The Incredible Hulk 1996 Animated Series "The Return of The Beast Parts 1 And 2" Review

 

Marvel fans whenever people talk about the companies animated series there are a few shows that I see not being mentioned. One of those shows is the show that i'm about to take a look at the first two episodes of simply because this was a show that I grew up watching and it really does make me wonder why people don't mention this show despite having a really good cast and here is my review of the first two episodes of the 1996 animated series "The Incredible Hulk" with the episodes being called "Return Of The Beast Part 1" and "Return Of The Beast Part 2" enjoy Marvel and animation fans.

The plot of the two parter is Bruce Banner thinks he's finally come up with a way to rid himself of the Hulk and when he tries his experiment out at an army base under the watchful eye of General Thunderbolt Ross something goes wrong and so it's up to Bruce , Betty and Rick Jones to find what happend , who caused it and why. I'll admit that the plot of this two parter is perhaps it's weaker aspect since there's barely enough story to cover one episode let alone two as such I strongly believe that this story should have been told in one episode , not helping things is the fact that the story is pretty thin which makes it hard to work what the actual plot of the episode actually is.

Starring in the episodes are Lou Ferrigno as The Hulk , Neal McDonough as Bruce Banner and Genie Francis as Betty Ross . Also starring in the episodes are John Vernon as General Ross , Matt Frewer as The Leader , Mark Hamill as Gargoyle , The late Luke Perry as Rick Jones and Kevin Schon as Major Talbot and The Abomination. Yeah there really isn't that big of a cast list for these episodes literally every single person who appears in part 1 appear in part 2.

In terms of what I thought about the acting in the episode it was honestly so much better then what I thought it was going to be. Which for me is a good because I saw the cast list and thought that the acting was going to be pretty bad but no the acting at least in these two episodes is actually really good with all of the actors doing there best to make there roles there own which for this reviewer at least is a very good thing.

In a rather odd move there's no company listed as doing the animation for this show on the show's official IMDB page but after checking the IMDB page for both the episode I found that the animation at least these two episodes was done by Saerom Animation. I have no idea what Saerom Animation have worked on and after seeing these twp episodes I don't want to know because yeah the animation in these two episodes was at best OK.

On top of that there are really noticeable animation errors which no one bothered to check and fix with the most obvious being in the above picture where for one scene instead of having Bruce with brown hair he apparently died it blonde for a few moments. There are alot more errors in not only part 1 but also part all of which I feel could have been fixed if someone either at the animation studio or where ever the show was being produced actually did there job.

I like i'm assuming many other people had no idea that Mark Hamill was in this show and i'm not going to lie he was perhaps the biggest reason for me checking the show out this time around. He actually does I think a rather solid Russian accent altho to say it's an accent would be a bit of lie because all he does is heavily accented English with a Russian sounding voice but it's a really good voice in my opinion.

Fir some reason these two episodes don't deal that much with the relationship between Betty and Bruce which is a shame because the intro to the show makes that aspect seem really interesting. I would have liked it if either of the episodes devoted a small amount of time to the Betty and Bruce relationship since that's Bruce's way of transforming himself back to normal and so it would have been nice to get some insight about there relationship but hey we most likely get that in later episodes of the show of the first season or somewhere in second season.

These two episodes aired on September 8th 1996 and September 15th 1996 respectively with the episodes and thus the whole series airing on UPN. What I find to be weird is that from what I can gather the first season was pretty good and yet for some reason UPN thought that the first season was two dark and so for season ordered that She-Hulk be added to the main cast as a way to make the show seem more female friendly which to me is just dumb because surely making the show actually good would in turn make more people want to tune in it goes without saying but the show didn't get a third season with it's final episode airing on November 23rd 1997.

The villain of these two episodes and the show as a whole is The Leader who as mentioned is played by Matt Frewer. I honestly didn't mind the character in these two episodes since he has a good if somewhat confusing plan and is actually very proactive in getting done what let's the character down tho is we don't get that much time with him in these episodes with alot of the screen time being spent with Bruce and friends dealing General Ross.

Now then since this is an action show that does mean that we have to talk about the action that's in these episodes. To me the action in these episodes was honestly really good i'm not going to say that they were great because i'd be kidding myself but when you compare to alot of the things that are wrong with the episode the action comes of looking better plus it's always fun seeing Hulk smash things and blow things up.

Overall these two episodes are really good and are a really good representation of what to expect from the first season of this show. That being said these episodes are not even close to being perfect since they have alot of issues with them all of which i've covered in this review and what's worse is all of these issues are things that could have been fixed very freaking easily as such I these episodes get a combined score of a 5 out of 10 from me.

All images that I used in this review were gathered from either the official Hulk fandom wiki page , the Marvel Animated Universe fandom wiki page or Google Images. I honestly cannot say which is the best website to use for images either from these episodes or from this show because they all are roughly the same when it comes to quality which given that this show came out in the mid-nineties makes alot of sense.

 

 

Superman: Man Of Tomorrow Review

 

Ladies and gents we have a tradition here which is whenever a new DC direct to DVD movie comes out I get the review out the exact same day. Well a new animated direct to DVD DC film has just been released and sadly due to all the news that came out either yesterday or during the night depending on where you live not alot of people are going to know about or talk about this film and so here is my review of "Superman: Man Of Tomorrow" enjoy.

The plot of the movie is Lobo and a creature known as Parasite have there sights set on a new superhero called Superman and so it's up the last son of krypton and his new friend J'onn J'onzz to stop them before it's to late. I honesty feel that the plot of this movie is perhaps it's weakest aspect since it's so thin that at times it left me wondering what the actual plot of the movie was which should never be the case for any kind of movie direct to DVD or not.

Starring in the film are Darren Criss as Clark Kent/Superman , Alexandra Daddario as Lois Lane and Star Trek reboot film franchise star Zachary Quinto as Lex Luthor. Also starring in the film is former Agents Of Shield star Brett Dalton as Parasite , Ryan Hurst as Lobo , Ike Amadi as J'onn J'onzz/Martian Manhunter , The Janitor himself Neil Flynn as Jonathan Kent , Bellamy Young as Martha Kent , Piotr Micheal as Perry White and Jessica Cruz voice actress the one and only Cristina Milizia as Maya, Petey and Kaylie.

The acting in the film I feel to be one of the film's stronger aspects since alot of the actors in this film do a really job at portraying these iconic characters. Just because the acting is one of the best things about the film doesn't however mean that alot of the acting is that good because it's not there are some fairly average performances coming from some solid actors and that to me at least brings the film down since a story like this demands solid performances from all of the cast not just a small majority of the cast.

Doing the animation for the film is a company called The Answer Studio don't worry if you haven't heard of them I honestly haven't done either. After seeing the animation in this film tho i'm inclined to see what else they've worked on since the overall quality of the animation in this film I felt to be rather good altho with that being said there was one thing that bugged me and that was the rather thick lines they give the characters which to me was very distracting and it really wasn't needed in the film in my opinion since it took me out of the film at various points and it just looked weird on any of the characters.

Now this film was due to have it's premier take place yesterday during DC Fandome but for some reason the premier was cancelled. The official story being that they wanted to avoid the film being pirated which given that the film was getting a digital release a few hours later seems a rather bad reason to cancel the premier since alot of people will most likely use other methods to see this film anyways.

As mentioned this film came out when DC was holding there big DC Fandome event where they dropped alot of news. As such I feel that this movie is going to get swept under the rug just due to all the news that came out of the event and all the trailers that they dropped which is a shame because I do feel that this is a good movie and as such I do feel that people should talk about this movie even if it's just in there mouths for a few hours.

As you can no doubt work out by the fact your seeing this review on a Sunday DC chose to release this film on a Sunday instead of there traditional release of Tuesday. On the one hand I can see why they chose to do this because again DC Fandome was the night before and so people would be in this DC craze but at the same time I feel that releasing it on a Tuesday would help the movie more since alot more people would be in tuned to buy the movie then because that's what they are more used to buying the movie.

Now as the plot synopsis would tell you this is basically an origin movie for the character of Superman but the issue with that is we know that he's going to make it out alive. This isn't really a knock on the film since telling an origin film for Superman is indeed a good idea and while there are certain things that I can't talk about due to spoilers your just going to have to trust me when I say that this idea could have been done better.

This film is one of the longer direct to DVD DC films with the film cocking in at one hour and twenty six minuets long. Which to me is a bit on the long side for this film which honestly could have told this story just fine in hour and fifteen minuets but as it is there are portions of the film which do feel boring and stretched out which did cause me to loose interest in the film at several points which is honestly something that i've never said before now and is something that I hope to never say again at any point in the future.

Now then since this is an action film that does mean that we have to talk about the action that's in the film itself. Which like the acting is one of the films more stronger elements since the action in the film I feel is very entertaining and is honestly where the film shines since we get to see alot of really cool looking stuff happen hell even Parasite gets some cool moments in the final action scene and without giving anything away Parasite does something in the final battle which made me think of Godzilla i'm not saying what but when you see the film you'll know exactly what i'm talking about.

Overall this is a really solid film i'm not going to say that it's the best direct to DVD DC animated film out there but it's not the worst one either. To me this film feels very middle of the road since for everything that it gets right it gets alot more wrong which is a shame because on paper this film could be really good hell on paper it should be one of the best DC animated direct to DVD films but it's just not as such this film gets a 6.5 out of 10 from me.

All images used in this review were gathered from either the official DC movies fandom wiki page , Google Images and the official Batman fandom wiki page. I have to say due to the fact that the official DC movies fandom wiki page only has two images the best place to get images for this film is easily Google Images even tho they range from high definition to pretty low definition it's better then nothing at all and if you want to buy this film it's out right now on digital platforms and well be out on both DVD and blu-ray on September 8th 2020.