going for it.
The anime scenes were so boring.
That was the most exciting thing about this movie..
A movie follow up to the anime series by Mad House comes Iron Man's latest adventure where he seeks to launch his newest invention, the satellite Howard.
As one of the leading technological geniuses of the world and a devil may care hero, he gets to the bottom of this, uncovering the Technovore with mysterious connections to Tony while saving the world from a machine who has long abandoned his humanity.The anime format does wonders for the world of Iron Man, as his armor along with barrage of mechs he fights look nice and shiny, seeing them in action is a delight.
Good portions of the movie take place in either and it's far too distracting.
However in other environments it looks just fine.You got Iron Man; the genius playboy we all know and love, but he's not alone as we have War Machine fighting alongside him as well as SHIELD along with the ride which includes Director Nick Fury and his top agents Hawkeye and Black Widow.
Punisher also makes a short lived but memorable enough appearance.
All are represented pretty well from their characterization to their relationships and conflicts.Technovore is the main antagonist and is a convincing psychopath with Ezekiel Stane's fragile state of mind as a result of his teen angst meshing together with the Technovore nanotech eating away at his humanity.
You really feel that the world is at stake with his rampage and proves a difficult obstacle for our heroes to overcome.Not too much to say, it's a decent enough action packed hour and a half that's sure to please fans of the Invincible Iron Man..
Good for time killing..
Story: Empty beginning, anti-climatic ending.
But there is a big gap between a deep Sci- Fi movie with upcoming sequels and a DtV anime for the fans.
It took me some time to figure on the net, who the heck were the antagonists(beside the story told in the movie).
Would almost like it, if it wasn't cliché to the anime.
Looks like I'm watching Iron Man themed Evangelion or something.
I guess that's the only reason Japanese animators took this movie - it has android-tech in it!3.
I had to kill some time while waiting for download, the movie did it's purpose.
This movie could be tolerable at it's best, if not for the points 1-3, which I listed.
Iron Man Rise of the Technovores.
Lots of experimental animation was used to show the nano based enemy.
The voice acting was pretty badly synched and delivered.
And even at multiple times during the movie admitted that it didn't know what it was talking about or even getting at.
For example, in the beginning of the film the main villain's plan included destroying the all-seeing eye satellite plot device, however as the movie progressed it became clear that the boy didn't know what to do with it; going from destroying it calling it a "transgression," to ultimately trying to take it over.
I will say the cameo of the Punisher vigilante was a good part of the film that actually worked,but the sheer amount of plot holes in this could keep me reviewing for days.
In the end, the lack of a coherent plot or motive for the insane villain kept the film from moving forward, and kept us scratching our heads at the way everyone responded to his shenanigans.
Mr. Sparkle Meet Iron Man With The Dumbest Plot Ever As A Backdrop.
"Iron Man is framed by a technological terrorist, and breaks out to stop him and clear his name." What frame job???
So, an unknown agent attacks a space launch on American soil and the first thing SHIELD does is commit a billion dollars in technology and ordinance to kill Tony Stark???
It was a Stark launch that killed or wounded 300 of his own people.
SHIELD knows it was a foreign agent yet they throw everything they have with "deadly force" at Stark because he didn't stick around to give them more information???
That could be the dumbest thing I've seen in a while.The animation looked good at times but the action was all just a jarring mess.
The animation is not bad.
Otherwise is this animated feature probably one of the worst superhero adaptations I have seen in the last few years.
The plot feels like it has no idea where it is going and doesn't make any sense.
The main characters just jump from one part of the movie to the next, with what ever reason they pulled out of their noses in the scene before.
The entire story feels like somebody glued one fourth of the "Avengers" movie to another forth of "Akira", set it on fire and passed it in on the last minute.
Even worse: If you would play a drinking game, while watching this movie and down each time a shot, when you see either something pretentious or you notice a overused (anime- )trope, you wouldn't last till the end of the movie.
2) Tedious, overly long and pointless dialogues – take a shot - in the face of certain death instead of acting right away.
Take a second shot.3) An insanely powerful, yet mentally unstable teenager – take a shot - who wants to rid the world of humanity, thus making it better - take another shot – but has no real reason to do so apart from a massive apex-predator-complex.
5) Hero sacrifices himself – take a shot – in way that looks nearly like religious symbolism – shot – and survives.
7) A technology so badly explained, that it strains the suspension of disbelief in a movie, where you expect people in super-powered suits trashing giant robots.
Shot....also take a shot each time you think: "I don't think computers work that way."Conclusion: Avoid..
A good Tony Stark story, told anime style..
This is an anime version of an Ironman story, late teen/adult style.Tony Stark is about to launch a surveillance satellite.
They set about to blow up Tony's properties near the launch, and draw him into a one on one fight.
Further, they kill his long-time friend and ally, Rhodes, and many people near the launch.Fury sends Black Widow to fetch Ironman.
Ironman evades most of them, but Black Widow gives him a harder time before he disables her plane.The bad guys in this film are a small group who think of technology as a set of false idols, and particularly blame those who create more technology.
So Ironman is high on their list, and his satellite is a prime target.Tony meets with Pepper to get intelligence.
SHIELD surrounds the place, but Tony escapes.
SHIELD catches up, and Hawkeye screws Tony's suit with his arrows.
Punisher helps him get away, with Black Widow and Hawkeye in pursuit.Ironman follows Stane's efforts to China.
He discovers more about the powerful weapons that Stane has, namely the technovores, which invade high tech gadgets and take them over.Does Ironman find the ultimate goals of the enemy behind all this?
Will Tony make nice with SHIELD and Pepper?
-----Scores-----Art/Animation: 8/10 Good by anime standards, but occasionally had the washed out look.Sound: 7/10 The lip synching was not the best.
Most of the time the voice actors' words were clear enough.Voice/Acting: 7/10 I liked the performances of Norman Reedus, Matthew Mercer, Kate Higgins, and Clare Grant.
The work of Eric Bauza and John Eric Bentley I did not care for so much.Story: 8/10 Rather nice.
Had transitions beginning to middle to end that were reasonable to follow.
Marvel anime movie?.
This movie was very good to watch if you had a very bad day.At first, glance back in 2015 when I looked at pictures of this movie because it was anime I was put off.
I was never a fan of anime at this time.But when I actually got round to seeing this movie I actually enjoyed it.The voice acting was good especially Iron Man, War Machine, Pepper, Hawkeye, Punisher, and JARVIS.
All though some of the voices didn't sound right or were off.The designs were good and so was the Japanese animation.There was one moment which never made sense like what happened to the main villain at the end and who exactly was Sasha Hammer (the girl reading the book) his wife, girlfriend, sister or cousin and I wonder why The Punisher had very little screen time?It is surprisingly better than The Invincible Iron Man.