kkinne

I was really looking forward to seeing this program when it first came out, if for no other reason than to see a female action hero in a genre which has so very few of them. The animation, by Warner Brothers, is as good as one would expect, and the voice acting is above average, but I really was disappointed by how the character of Jane was handled. First of all, she uses a bull-whip instead of a gun, apparently since American animators have a problem depicting female characters using deadly weapons. Never mind the fact that going into a gunfight armed with a whip would only get her killed. I mean, the real Jane used a Winchester. Also, the animators further dilute Jane's believability by making her just too strong. She should win fights (after all, she IS the heroine) but having her KOing baddies and sending them flying across a room with a single punch all the while without ever taking a punch herself is just too much of a stretch. But then again, animators in the US seem to have a hard time realistically depicting a female fighter who has neither magic nor superpowers to fall back upon. Depicting Jane as an almost-superhero tends to diminish the real legend.

I went into this with low expectations to begin with. and I left with those suspicions confirmed. The movie seemed to be full of a lot of pointless random scenes that were apparently inserted into the movie to give it an air of believability. In between the pointless stuff there were a few genuine shock moments, but these were few and far between. The film's conceit of convincing the audience that this was a genuine documentary was ruined by the crappy cgi in the final scene,as well as by 2 HUGE plot holes. First, just how did the creatures get into the astronauts' suits without killing them in the process? And 2, just how are we supposed to believe that this movie was made using recovered footage when the film would have been obliterated in the final catastrophe? Besides, no one believes these fake documentaries anyway.

Way back in 1972, before consummate bad-boy Ralph Bakshi became terminally embittered by Hollywood's numerous betrayals (both real and imagined), he created this masterful piece of adult animation, which was based upon his very own underground comic. In the story, Fritz, a young cat with neither purpose nor direction in his life, tries to find both through a series of meaningless sexual encounters and carefree drug use. He wanders through the chaos that was the 60s, getting involved in all kinds of mayhem. Bakshi's trademark irreverence shows in many ways, for example, depicting black people as crows, and police as pigs. Fritz gets caught up in many life-threatening situations, including getting involved with a violent group of radicals. There is plenty of violence, sex, drug use, and even an implied rape that in my opinion was not necessary and which did not help the story's general feel. In the end, despite coming close to death, Fritz finds neither the purpose nor the enlightenment that he sought. Only more mindless hedonism.

I would consider this film to be among the top 10 American-produced animated films of all times, although I definitely would steer curious kids away from it. It's only weakness lies in it's very topicality, which sadly dates the film. On the other hand, the sequel to Fritz the Cat, the nearly-impossible-to-find Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, is just aimless and way too mild to be anywhere as good as is the original. It's too bad that Mr. Bakshi's creative talent has never been replicated in today's rather milquetoast animation community.

This film was made at least five years too early. Which was sad, since it had a fairly good storyline. However, the level of CGI technology in 2001 was simply not up to the point where the animators could have been able to avoid the "uncanny valley" phenomenon which ultimately doomed the movie at the box office. That, and the staggeringly high production budget of over $137,000,000. The biggest problem that I had with the animation was that the characters simply were unable to emote convincingly, and their eyes, especially, looked dead and quite creepy.

The story, which had NOTHING to do with the popular Final Fantasy game line, deals with Earth being devastated by the alien ghosts which arrived upon the debris left over from the destruction of their home world. The story is dark and excessively depressing, which puts it at odds with the Final Fantasy games, whose often-dark plots are balanced out with a hopeful undertone. Also, many plot threads are simply abandoned, such as the social conflicts brought about by the lead character's "religious" beliefs. Also, many might be disappointed by the fact that a much-promised nude scene of the heroine, Aki Ross, was apparently taken out at the last minute and replaced with a simple shot of water going down a shower drain. Kind of prophetic for the overall movie...

More tragic than the storyline of this movie was the fact that the box office loss was so massive that it resulted in the closure of the Squaresoft movie division. Even more sad was that several years later, the crew was briefly reassembled to create a sequence for The Animatrix. Oh, what could have been...

You know that a movie is going to be a downer when the main character dies in the opening scene...Two Japanese children, Seita and his sister Setsuko, are left orphans when their mother is killed in the firebombing of Kobe. Their father earlier sails off to sea aboard a warship and is presumably killed in action (although that is never confirmed). The two children are eventually left upon their own when food shortages force their own aunt to abandon them. The children at first find their newfound freedom exhilarating, but the carefree adventure turns increasingly scary as food ultimately runs out and the food-strapped locals have none to offer. Eventually, little Setsuko dies of malnutrition and her own brother has to cremate her remains. I challenge any viewer to not shed a tear when Seita carries out that duty with a somewhat dazed stoicism...

Unlike Reiji Matsumoto's rather offensive film, The Cockpit, this film does not depict the war in a romanticized manner. The war itself is distant, and even the B-29s dropping firebombs upon Kobe are depicted with an almost graceful beauty. I was also surprised that the film was not anti-American in the slightest. The only scene which might imply otherwise is when an American plane strafes a line of refugees (apparently out of mistaken identity). The film also avoids either depicting or mentioning the atomic bombings, either out of cultural sensitivity or simply to avoid weakening the story's focus.

All in all, I strongly recommend Grave of the Fireflies, with it's message of hope and beauty even in the face of great sadness.

In a parallel Earth approximating the 1930s in many ways, Nazi Germany seems to have achieved near-total world domination. The Supreme Leader orders the creation of a thinking computer which is rather unimaginatively named The Machine. The Machine is mass-produced and pressed into battle, only to turn upon it's creators. The war ends when The Machines release a biological weapon that wipes out all life upon earth, even down to the lowliest microorganism, which explains why the bodies of the dead people have not decayed over time. Some years later a small rag doll robot known only as 9 awakens and sees the body of his creator upon the floor. Eventually he meets up with more of his own kind and they wage a series of running battles with several skeletal/mechanical monsters that have been created by the last surviving Machine. Ultimately the little robots face off against the Machine itself in a climactic battle...

The effects of 9 are quite good, especially when it comes to depicting the dark world wherein the characters exist. However, even though the ads promise an epic battle between the forces of good and evil, the movie feels like the final pointless skirmish in a war whose outcome has long since been decided. What are the little robots fighting for? Humanity and even all life upon Earth are gone forever, and without any apparent means of replication the robots have no future of their own. Why not, as 1 suggested, just avoid the Machine and wait for it too to finally break down. All in all, while I can't say that I disliked this rather depressing film, I found myself a bit disappointed with it.

This has to be one of my favorite animated series of all times. In this series, Ulysses (or Odysseus, if you prefer the original Greek version)is taking his son out for a trip through space when the boy is kidnapped by a cult of cyclops-worshipers. When Ulysses rescues him, and two Zotrian children Yumi and Numenor (actually, it's hard to call Numenor a child since he appears to be anywhere between 18 and 20 or so)the cyclops, the cult who worships it, and the very planet itself go up in a big fireball. Needless to say, Poseidon and the other gods aren't to happy about this and Ulysses and the children (plus a robot named NoNo)have to go through a series of trials in order to finally go home.

The characters are the most memorable thing about this series. They move with great fluidity and are drawn in a fairly realistic style, yet their ability to emote is not limited by this, unlike the characters in Filmation works, for example. My favorite character, by far, has to be Yumi, a blue-skinned little girl of about 8 years of age (little alien girls had never been seen before on animated TV). She was an alien, but she was also perhaps the most human character in the show whose sole motivation was love, for her brother and for the family to whom she desperately wanted to return. Another Zotrian character who appears early in the series is Atina,a young woman of about 20-25 whose love for a elderly blind human man is so deeply touching that you feel sorry that she only appears in one episode.

All in all, Ulysses 31, with its warm characters and moments of breakneck action, is by far one of the best animated programs of the 80s. By the way, unlike most animation of its era, the animation has actually aged quite well. There are a couple of episodes which seem a bit corny or nearly hallucinogenic in their weirdness, plus the dialog can occasionally be a bit groan-inducing due to language differences, but these minor quirks shouldn't turn anyone off. A classic in every sense...

At first I was really eager to see this movie, but when I heard that Ms. Theron balked at wearing the costume worn by the original character, more than a few red flags popped up. Anyone remember the live-action remake of Witchblade, which had to have a drastic low-budget hurry-up redesign when the lead actress refused to wear the skimpy outfit of the comics character. The result was a cheap-looking metal glove that did absolutely nothing to inspire fanboys.

My central peeve with this film was that it seems to have lost the thematic focus of the original animated series. That is, the series was supposed to be a dramatic examination of the conflict between Good and Evil, when no one could be sure which of the two main characters were either hero or villain. Also, the movie's claustrophobic, fashion-show vision of the future seemed at odds with the cartoon's immense sense of scale.

All I can say without giving too much away is that Storm Riders is what The Last Airbender could have been... In fact, much of what the characters do is what is seen in the Airbender cartoon series. One character can even manipulate water and use it like a weapon. The movie starts out like many other kung-fu vengeance/justice flicks, but it takes a crazy turn with two characters engaging in a midair sword fight which ultimately involves the villain firing a hail of energy bolts from his weapon. I liked the movie despite the fact that too many plot threads were left hanging in the end. Still, Storm Riders is goofy fun so long as you don't take it too seriously...

This film could have been better, but if you are willing to overlook it's many flaws then it's not unbearable. The amazons being depicted as villains was pretty much the norm prior to Xena. I like inter-gender fights to the death as much as any guy but please, PLEASE have the women involved actually be women. Most of the fighting involved male stunt doubles wearing masks and bad wigs, as well as being photographed from behind using a blue filter to suggest nighttime or dusk (note all of the sharp shadows during "night" sequences).The fights where women actually were used were badly choreographed. The male actors acted as if they were holding back, and the women acted like they were afraid to break a nail. And what was with all of the hidden springboards?

However the worst aspect of the film was the groan-inducing dialogue. As was typical of many films from the 70's everyone seemed to be trying to sound biblical. All in all, an OK but cheesy film.

I'm normally not a big fan of anything that Filmation did after Star Trek, but this movie just blew me away when I saw it one Saturday night when I was only 15. The stunningly good animation, the surprisingly high level of violence for its day (Adult Swim has much more nowadays), and great voice acting all made an impression on me. What was more I noticed that the artists were given much more leeway than is normal when it came to showing female flesh, especially that many of the female creatures wore little more than very narrow straps over their breasts. Princess Aura acted more sultry than ever, posing like a pinup model and reclining suggestively upon her ever-so-handy couch. About the only clunky spot in the movie came when Thun and Flash were about to turn in for the night and Thun spoke about his personal sexual desires. Well-intentioned upon the writers' part, but it just seemed more than a bit weird to me. It's too bad that Filmation buried this gem after showing it only once. However, my sources tell me that it was not the level of violence that concerned the company. It was all of the sexually suggestive costumes which, in the days before digital editing became possible, would have been impossible cut out of the scenes without eliminating the scenes altogether.

First of all, I would like to say that I liked The Village, up until it's lame ending. The Last Airbender is not even that good. Everything about the movie was bad...the story deviated too far from the original source material. The writing (a major weakness in many films nowadays) was bad. The dialog was flat, emotionless, and unintentionally hilarious at times. The casting was bad...Mr. Shyamalan's conscious decision to take a culturally-Asian (Chinese mostly) world and de-ethnicize it with a cast of whites (and one cringing token black)displayed a gross underestimation of the audience. The actor who played Aang had a tendency to speak in generalities ("Why are you doing this thing? You must stop doing this thing?")which screams a poor command of colloquial English on the part of the writer. Katara had absolutely no knowledge of emoting whatsoever. The CGI work was passable, but the live photography was horrific. In one scene, the camera zoomed way TOO far in on Aang's face while he utters his bizarre dialog. And the ending varied from the one in the cartoon. In the animated version, Aang kills (unintentionally) the Fire Nation general. In the movie he is killed by four nameless characters. Also in the cartoon, when he was in his out-of-control state, he destroyed the enemy fleet with a giant water elemental. He didn't just passively threaten them with a tidal wave until they went home...

All in all, I was very disappointed in the film. Sad as it is to say, I think Mr. Shyamalan deep down inside just doesn't want to do this anymore...