TV Movie Review: Stan Lee’s Mighty 7

Finally, I had a chance to watch Stan Lee’s Super 7, a cross-promotion with Archie Comics. Except I got the name wrong and it’s actually Stan Lee’s Mighty 7. Oops.

Based on a comic idea that Lee had for Archie (according to Wikipedia three issues were produced but I missed them), Mighty 7 follows a group of stranded aliens who are talked by Stan Lee into becoming actual superheroes so he can profit off of their adventures. Seems kind of jerky on fictional Stan’s part, and the character not only resembles and is called Stan Lee, but Lee voices his counterpart. However, this isn’t really a vanity project.

The full story is that two space cops taking five prisoners back home when their ship crash lands on Earth right near Stan Lee. Stan sees the potential in their becoming superheroes, and until they can contact home for a rescue it seems like a good idea. It helps that aliens called Tagon are trying to add Earth to their empire and there’s also a secret military organization who isn’t what they appear to be.

The fact that Lee used two groups who don’t get along at the start is interesting, although everyone but the lead cop and I guess the lead crook have to be talked into it. Strong Arm and Laser Lord have a history and if this goes into a full series I would like to see how that develops. Stan Lee (the in-story version) comes up with all their names based on their powers and they’re a bit cheesy but I wonder if that isn’t on purpose since their superhero names (including Silver Skylark, who can sprout wings and talons, Lady Lightning, the obligatory speedster, Roller Man, a cross between Bouncing Boy and Ben 10’s Cannonbolt, Kid Kinergy, the telekinetic, and his best bud Micron, who can shrink) comes from Stan Lee in and out of story. Each character is given a scene that shows where they came from except for Silver Skylark I just realized. Strong Arm and Skylark aren’t just fellow Marshals, but they’re also engaged.

The voice acting is also very good. To copy/paste the list from Wikipedia “the voice cast includes “Armie Hammer as Strong Arm, Christian Slater as Lazer Lord,  Mayim Bialik as Lady Lightning, Teri Hatcher as Silver Skylark,  Flea as Roller Man, Darren Criss as Micro, and Sean Astin as Kid Kinergy. Additional voices include Jim Belushi as Mr. Cross, the leader of a covert operations military division assigned to investigate UFO sightings (and I mentioned, isn’t what they seem) and Michael Ironside as Xanar, the leader of the warring aliens from the planet Taegon who enslave other planets and raid their natural resources” Xanar also has a history with Laser Lord. All the voice actors listed are actually famous people, which ordinarily is unnecessary but they found name actors who can do voice over rather well, even Slater. I forget what movie I heard him in last time but I remember not being impressed. Here he isn’t too bad. Of course, Stan Lee plays himself and if you’ve seen his YouTube postings or any intro, narration, or interview he does he’s pretty much the same guy here.

The only one I really had a problem with was Hammer. He’s a bit stiff and there isn’t a lot of emotion. Maybe in future installments Strong Arm will lighten up and Hammer will get better. Otherwise I wouldn’t miss him if he was replaced. Flea was hit or miss, but my favorites were Bialik’s Lady Lightning and Ironside’s Xanar. I wouldn’t even have called Belushi as Cross and he was a good duplicitous villain. You couldn’t tell where he stood until the end because he didn’t immediately come off as the mustache-twirling bad guy, just a military man trying to protect the planet from alien invasion as he says, and you wondered if his group would team with the heroes until the end reveal. I have to give Belushi credit for that. The others were good but not a huge standout.

If I had any complaints with this show it would be the animation. Not the artwork. The character models, backgrounds, and limited CG that was used weren’t too bad. The movements itself, however, was a bit choppy and in some scenes really choppy enough to pull you out for a moment. It’s not awful but it IS distracting and disappointing when compared to the Marvel superhero cartoons. You can at times sense the budget went mostly to the name voice actors.

Overall though I rather enjoyed Stan Lee’s Mighty 7 and I want to check out the comics and hope this gets a full series run. If I had to choose two VAs to keep (since Stan is a given) it would be Bialik and Ironside but I wouldn’t mind see them all return, if only for a second movie. If this was a series of TV movies instead of a regular TV series I could get behind that.