As someone who is a gamer, a computer and sci-fi enthusiast, I found this to be a pretentious long winded bore. Hang on, I'll tell you why! First, the visuals. The blurry, heavily bloomed and contrasted, sepia toned imagery that dominated the film just didn't work for me. While it masked the room temperature cg elements, I found that it just made the film look muddy and I was unable to get pulled into this world.
Then there is the story. The theme of "What's real?" isn't something new and I don't consider it a high end effort when I find myself strained to watch a dull woman in a bad wig stone face her way through pointless, repetitive and drawn out scenes, one after the other. I suppose the abstract, disjointed writing mixed with the director credits can allow for people to interpret depth and sophistication but for me it just didn't feel cohesive and worthwhile but rather like drug enhanced, self important, hipster produced script. I waited to be intrigued, I waited to be invested, I waited for the shots to amount to some kind of message that justified the running time and for just something, anything to actually happen. No dice! Blank and stoic leads may work easily in stylized animation but is terribly difficult in live action and Ash failed hard. Sorry, I don't think the goose laid a golden egg this time around.
I will say though, the orchestral piece in the conclusion was simply awesome.
Then there is the story. The theme of "What's real?" isn't something new and I don't consider it a high end effort when I find myself strained to watch a dull woman in a bad wig stone face her way through pointless, repetitive and drawn out scenes, one after the other. I suppose the abstract, disjointed writing mixed with the director credits can allow for people to interpret depth and sophistication but for me it just didn't feel cohesive and worthwhile but rather like drug enhanced, self important, hipster produced script. I waited to be intrigued, I waited to be invested, I waited for the shots to amount to some kind of message that justified the running time and for just something, anything to actually happen. No dice! Blank and stoic leads may work easily in stylized animation but is terribly difficult in live action and Ash failed hard. Sorry, I don't think the goose laid a golden egg this time around.
I will say though, the orchestral piece in the conclusion was simply awesome.