A Japanese science fiction written and directed by Noboru Iguchi, starring Takumi Saito, Naoto Takenaka and Asami Sugiura with special effects by Yoshihiro Nishimura.
A geisha saves a politician from being killed by assassins and tells him the story of how she became "RoboGeisha, maiko of steel". A corrupt businessman found her as her sister's servant and trained her as an assassin, adding mechanical weapon upgrades to her body. She finds a grieving group of activists whose relatives have been abducted by the businessman and trained as she was.
I'm really into Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noboru Iguchi's films right now. This seems to be the best, alongside Tokyo Gore Police (2008). The camera-work is really good, clearly showing all of the action and using good angles and video effects to add impact. The plot was clearly presented and characters memorable, but I had trouble keeping track of which sister was which at times. Although heavily reliant on CG, the special effects were amazing. There were some actual physical special effects involved too. Overall, this film is way over the top, action-packed and fun. I rate it best. WATCH IT!
A Canadian adventure drama directed by Steve Barron, distributed by the Hallmark corporation.
A young native American man living on a reservation is forced to drive his grandfather to the All Nations Powwow. Along the way, they meet people and get in situations which the grandfather explains by telling stories.
This was actually pretty cool. The CG, special effects and monsters were a little over-done, but the plot and characters were good. They used a speeded up/time lapse effect that looked not so great in some scenes and there was a giant snake that came out of a pond which was obviously CG. The grandfather's stories shared about equal (or correct portion) of the time with the characters' journey to the powwow and I liked the ending. I'm rating it adequate.
An American partially CG animated science fiction by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.The earth is destroyed by aliens and one of the few remaining humans has a map on his hand to find the means of making a new planet. The shady captain of a ship picks him up and they try to find the planet maker.I remember liking this a lot more when I was younger. Now it seems too Disney to me. The plot and characters are stereotypical, but the style is kind of cool. I like the drawn animation, but could go without the pure CG stuff. I'm rating this adequate.
An action fantasy directed by Rob Bowman, starring Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey.A boy visits his mother in the mine where she works when a drilling team hits a cavern. Dragons come out of the cavern and attack the city. Years later, the boy has grown up and is in charge of a fortress full of people, trying to survive in a land ruled by dragons. A group of dragon hunters show up and they work together to fight the dragons.What we've got here is a mediocre film with really cool CG dragons. The plot and characters are relatively shallow and the style leaves much to be desired, but damn are those dragons cool. I'm instituting a new rule that should have been old by now. I call it the "CG monster rule" and it raises the rating by one increment when the CG monsters are worth watching. Hence, I rate this adequate via the "CG monster rule".
A fantasy by Dave McKean.A young woman escapes from her carnival performer life in the form of a vivid dream/hallucination of a quest to find a mirrormask to save the white queen from the darkness.There was too much CG. The style and production value were "new movie" perfect. It was not savable from there. The plot and characters would have worked, if not for the forces against them (CG and perfection). I wanted the movie to be good, but it wasn't. It was over-produced crap. Pan's Labyrinth got a good rating because the same aspects were used in a good way, but this film used them in a detrimental manner. I have to rate it bad out of moral principles. Yeah, I'm a total hard-ass on movies again.
A science fiction fantasy directed by Enki Bilal.As an Egyptian pyramid hovers over New York City, Horus is let out for 7 days and makes a deal with/possesses an escaped political criminal. Meanwhile, an alien woman with white skin and blue hair is captured by the government, but turned over to a medical researcher. It only gets weirder from there.Strange but very cool. Throughout the film there is a mixture of live action and CG animation. Some people and places are actors on sets and some is just computer generated. Sometimes the line between production methods blurs and the viewer is left to ponder if what they're looking at is real or CG. The plot and characters were good and reminded me a little of The Fifth Element. I liked the style and, as I have stated, the production. I'm rating this good.
A fantasy directed by Chris Weitz, starring Nicole Kidman.In a world where people have animal counterparts that are bonded for life, a girl finds out about kids being abducted. The woman that she is staying with turns out to be in charge of this operation and the girl heads off to rescue the children.There are many things to comment on: The animals that these people have are called demons, to start with. One of the men in the film is named Azrael, also known as the angel of death with 4 faces, 4 thousand wings and a body made up of tongues and eyes equal to the human population of Earth. The ruling elite in the film push conformity in many of the same ways that the ruling elite here do it. The child abduction scheme rang a bell as well (Project MONARCH and MK ULTRA). I was especially entertained by their version of unmanned spy planes. The only thing more entertaining than that was an object that I misheard as being called an "anesthesiometer". New world order/Illuminati similarities aside, it was mainly a kids' film and about 95% CG. I'm rating it poor because I didn't like it, but it gave me something to write about.
A CG animated fantasy directed by Tetsuya Nomura.The plot of the video game, Final Fantasy VII is continued. A group of powerful men are looking for a piece of an alien and they kidnap children that have a certain disease related marking on them. The heroes from the video game must defeat these men.The soundtrack was absolutely amazing! There were some songs from the game and some were remade into power metal. I especially liked the song from the final boss battle. The animation used the new movie technique of quick moving cameras, which I didn't like, but overall, things looked o.k. Some of the characters ended up with strange voices in the English version, but that's to be expected. I'm rating this adequate.
A CG animation directed by Christopher Nielsen.Animal liberators, thugs and a biker gang all chase an elephant that is addicted to heroine.This definitely isn't Pixar as the elephant gets dope-sick, all the characters swear, some have sex and people get their heads blown off graphically. In the picture, Jimmy the elephant is shooting drugs out of his nose. I thought the characters and plot were good. The pacing was a little slow and the style was dark, but appropriate for the subject matter. I'm rating this good.
A CG animation directed by David Rubin.Humans in the area want to build a road through a forest inhabited by anthropomorphic animals.This is a kids film and not a very good one. I'm generally not interested in this type of thing. The mouse character is some bland mixture of Jamaican/South American cultural stereotypes. Seeing how my opinion is what runs this blog, I'm rating it bad.
A series of CG animations by Ryuji Masuda.A hobo finds an item in his alley which leads to a plot developing.Each episode is about 5 minutes until the half hour finale. I didn't really like the animation style and the sound effects and music were annoying. Some of the plots were good, but most of them made me glad that it only lasts 5 minutes. I'm rating it poor because it's a little too annoying for my tastes.
A fantasy directed by Robert Zemeckis.A hero comes to a land that is cursed by a monster. He slays the monster and placates it's mother by giving her a golden mead-horn. He is then made king. One day, the horn is returned and he knows that the mother will return with it.This is how to do CG fantasy right. They start with a good, old story and make the monsters impressive. Then they add sea monsters and a dragon. It can't go wrong. I'm rating it good.
A CG anime directed by SORI.Japan cuts itself off from the rest of the world to develop androids for 10 years. When evidence of their progress is seen, a special team enters Japan to find out what's going on. The team is almost destroyed upon entry and one woman joins up with some Japanese "people" to fight for the remains of humanity.If you liked the CG Appleseed films, this would be a good one for you. The animation has some style to it and the plot kept me interested. On the new world order side of things, the Japanese government (in film) used forced vaccinations "to protect people" in order to control them. I'm rating it worthy because CG isn't my thing, but it was pretty good.
A half CG anime directed by Mamoru Oshii.Prototype robots start attacking their owners before killing themselves. The invisible stripper's partner from section 9 goes to investigate.The audio was in English and had English subtitles, but they didn't match. The phrasing was different. The video was good, but it seemed like a waste to use such good video for such a dull plot.check out: We never find out if the dog is real.This one is such a curve ball. The production quality and the characters are really good, but the plot almost put me to sleep. It's very slow moving and very long. I'll just give it an o.k. to avoid confusion.
A CG anime directed by Shinji Aramaki.A common bluetooth headset/social networking device activates it's mind control program.The audio was bad. All of the important dialogue was almost muted. The video was o.k.check out: Does the beginning look like Prince of Persia with guns to anyone else?The CG made this look like a non-interactive video game. I'm serious, the plot mirrored the plots of many video games and there was even a "final boss battle" in the climax. If I want to play video games, I'll play video games. If I want to watch a movie, it had better be a movie. That's why this one scores so badly.
A CG anime directed by Shinji Aramaki.A female warrior is recruited for a mission in Utoipa. Some humans want to destroy the clones that can't reproduce, but others want to keep the clones, let them reproduce, and keep humans from reproducing.The audio and video were fine.I like traditional cartoon style anime, so this entirely CG film was not exactly what I expected. There's a decent amount of action involved and a complex plot, so it wasn't a total waste. I'm saying o.k. because it would have been better if it had been regular anime.
