Change Your Image
fullmetalanimator
Reviews
Gin-iro no kami no Agito (2006)
All smoke and no fire
It's not uncommon to see Japanese animation try to remind its target audience about environmental messages given the fast pace at which the country is growing with city life and machinery. While Origin: Spirits of the Past was rich with potential, it ultimately falls apart after the first act.
The film takes place in a post apocalyptic world where trees and nature itself has gained intelligent consciences and humanity feels threatened by it. Agito is a boy who lives in a shanty town and ends up discovering a girl named Toola who was frozen in time. I found that there was much to like about the first act of the film due to its delicate pacing and set up for what could have been a plot line just as rich as its visually pleasing colour pallets. Unfortunately, what follows after the halfway mark is a series of high concept ideas derived from several different sources and ultimately a lackluster and unsatisfying hodge podge of clichés.
There were several scenes later in the film where exposition feels very rushed and driven by contrivances. A lot of the information you'd expect can very easily fly over your head unless you can keep up with the jarring pacing of the later acts of the film. The story just seems to throw a ton at the audience without letting any of it actually sink in, and this was especially surprising given how the first act took it's time with introducing characters with a 'this is how long it takes to cook dinner' approach.
A lot of the ideas seem to be derived from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Final Fantasy and several other sources which left me with the impression that the creators were barely trying. This especially shows in the man vs nature environmental message that has been presented numerous times in the past. The problem is that this film offers nothing new. It's all so stale and so predictable that it's very difficult to care for anything that's going on, especially with the characterization which feels very two dimensional in their emotional arcs.
Sadly, Origin: Spirits of the Past is all smoke but no fire.
Kick-Ass (2010)
Enjoyable piece of superhero satire and outrageous action.
Cinema today has become over saturated enough as it is with superhero flicks, be it Marvel, DC or anything else less mainstream. So it's quiet refreshing that they're willing to bring more cult classics onto the big screen.
Kick-Ass is a sort of a self parody in someways as it seems to satire the whole superhero concept from beginning to end. The writer of the comics, Mark Millar, even said that the idea was based off of his own desire to be a superhero growing up in Scotland. It feels somewhat believable that a teenage looser might actually try this out someday resulting in this much mishap, for the first half of the film anyway since towards the end it gets more over-the-top. The writing is well thought out with a great sense of irony and humor, even really dark and brutally violent scenes will bring a devious grin to your face. Characters feel believable and are easy to connect with, especially Hit Girl who has to be one of the most interesting characters I've ever seen in cinema. It's hilarious how one critic accused the film makers for making this eleven-year-old girl 'sexulized' but then bawled when he was accused of pedophilia himself, as though he expected anything else! That little rant aside, Kick-Ass is a refreshing and amusing piece of work that should have you coming back for more. Roll on the sequel!
Phineas and Ferb (2007)
Not like most of the junk we get nowadays.
I remember the 1990's fondly because that's the time when cartoons were truly admirable. From the genius writing and detailed animation featured in Animaniacs and Pinky & The Brain, the surreal silliness featured in Bobby's World to the controversy provoking Ren & Stimpy Show, 90's animation on Saturday mornings is something to truly appreciate, especially with the amount of junk we get these days. That's not to say all cartoons made today are bad just because production finds ways to be cheaper while cleaner but so few shows have any real sense of heart or direction of writing that's aimed to please a wider demographic then 'just children'. Phineas and Ferb is one such cartoon that does so. It's writing uses a simple and straight forward plot device in almost every episode. But it's always done with a good sense of irony and humor that doesn't use much that flies over the kids heads but still brings a smirk to your face, no matter what age the viewer is. Most importantly, it doesn't try too hard either. The animation uses a quick sense of timing that's very appealing to look at too. Character designs are simplistic but interesting for the most part. I'd like to see how the triangular head look would work in 3d animation just for fun! Overall, Phineas and Ferb is one of those rare gems we get on Saturday mornings in a period of time where I was starting to loose faith in TV animation.
Son of the Mask (2005)
What's the point?
The Mask film and the (excellent) cartoon series are some of my favorite childhood memories. It was only this morning that I actually watched this film and boy did I cringe all the way through! The plot is nonsensical, the humor is a poor impression of the cat-and-mouse style chase sequences we saw in the Tex Avery era (the main character even has his name based on the animation genius, dear lord!), the acting is hammy, dialogue is tin-eared and the CG animation scenes with the dog and baby are not even half believable or convincing. I even found it's overabundance of wide lens camera shots questionable.
Everything in this film is just stitched together with very little sense of thought resulting in one of the most annoying, frustrating and painfully unfunny films I have ever seen. Should be up there with Battlefield Earth, Manos the Hands of Fate and even Freddy Got Fingered.