Akira
PLOT
Taking place in 2019, 30 years after WWIII and the destruction of old Tokyo, Neo-Tokyo is on the verge of destruction. Kaneda is the leader of a youth bike gang with his friends. When chasing after a rival gang, Kaneda's best friend, Tetsuo, gets into a wreck and is kidnapped by the government and entered into a secret project. At the same time, there's a group of rebels who are trying to save the children in this program who have been given essentially super powers. Tetsuo, armed with these unmastered powers, escapes and runs rampant in the city while Kaneda, the rebels, the governement, and the other super-powered children try to stop him from destroying the whole city and finding out the truth of the Akira project.
PROS
The animation in "Akira" is simply amazing. It's fluid, detailed, and even impressive by today's standards. The film earns the title of "greatest anime film" with its animation alone.
"Akira's" story is very original, at least for its time. It's full of big ideas, symbolism, and large scale destruction.
The film's pace is extremely fast and never lets up. There's always something going on in "Akira", whether it be extreme violence, story revelations, or world building, no frame of the film goes unused or feels wasted.
The score for "Akira" is also great. It's surreal and tribal, with a lot of chants and odd noises and instruments. It adds an odd feeling to the whole movie that somehow fits.
CONS
The plot can be a little convoluted at times. A lot of the bigger moments and their explanations are more hinted at then anything. While I'm glad the whole thing wasn't spelled out, I just wish there was a little more to help the viewer fully understand what's going on.
CONCLUSION
For years now, I'd always heard of "Akira" and how great it was, how it changed animated films forever and inspired so many other films like "The Matrix" and "Chronicle". Now that I've finally seen, I can agree with those statements 100%. While not the most cohesive movie, "Akira" is a marvel of animation and still holds up 25 years after its original release. I was enthralled by the film and couldn't stop watching. If you love animation in any way, shape, or form, this is a must see.
RATING
RUN TO
Equestria Girls... Uggghhhhh....
PLOT
Twilight Sparkle and her friends have been invited to the Crystal Empire for a celebration. That night, Twilight's crown is stolen by a bitter former student of Princess Celestia, ruler of the land of Equestria, named Sunset Shimmer. She escapes through a portal that leads to a world that no one has ever seen before. Twilight must go in alone, except her pet baby dragon Spike runs in after her, to retrive the crown and save Equestria from destruction. Once through the portal, Twilight discovers that she has been turned into a human and Spike has become a dog in this new world centered around a high school that human versions or her friends all attend. Now, Twilight must become princess of the Fall Formal dance to win the crown and save both her world, and this human one.
PROS
The first 10 minutes of the movie are great, because they take place in the pony world. This part also serves to tie up some loose ends from the recent season finale.
The animation, like on the show, is great. It's very colorful and fluid with a lot of stuff going on in the background.
The song "Helping Twilight Win the Crown" is a great song. While I realize it's insanely simple and probably not that well done, I still found it to be incredible catchy and fun.
CONS
Where to start. The plot, once we've entered the human world, is horrible. There are many plot holes and useless things that are really distracting. There's a whole soccer scene that's not funny in anyway, and turns out to have nothing to do with the movie. It's supposed to move the plot along, but without the scene the plot would've just kept going. The whole thing feels rushed and lazy.
The humor in the movie is extremely cliched and bad. This is a real disappointment, since the show is usually really clever and funny. Yet, most of the jokes here fall flat and have been done to death before.
Flash Sentry, who's a new love interest character for Twilight Sparkle, is a horrible character. He's whole personality is that he plays guitar, that's it. He contributes nothing to the story except for one thing that could've easily been resolved without him. It's also revealed at the end that he has a pony counterpart. While it has been said that he won't, thankfully, play a role in the show, this makes his character even more worthless.
Besides the song mentioned in the "Pros" section, all of them are forgettable and bad. A lot of them don't even have a place in the film. Another problem with the songs is that three of the four songs are all in the last 20 minutes. They don't give you enough time to soak in the songs, which are already bad, so this makes them even more forgettable.
Near the end of the film, the whole thing goes off the rails. The villain and her plan are reveled in their true form, both of which don't make any sense. If you think about her plan for more then a minute, there's a huge flaw that I won't go into since it's a spoiler. It's just poorly done.
There are a tons of in-jokes and references to the brony fandom, which I'm not quite sure how I feel about. On one hand, they stop the movie to a screeching halt for these references which contribute nothing to the plot and are gone just as fast as they appeared. On the other hand, they stop the movie to a screeching halt, which I desperately wanted each time these jokes appeared. Either way, these references feel like the animators and writer Megan McCarthy are jingling keys in front of our faces so we don't pay attention to what's actually going on in the film.
CONCLUSION
I know what you're probably thinking "Sam, why are you so mad at this film? It's a straight to dvd movie, what did you expect?" Well, being a big fan of the show, I expected at least something decent from this movie. What I got was a rushed mess of film made to capitalize on the recent "animated girls in high school" craze going on in kids entertainment. Whatever advancements the show had made on making little girls entreatment not sound like a bad thing, this film has nearly crushed them. While I'm still going to watch the show, I'll hopefully never see this movie ever again.
RATING
RUN AWAY!!
If you missed last weeks round up of reviews, you can check'em out here:http://newandclassicreviews.blogspot.com/2013/11/12-years-slave-bad-grandpa-captain.html
No comments:
Post a Comment