hyped garbage

Best movie ever!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

If you can overlook the fact that every Avenger that had a kid has died or that Thor's daughter talks like him even though she wouldn't have had any way of knowing how he talked, this movie isn't bad. It was better than I was expecting considering it's about children.

An alternate future had the Avengers settling down & starting families, and then getting killed by Ultron, all except Tony Stark/Iron Man, who goes on to be the protector/guardian/foster parent of the kids, Thor, who takes over as King of Asgard, though why Thor would let his daughter get raised by someone else, even a long time friend/ally like Iron Man, isn't really clear (as if Superman being a slacker deadbeat dad in "Superman Returns" wasn't bad enough). The Hulk/Bruce Banner also survives into this future. Years later, the tween versions of the Avenger offspring: James Rogers (son of Captain America & Black Widow), Torunn (daughter of Thor & Sif), Henry Pym Jr. (son of Giant Man & Wasp), Azari (son of Black Panther & Storm) and Francis Barton (son of Hawkeye/Clint Barton, who actually did not grow up with the other kids), are forced to fight Ultron & save humanity from him, even if it means recruiting the Hulk to get the job done.The recent market of direct to DVD animated superhero features has been pretty hit & miss so far, both for Marvel & DC. "Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow" is doomed to be remembered as one of the misses, largely because the kids themselves just aren't compelling enough to capture the imagination of the audience the way their parents did, with the possible exceptions of Azari and Torunn. Most of the films best moments don't even come from the young heroes, but from the old guard, specifically Iron Man/Tony Stark, who was forced to give up his playboy ways for surrogate parenthood.Overall, stick with Ultimate Avengers 1 (the less said about Ultimate Avengers 2, the better).

In an alternative future, where the Avengers grew complacent and softened considerably opting to give up heroics for family life raising their respective children. Ultron kills them off one by one (save for Tony stark, who keeps vigil over the offspring of the Avengers, Thor, who's retreated back to Asgard, and Bruce Banner). Now Ultron has found out about the teen kids and it's up to them to save the day.Perhaps I'm not really the true demographic of this movie, comic loving tykes might get a lot more entertainment out of the kid-friendly silly little shenanigans then this late twenty-something did. I will say that the movie is much much better than the simply atrocious but similarly themed "Avengers United" My Grade: C DVD Extras: A 10 and a half minute Making of featurette; 'Kid Power: Next gen Marvel" (a 9 and a half minute featurette on Marvel's kid/ teen oriented comics); First looks for both "Hulk vs. Wolverine" & "Hulk Vs. Thor"; and trailers for "Ultimate Avengers", "Ultimate Avengers 2", "the Invincible Iron Man", "Speed Racer: the Next Generation", "the Forbidden Kingdon", "Hulk Vs Thor", "Hulk Vs Wolverine", "Spectacular Spider-man", "Teenage mutant ninja turtles" Volume 6, & "Doctor Strange"

Warning: Lots of spoilers ahead: Upon reading the first article on Next Avengers (I believe it was Avengers Reborn at the time) I thought to myself "dear mercy, this is either going to be a cheap knockoff of Batman Beyond or the superhero version of Muppet Babies." There was no way in my mind that you could kill off the icons of Marvel Comics, replace them with children and still have a good cartoon. I was wrong! I also thought this was going to be like Spider-Man Unlimited or the 90's Avengers show. Thank goodness, I was wrong there as well.The cartoon is something along the lines of the Marvel Action hour cartoons from the 90's, just with a better script and much better animation. In fact, having seen the cartoon, I would be more than willing to watch it as a cartoon series. Keep in mind, it is intended for a younger audience, but I think most Marvel fans will enjoy it.Now, there are flaws. Mainly in that the beginning is done with quite a bit of exposition to get you up to speed on what has transpired in the Marvel U and where the heck these kids came from. I feel that Marvel could have taken an extra 15 minutes and given us a little more to go with than some static shots. But the story is told as a bedtime story to the Avengers' kids, and since it figures into the story later on, I suppose it is all right.The only other thing that bothered me is that they never explained how Ultron gained that much power. The Avengers have already beaten him several times in the past. The only thing I could think of is maybe after years of being out of commission; the Avengers just couldn't cut it any more.The kids themselves are pretty well adapted and are very close in persona to their "parents" while being individual enough to not seem like direct rip-offs of the original Avengers. In addition to this, they are also not as strong as their parents. This was what won me over. Marvel could have easily gone off the deep end and made these kids an ultra-powerful super group that every child should want a toy of. They played them off as kids with kid-like uncertainties and still developing skills, however, and it never felt like the kids were supposed to be better than the original avengers. They even needed help from the Hulk, which is a great scene. In the end, all of the kids are very likable, and are very Marvel-esquire.The writers did good to keep this one just above Saturday morning cartoon level. There wasn't any really painful dialogue. Even Pym, who was supposed to be the annoying little kid of the bunch wasn't annoying enough to stop you from liking him.The art was nice. The CG used wasn't too overly distracting, and the costume designs were cool and functional and futuristic (keeping with the theme). Iron Man and Hulk both looked good, as did Ultron. The people living below "Ultra City" look like something out of an anime (Origin and Nausicaa come to mind), and seem to serve no other purpose than to explain where Hawkeye's son has been, but it at least explains where the remaining humans have been. The look of the cartoon reminded me of Avatar in a way. Mainly because it has that 'not-quite-anime-but-definitely-influenced-by-it' style that Avatar uses. The animation is very smooth and the fight scenes are energetic and fun to watch. The character designs are nice and, once again, are very much in tune with Marvel. Personally, I liked James' getup. Very retro.The music was extremely similar to Ultimate Avengers, along with the slightly Danny Elfman-ish theme (which reminded me of the Batman & Robin theme from '97). It fit though, and the music was actually fairly well placed for a direct to DVD movie. The sound effects were also well played, and nothing sounded out of place or distracting.Voice acting was very good. This is particularly impressive given the age of the voice cast. They all blended very well with each other and fit the characters nicely.Overall, I think Next Avengers is a very good cartoon and definitely one that kids and Marvel fans will find cool and I recommend it! I really do hope they make more! -Matt