Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher [DVD]

When Frank Castle, The Punisher, smashes a criminal arms deal selling high-tech weaponry, he inadvertently finds himself on the radar of SHIELD, who had been tracking and observing the deal in order to trace it back to its origins and the man pulling the strings. Captured, Castle makes a deal with SHIELD director Nick Fury that, in exchange for the information he had come into possession of regarding the location of their target - and enough weaponry to get the job done - he will take them down. Fury agrees, but with one condition - that Castle be accompanied on his mission by SHIELD's number one operative, the Black Widow.Their mission puts them up against a terrorist orgainisation namd 'Leviathan', and their leader Orion, intent on creating a new breed of super-soldier and selling them to the highest bidder, even if that means selling them to both sides of a given conflict - aided by a former SHIELD scientist, and past love of Natasha Romaniov.Whilst the story predominantly focuses upon The Punisher and Black Widow, their are also significant appearences from a series of other Marvel characters, including Nick Fury, child-genius Amadeus Cho, the Avengers Hulk, Hawkeye, Ironman, Ms Marvel, Thor and War Machine, as well as brief appearences from villains including Taskmaster, Grim Reaper, Baron Zemo, Graviton and Griffin.The animation is crisp and smooth, whilst remaining distinctly Japanese in its style, and the English translation excellent. This is an extremely adult anime, with occasional swearing, and the fight scenes and gun-play are brutal, with blood, gore, face-stomping and neck-snapping applenty, and beautifully choreographed.Theres very little wrong with Avengers Confidential, and it could esily form the basis of a Black Widow solo movie in the Marvel cinematic universe, or alternatively provides an effective and plausable way to introduce the Punisher (whose movie rights now once more reside with Marvel) to the Marvel movie franchise.

Great DVD. I love everything about this DVD. The animation is in the anime style, which is great. I think it suits both of the characters perfectly. The storyline is ok, this is an action driven movie. I am more than fine with that. I think the best way to say this movie, the Black Widow is a character looking for redemption and thus redeeming others. The Punisher is simply about punishment.The thing I really liked about this movie is Marvel actually seemed to listen to criticism to make a better movie. If you saw Ironman technovi, for me Widow, Punisher, and Hawkeye stole the show for me I was begging these guys to have their own movie. Then it happened.I like the character design changes as well. The Punisher is not just some guy with a head band, a skull shirt, and a guns. This version of the Punisher is probably a big 6 foot 8 battle scared monster, who moves with a fighters grace rather then the bodybuilder he is drawn to look like. One look at his face is enough to give off the crap your pants vibe. Though is can use stealth and has martial arts training in a couple of scenes, he show great control stopping his punches at the last second, but he prefers the direct emotional,brutal approach. This is completely in the Punishers character do once again this is great. The fights in this DVD are pretty brutal I am not sure a 12 rating covers it. The only reason I think they get away with it is the lack of gore factor.The changes to the Widow I like as well. She is portrayed a lot older then the other movie. In this we are seeing a lot less of the sex kitten that his a couple of gadgets and a few fighting skills, more of the deadly season fighter she is. I think it was a good choice to keep her fully zipped up in this unlike to other film, however the animators do make sure her covered but ample chest is in every one of her shots. Yes she will use her look as a distraction, but that is the last distraction you are likely to see. The only thing I did I not like was the love story attempt, I can understand why it was done but I though the move was strong enough to not need it, especially not to have it dragged out like it was.All in all this is my favourite marvel animated movie to date. I think marvel should do a lot more work with Marjorie Liu. I loved her work on X-23, and subsequently Gambit in that series was the best version of Gambit I have seen. I would recommend this to anyone how likes more mature movies as for the 12 age rating, I would recommend that you do watch it first before showing it you your 12 year old. Despite the lack of gore (which I think is a good thing anyway) the killings are brutally merciless, that is the only thing to beware of in this DVD.

Avengers Confidential is a rather adult Japanese anime so if you think this is a live action show or a cartoon for kids as several reviews here i've seen were surprisingly unaware, turn away now.Though called the Avengers, and quite a few of them do make a showing, this film as it's title suggests, focuses on characters that normally get thrown in the background, The Punisher and Black Widow, and I love it for that reason.The story is solid if not spectacular. Frank Castle, known as the punisher is dealing with criminals as only he knows how with extreme violence. He deals with them permanently. Accidently getting in the way of a SHIELD operation Castle is forced to work with Natasha Romanov, known as the Black Widow, the ultimate super spy. Having different methods they clash at first both doing what they think is right before truly working together to take down terroists threatening the world.The best part about it is the focus on the characters if not the overarching plot. I love the Punisher and to see his single minded justice on screen was great. The action is pretty thick too with plenty of gun fights as well as acrobatic martial arts especially from Black Widow.The animation is excellent, crisp and colourful with great art designs, very japanese anime in style but keeps it's Marvel design clear. There is some CG on the SHIELD helicarrier which looked pretty outdated but it's only in a few scenes.I really enjoyed this as both an anime and marvel fan. It's not perfect but it was pretty solid entertainment. I have since learned there are several anime marvel series by the same people (Iron Man, Wolverine and X-Men) so I may have to give them a try.Recommended, if you like anime.+ Great to see the focus on Widow and Punisher.+ Solid action and martial arts sequences.+ Top notch animation.