20160306: Animation Review--Hell and Back

Name: Hell and Back (2015)
IMDb: link to Hell and Back page

Genres: Adult Animation, Comedy   Country of origin: USA.

Voice Cast: Nick Swardson as Remy, Mila Kunis as Deema, Bob Odenkirk as the Devil, Susan Sarandon as Barb the Angel, Danny McBride as Orpheus, T. J. Miller as Augie, Rob Riggle as Curt, Kerri Kenney-Silver as Madame Zonar, Jennifer Coolidge as Durmessa.

Directed by: Tom Gianas, Ross Shuman.  Written by: Hugh Sterbakov, Zeb Wells, Tom Gianas.

image courtesy of TMDb

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
Remy and Augie work at a run-down carnival, Remy as a hawker, and Augie as the handyman/fixer. The biggest attraction is called 'Gates to Hell' and it breaks down recurrently.  The budget is limited for spare parts and safety features, 'run-down' is probably a stable state, especially after the bank foreclosure.  Their life-long friend Curt has responsibilities at the park, but no authority.  Curt's boss is a dedicated zoned-out doper.  Will there be upgrades to make the park competitive, or even safe?  Probably not.

Remy looks for some hail Mary action to save the park, but instead settles on a book of Madame Zonar's concerning Beelzebub.  Curt asks Remy for a mint, and Remy gets Curt to seal a blood oath on the book that he will pay back the mint.  Curt openly admits that he lied.  This breaking of the oath activates the dormant Gates of Hell ride.  Curt gets pulled down.  While the vortex is still active, Remy and Augie follow into Hell, so as to find Curt and save his sorry self.

Delineation of conflicts:
The Devil would like to have sex with Barb the Angel.  Barb knows this, and leverages it into having the Devil find Remy and Augie, so that she can get 'save the misplaced mortals' off her To Do list.

Remy and Augie are looking for Orpheus, since he was able to walk out of hell with a person who was condemned.  Deema the half-demon is looking for Orpheus for her own reasons.

One of the demon unions is pissed that there have not been enough sacrifices lately.  Curt gets nominated, largely to his ill-considered speech, and his sacrifice becomes a big event in Hell.

Curt tries negotiating directly with the Devil, who has to deal with the demon union.

Resolution: Can the protagonists save Curt?  Will Curt save himself?

One line summary: WTH meets WTF.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 8/10  I've been watching stop action animation for a number of decades, and this looks rather good.

Sound: 9/10 For many sections of the film, the incidental music is choreographed precisely with the movements of the characters to good effect.

Voice Acting: 10/10 Full marks.

Screenplay: 1/10 Rude, crude, and barbaric.  The story line is competent.  However, the vileness of the speech is next to incomprehensible.  Early on, I hoped Hell would contract to a point with all characters trapped there forever.  I never lost that feeling.

Final rating: 6/10 Neutral.  Proceed at your own risk. Not for the faint of heart, or for anyone with virgin ears.  If you like relentlessly grinding irreverence, this is for you.

20140321: Horror Review--Resident Evil: Damnation

Resident Evil: Damnation

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Japanese animated feature length film, 2012, rated R, 100 minutes, horror.
2. IMDB: 6.5/10.0 from 10,748 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...' and 74% liked it from 1,654 audience ratings.
4. I watched this on Crackle.
5. Directed by: Makoto Kamiya.
6. Starring: Matthew Mercer as Leon S. Kennedy, Dave Wittenberg as Buddy/Sasha, Wendee Lee as Svetlana Belikova, Val Tasso as JD, Robin Sachs as Ataman, Courtenay Taylor as Ada Wong.


2. Setup and Plot
1. This is animation via 3d modelling tools coupled with recording of live actions.  Looks wonderful; better, in fact, than many live action horror films that I have reviewed lately.


2. The main action takes place in a fictional former Soviet bloc nation, Eastern Slav Republic, that came into existence after the fall of the USSR.  The film follows an American agent, Leon S. Kennedy, who goes rogue during the continuing civil war in ESR.  The rumour that Leon wants to check out is whether or not the rebel forces in the civil war are using BOWs (Bio Organic Weapons).  Leon encounters a BOW almost immediately.


3. President Svetlana brings in Ada Wong from the BSAA (Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance) to look into the allegations.  By themselves, the BOW are useless (attack friend and foe alike), but if a plaga is applied, control can be asserted.  Sounds tricky.  Leon needs to get some sort of evidence of all this.  So does Ada Wong.


4. The things that look like zombies walking around in Eastern Europe seem to be humans enslaved by plaga attaching themselves to spinal cords.  Great.  I was expected a high quality zombie film, and got a no zombie film.


5. Will Leon or Ada get the evidence they needed?  Will the ESR survive as a country?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Amazing animation accomplishment; not so amazing plot.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 10/10 Exceptional; I'd like to give it a 73 out of 10, but 10 is tops.  Most of the film looks great.  Loved the fight sequences between Ada Wong and President Svetlana.


2. Sound: 8/10 Sound leveling could be better.  Going from fight-action music to/from conversation is a disaster.


3. Voice Acting: 7/10 This varies a lot.  Matthew Mercer, Wendee Lee, and Courtenay Taylor were good. Val Tasso was mighty irritating.  Most of the others were competent.


4. Story: 4/10 Wow. Terrible dialog in so many places.  Is this a civil war film, a zombie film,  an east vs west film, a biohazard film?  The connections to Resident Evil seem weak.

20140131: Animation Review--Kaena: The Prophecy

Kaena: the Prophecy

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. French live action feature length film, 2003, PG13, 85 minutes, animation, adventure, fantasy.
2. IMDB: 6.2/10.0 from 3,082 audience ratings. 
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 7% on the meter; 44% liked it from 5,626 audience ratings.
4. I saw this on Crackle.
5. Directed by: Chris Delaporte, Pascal Pinon.
6. Starring: Kirsten Dunst as Kaena, Richard Harris as Opaz, Anjelica Huston Queen of the Selenites, Michael McShane as Assad, Keith David as Voxem.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The picture starts near a village high on a huge vine called Axis.  One resident is Kaena, a young adult woman who likes to adventure, while the rest of the village is bound to harvesting sap and offering it to the gods.


2. For sassing the priest, she is exiled.  She is captured by an unfamiliar group that is very interested in her because she has curiosity, and will venture beyond the village.


3. Opaz and his people have reconstructed a star ship to return to their home planet.  Kaena sees visions of a repository of knowledge of Opaz' people.


4. After various machinations, the repository opens itself to Kaena, with conflict all around her.


5. Will the disputes among the groups be resolved?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Relentlessly ugly and poor animation meets nearly opaque script.
2. Two stars of five


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 2/10  There is seriously too much negative space is the artwork for most of the scenes, rather like the more disgusting parts of the Alien series, or most of H. R. Giger's paintings or sculptures.  It is mostly dark, dull, depressing, surreal, and hideous. Other parts of the film are overly bright and washed out.  Neither of these habits is attractive or 'eye candy' as I have seen this monstrosity described so often. Here and there I see serious frame jumps, the kind one sees in a flip book.


2. Sound: 2/10 Amazingly bad leveling.  Keep your hand near the volume control.  This detracted seriously from the voice acting.


3. Acting: 4/10 Richard Harris and Keith David were fine; Kirsten Dunst was much better than I expected.  The queen and so many others were just terrible.


4. Screenplay: 3/10 Next to opaque.  Exposition of motivations was a distant, never achieved goal.

20140131: Action Review--Heavy Metal 2000

Heavy Metal 2000

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian/German animated feature length film, 2000, rated R, 86 minutes, action, animation, fantasy, music.  Spoken word is in English.  Aspect, 1.85
2. IMDB: 5.3/10.0 from 5,005 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 15 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 0% on the meter; 37% liked it from 11,804 audience ratings.
4. I watched this on Crackle on its last day for a while.
5. Directed by:
6. Starring: Michael Ironside as Tyler, Julie Strain as Julie, Billy Idol as Odin, Pier Paquette as Germain St. Germain, Sonja Ball as Kerrie.


2. Setup and Plot
1. An ordinary space miner named Tyler touches a shard of a glowing rock that gives him a hunger for power and a thirst for immortality.  He attacks a space colony, Eden, to kill people and collect survivors who have a precious substance in their blood.  Unfortunately for Tyler, he kidnapped Kerrie, but left alive her sister Julie.  Germain was in his crew, but when Germain tries to protect Kerrie, Tyler leaves Germain behind.


2. Jule dragoons Germain, and they follow Tyler on his journey to a jump point.  They hitch a ride just before Tyler's ship enters the wormhole (the 'jump point').  Tyler tries to kill them.  The results are really bad for both ships.  They crash on a nearby planet where Julie meets Odin and his rock-like assistant.  Odin is in search of the 'Key' (the glowing rock) which Julie is oblivious to.


3. Tyler becomes leader of a local race of lizard people.  He searches for the pool of the pure substance that will give him immortality.  Odin leads Julie to Tyler's ship, where she rescues Kerrie.  They go back to the city that protects the pool and the chamber of immortality.


4. Will Julie and her new friends be able to protect the city from the lizard horde?  Will they keep Tyler from his goal?


3. Conclusions
1. Favourite quote: 'how do you lose a six foot bitch with a talking rock?'
2. One line summary: Not PC, guns blazing, swords slashing, revenge, spaceships, ample bosoms, aliens, and metal soundtrack.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 6/10 Varies from barely competent to good.  It seems a bit weak for a film made around 2000.  Also, the use of mixed productions modes (some flat, some hand drawn, some done by export of 3d modelling) is rather distracting.


2. Sound: 8/10 The sound levels might have been a bit better balanced.  The metal background music seemed to be kept too low compared to the sound levels for gunfire, explosions and voices.


3. Voice: 10/10 Michael Ironside, Julie Strain, Billy Idol, and Pier Paquette were all fine.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 The twin quests for revenge and for immortality move the story right along.  However, the story lacks the powerful heart and heroism of the first film.

20131221: Animation Review--Strange Frame

Strange Frame: Love & Sax

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American animated feature length film, 2012, NR, 96 minutes, drama, romance, SciFi.
2. IMDB: 7.6/10.0 from 1,207 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 2 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...', and 94% liked it from 42 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.3/5.0 from 15,736 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: G. B. Hijim.
6. Starring: Claudia Black as Parker C. Boyd, Tara Strong as Naia X., Ron Glass as Philo D Grenman, Cree Summer as Reesa Abi Kiran Ariana Livingston III, Tim Curry as Dorlan Mig, Juliette Landau as Bitsea, Alan Tudyk as Chat.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Naia is a singer, Parker a saxophone player.  They made good music together until they encountered Dorlan Mig, who drugged both of them.  He threw out Parker, and denied her access to Naia.


2. Parker barely manages to keep her best saxophones.  She eventually meets Grenman, the all-around fixit man on a spaceship.  This gives her a safe home and friends.  However, the ship's onboard AI is going psycho, and is sabotaging the ship.


3. It's the late 28th century, and humanity lives mostly off Earth: Mars, the Jovian satellites, large asteroids, and places further out, rather like in Cowboy Bebop.  There is a war among the various planets, satellites, space stations, and asteroids.  AI and robotics are enormously further along than on 21st century Earth.


4. Parker sells one of her saxes to help pay the bills on Grenman's ship. She investigates her former band.  She takes the bass of the player Atem, who abandoned it and his clothes.  Parker promises to give the bass to Atem if she finds him.  She meets Chat, another band member, and tries to figure what Dorlan did with Naia.


5. She attends one of Naia's current shows, takes recordings, feels the singing with her singer's sense..  Parker becomes quarter owner of the ship, and the crew sets about to help her to kidnap the 'fake' Naia.


6. Will Parker succeed in rescuing the real Naia?  Will the captain succeed in regaining complete control of his ship from the AI?  Will Dorlan get his just reward?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Lush voices, fine music, good story, hideous visuals.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Art: 4/10 Terrible. Ugly.  An assault on the eyes.  A festival of hideous images.


2. Sound: 10/10 Voices and incidental music were fine.


3. Voicing: 10/10 Claudia Black was brilliant, Ron Glass excellent.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 A touching and inventive story set in the Cowboy Bebop like future environment.

20131123: Animation Review--The Rabbis Cat

The Rabbi's Cat

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. French animated feature length film, 2011, NR, 100 minutes.  Spoken word is in French; English subtitles.
2. IMDB: 6.7/10.0 from 1,101 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 12.5 million euros.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 94% on the meter; 71% liked it from 1,038 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 5,439 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Antoine Devesvaux.
6. Starring: voice actors: Maurice Benichou as the rabbi, Francois Merel as the cat of the rabbi, Hafsia Hertzi as Zlabya (daughter of the rabbi), Karina Testa as Zlabya's friend, Mathieu Amalric as the Prince.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Set in Algiers initially, then many places in Africa around 1920.


2. A cat adopts a rabbi and his daughter.  The cat, after eating a talking parrot, gains the ability to speak and read.  He helps the rabbi with his professional development test.  In doing so he invokes God's name; the rabbi passes, but the cat temporarily loses his ability to speak French.


3. A large box of books from Russia; the box also contains a body.  Only the cat recognizes that the body is still alive.  When the cat awakens the Russian, he finds the prince can understand him (in Russian) even though the others cannot understand him in French.


4. They look for a person in Algiers who speaks both Russian and French.  The rabbi finds him and recruits him to translate for the prince.


5. There are a number of philosophical discussions and talks about the politics of the area in 1920.  As a side effect of all this, a quest is started to find black Jews in Africa.  Getting there was hilarious.  It is also revealed that the prince wants to paint all sorts of subjects throughout Africa.


6. The rabbi, the prince, the cat, the rabbi's Arab Muslim friend and his talking donkey set out to find this city.  There are lots of changes along the way.  The cat regains his ability to speak French.  The prince finds his wife.  Eventually the prince and his new bride find the city.  The humour is outstanding.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Lovely, funny, clever, and beautiful.
2. Five stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 10/10 The style is pen and ink, with minimal shading.  This is rather well executed in great detail.


2. Sound: 10/10 Always good.


3. Screenplay: 10/10 Brilliant writing for an ensemble of clever characters.  The story is humorous and moves right along, from beginning to middle to happy ending.  The comedy of manners aspect is deftly handled.

20131108: Animation Review--Arjun Warrior Prince

Arjun the Warrior Prince

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Indian animated feature length film, 2012, NR, 94 minutes, animation, adventure.  Spoken language is Hindi, subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 6.7/10.0 from 781 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 57% on the meter; 68% liked it from 1,772 from audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.5/5.0 from 38,894 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Arnad Chaudhuri.
6. Starring: Yuddvir Bakoliya as Arjun, Ila Arun as Kunti, Anjun Srivastav as Lord Shiva, Sachin Khedekar as Lord Krishna, Vishnu Sharma as Bheeshma.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Arjun is a young noble in training to be a warrior.


2. Opportunities arise to show that the training took.


3. About half way into the film, the consistent message is "he is not ready."


4. Then through his inaction, his family's enemies burn down their compound.


5. Through a contest, followed by a lot of hard work, their fortunes are restored.


6. Then he is a king dispensing justice.  I do not believe that.


7. Then he plays a crooked game of chance and loses everything, including his princess.  Brilliant.  He bets again, with banishment for 12 years being his wager.  Great. The city that he and his family built is lost.  Amazing incompetence.  His bride tries to galvanize him.  He travels to the region of the gods to gain something or another. An old decrepit man beats the living daylights out of him.  That was pleasant.  We later find that old man to be Shiva in disguise.


8. By the time he was attacked by the army of demons from all sides, I was rooting for the demons to kill this useless waste of skin.  Unfortunately, he lives and is rewarded with a fine bow by the Gods themselves.


9. He and his few friends plot to rid themselves of the scum who cheated them out of so much.  Their plans are overheard, even though the wily Krishna was supposedly helping them.


10. The film jump-shifts to the enemies of Arjun feinting to draw most of his allies away, then attacking the heart of the stronghold where he lives.  Just finding them will bring down 12 more years of banishment.  Again, just incredibly clever.  There are 3 men to defend.


11. Arjun, dressed as a woman, comes out with the local prince, Yuvraj, perhaps 12 years of age.  They find Arjun's real weapons, and the one-against-an-army fight begins.  Even in this, Arjun demonstrates his incompetence.  He should have been slain three times or so.


12. The invitation to a sequel is made at the end.  May it not be so.


3. Conclusions
1. I saw The Mahabharata (1989 live action film by Peter Brook), which I thoroughly enjoyed.  This bad animation is nonsense in comparison.
2. One line summary: What should have been a stellar film is a technical and writing disaster.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 2/10 The visuals do catch the eye, but not always in a good way.  Too much of the action looks like the characters are on one layer, and the backgrounds on another.  More than anything else, it looks like the 'flattening' of the layers for presentation was poorly thought out in terms of 3d light sources.  The characters look disassociated for that reason.  The backgrounds look great as backgrounds, while the character images look (barely) competent; the flattened final product, on the other hand, looks fake. The characters are often simplistic, rigid, and moving in odd ways as well as being ill-lit. This was a huge let down, an ongoing irritation that just never goes away.  Clearly a great deal of effort was expended on the backgrounds.  It is too bad that similar effort was not spent on making sure the final rendering did not throw that all away.


2. Sound: 8/10 OK.  Loved the singing in the closing credits.


3. Screenplay: 2/10 The narration seems jumpy, and short on exposition.  The Arjun character, the centre of the story, is just not believable as a hero, not believable as a king, not believable as an inspirational warrior capable of turning the tide of war.  The camaraderie between Arjun and Krishna I was expecting seemed almost absent.  The scene where Arjun shoots the golden fish is anti-climactic because there is less than zero motivation for it.  He is portrayed repeatedly as a foul-up, a child, someone incapable of protecting his own.  Then he does this mighty deed requiring great skill and huge strength?  Are we viewers all supposed to be idiots who accept anything? The centre of the action remains re-enforcing the strongly etched image of Arjun's worthlessness up to about 70 minutes into the film.  The last 24 minutes did not change that image.

20130617, lundi--3 mini reviews

20130617, lundi; continued through 20130620, jeudi

A. The Gift

1. Released in 2000, rated R, 111 minutes.
2. Sam Raimi director; Billy Bob Thornton was one of the writers.
3. Stars Cate Blanchett, Keanu Reeves, Katie Holmes, Greg Kinnear, Hilary Swank, Gary Cole, J. K. Simmons, Giovanni Ribisi, Kim Dickens, Michael Jeter.
4. Thriller, mystery, supernatural elements.  Set in the fictitious town of Brixton, Georgia.
5. Slow start.  Long slow middle.  Deadly boring through to the disappointing end.
6. There were a number of unbelievable elements.  Katie Holmes and Greg Kinnear as a couple?  No; Greg's 15 years older than she is.  Hilary Swank as a punching bag?  No.  Cate Blanchett as a psychic?  Nope.  Cate Blanchett as an American, as a lower class single mother in Georgia?  No, no, no.  Giovanni Ribisi with a cast of real actors?  Dubious at best.  I like almost all of this group of actors, but in different kinds of roles.
7. Mild plus ratings for J.K. Simmons and Michael Jeter for injecting chunks of skepticism.
8. Suspend disbelief?  No, I'm gritting my teeth.
9. 111 minutes is too long; 30 would have been better.
10. One star of five.

B. Animals

1. Mark Blucas, Naveen Andrews, Nicki Aycox
2. 2008, 93 minutes, NR, horror, supernatural, werewolves
3. Mark Blucas' character gets dragged along through the film by his new werewolf girlfriend.  This passive role is is not one of my favorites for him.
4. Naveen Andrews' character in Animals varies among the following states: menacing, threatening, demanding, and ultraviolent.  I liked him better in Lost, and some of his other works, such as The English Patient and Kama Sutra, where he was able to show his range.
5. Nicki Aycox has been doing competent work for a number of years in a number of roles.  In this film, I liked her performance better than Blucas' for instance.
6. The film was dark, blurry, and murky; this describes the plot as well as the lighting.
7. Two stars of five.

C.  Kaze no Stigma

1. Anime series, 2007, TV-14, 24 episodes at 24 minutes each (well, perhaps 18 minutes of content)
2. Supernatural thriller with comedy and romance elements; set in contemporary Japan; use of fire, air, and earth magic
3. The main character, Kasuma was born into the fire magic clan, but cannot learn it.  He is cast out of his clan for this failure.  He returns as the 'contractor' for the Wind Spirit King; that is, one of the most trusted and powerful of all wind magic users.  He bears the stigma of the wind (Kaze no Stigma); that is, very blue eyes when resonating with the wind spirits. 
4. After a bad start, Kasuma and the fire clan try to come into harmony.  Along the way, they battle other potent families and some European magicians who use the Internet to disseminate bad mojo.
5. Finally finished it.  Great.  Wish there could be more, but I read the creator of the series passed on.
6. Five stars of five.