Funny thing is, I don't understand why it's an animation. Perhaps the filmmaker didn't have enough money to make a live-action version? While the plot is twisty enough, and the dialogue quite fun, the pacing feels rather slow, and the somewhat dull animation doesn't help.
Visually entertaining enough, though there's not much meat there. Mark Rylance is the best thing about the movie - as he usually is - giving his weird character surprising depth and emotion. The 3D was fun, though probably not essential.
Proves once more that some actors can be really good directors (and writers) too. The premise is brilliantly simple, it's nail-bitingly tense, and you genuinely care about the characters. The nail in the stairs doesn't really make logical sense, and the score can be a tad overbearing, but they're forgivable; everything else just works perfectly.
So utterly dumb and generic that even downing a sake cup while watching it didn't make it better. Gone are Del Toro's unique vision and voice, replaced by bland characters who aren't given room to grow, so you don't really care what happens to them, as well as shameless pandering to the Mainland Chinese market (UGH). There are a couple of nice plot surprises, but even those could've been handled less clumsily. And I did not like the camerawork - so many bloody closeups for no discernible reason at all. Still, if you like giant robots, I guess it's still worth watching on a long-haul plane ride.
It's a trashy B-grade premise that desperately wants to be an Important Film, and so takes itself way too seriously to be interesting. It really needed a Verhoeven at the helm, someone who wasn't afraid to push buttons and sensibilities in the service of providing lurid pulpy entertainment. Apart from the multiple twists in the final act, it's pretty dull. Still, you can't say Lawrence isn't committed.
Maybe the last time I watch an animated feature based on an anime series. It's never worked out well for me so far... Anyway, I remember watching the series on TV, dubbed into Chinese, as a child, but of course don't remember anything else apart from some character designs. Speaking of which, you don't notice these things as a child, but some of the villain character designs are seriously disturbing - like a half-male-half-female hybrid who speaks in two voices, and another one whose head detaches from his body and flies around. The movie as a whole is really confusing unless you're very familiar with the source material, which I'm not (come on, the series was in the 1970s!). I think I'd like to blame it on just sloppy writing, since there are more than a few redundant characters and nonsensical ostensibly-comical interludes. It tries to get all deep and metaphysical for the climax, but it's all just really silly. Would've helped if the fight scenes were awesome, because who doesn't like giant robots, right? But sadly, they were visually incoherent and really kinda lazy. (Yelling out battle moves as you're doing them is also very passe now)
A complex lead performance is what's strongest about this quirky film, which is very watchable on the whole. However, it's a little disappointing that it isn't really progressive in its depiction of female characters, especially coming from a female writer/director.
While the basic premise is absurd and never properly addressed (there is literally no good reason why this particular person should be the scapegoat), at least the developments are logical and exciting. An above-average thriller, despite the somewhat-forced sentimentality.
Not the strongest work Aardman has done, even though it's the most ambitious. And I'm honestly not a fan of the character designs in this one. Still, it's pretty entertaining, if a little simplistic. Of course, it being stop-motion, you gotta give points for effort.
A nicely understated human drama with a simple plot, but complicated issues, told in a straightforward manner. I liked the fact that it wasn't sentimental in the traditional, commercial sense, though it is very much about sentiments.
There are plot issues, for sure, and it's immensely frustrating when in this day and age, people still insist on investigating dark and foreboding places on their own. But holy shit, the skill with which all this is done, the building of torturous tension... all of that is brilliant and masterful. The result is a film that is exactly what the title says - creepy. Creepy as fuck. It got under my skin and made me squirm and cringe and gasp at all the right places. Thanks to Kiyoshi Kurosawa, I'll never look at vacuum bags the same way again.
Harsh, brutal, but at the same time, very much filled with life - even if it does raise the question of whether life is even worth living. In-your-face symbolism aside, I do wonder at the end of the day what the point was, even though I did enjoy the film.
While I did enjoy it, I wanted very much to like it more. But at the end of the day, it's not much more than two "artists" pulling stunts to try to impress the plebs. All that crap they pull isn't cheap at all, and most of it just feels like a waste of (crowdsourced, it seems) money. Agnès Varda is charming as hell, though, and so much fun to watch. JR just comes off as a pretentious wanker.
It's definitely not for everyone, as it's filled with near-ridiculous dialogue performed at the flattest levels possible, and it's all completely divorced from any form of reality. But damn, it's fascinating and beautiful and unsettling - often all at the same time.
Japanese mainstream weepies aren't known for their subtlety, but this is a happy exception. While the reveals and twists could easily be extremely over-the-top in the hands of a lesser writer and director, they're well-calibrated here, and quietly devastating.
Nicely creepy in tone, though the more twists it throws at you, the more ludicrous it becomes, until it eventually solves the mysteries in a rather tired manner. The performances are worth watching, though.
Feels a tad long, but the excellent leads, especially Rebecca Hall, draw us in. The themes of freedom, feminism, and intellectualism, are always important and relevant.
This was simply a whole lotta fun. It's actually quite difficult to find a studio comedy that isn't dumb, filled with good actors who have excellent chemistry, and are really funny. So, yay!
