Ninja Scroll (1993)

Writer: Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Director: Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Studio: Animate Film

First watched: 29/07/2025

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Ninja Scroll

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
5		4	6	7	4

Ninja Scroll. Kinda cool but sadly over-hyped. I wouldn't necessarily say that Ninja scroll is a bad film but it's certainly not deserving of too much high praise. The main thing about it is that it absolutely has so much of that aesthetic, thematic and stylistic character of dope 80s/90s anime and undoubtedly is one of the big contributors to making that whole sub-genre what it was (and still is). However, although it's very visually appealing, the film itself, i.e. its story and characters, lacks substance and any kind of direction. So while it's a pretty cool nostalgic memory, it's not actually a great film.

Frustratingly, I have to kick this off with noting that the role of women in the film is absolutely atrocious. Every single woman character (which is a grand total of 3) had personality traits and story beats that revolved exclusively around sex or sexualisation, usually in a terrible way. They also had barely any impact on the plot for the most part.

First, you have the 2 female members of the '9 monsters': Benisato and Zakuro. Benisato is the first to appear, when she strips naked in the bathouse to show off her tattoos and activiate her snake technique. She then of course has the snakes glide around her breasts before she attacks. She later on appears completely naked again in the temple (meaning the context of being in a bathhouse was irrelevant the last time, apparently), to use the snake attack again; however, this time when she gets cornered, she has a snack pop out of her pussy for a sneak attack (not joking). The only other aspect of her character that we learn about is that Gemma (the main antagonis) regularly "makes love to her". That's it. You then get Zakuro, whose first lines of dialogue are her confessing her love to the leader of the 9 monsters, then trying it on with him. Her character story then concludes with her killing him for rejecting her advances. She has no other elements to her character.

Then we finally get to Kagero, the main female character of the film. She does actively participate in and influence the story, however it's all through insane or pathetic misogynistic means. Firstly, her 'power' is that she is immune to poison but also that any man she sleeps with will then die by poisoning. This is conveniently exploited by Dakuan (a government official), as the poison he uses on Jubei (the main man character) will be neutralised if she shags him. And as the story plays out, since he's the only man who views her as a person and not a tool, she ironically falls in love with him and wants to shag him for both reasons. This is the kind of role for women that you can only come up with when you genuinely do no view them as actual people and instead think they're just sex toys and romantic prizes. But the thing that really solidifies the mistreatment of women characters is for her troubles, we see Kagero get sexually assaulted not once but twice on screen. The first time you could argue is plot related, as she 'allows' this so that she can kill Tessai with her poison. Even then, the concept of her having to get sexually assaulted to win a fight shows an insane level of hatred and disregard towards women. But even if you did give that one a pass, you'd still have the second time, when Shijima, the sneaky shadow ninja of the 9 Monsters, manages to kidnap her to lure Jubei into his trap, he makes sure to take a moment to quickly sexually violate her for good measure. To be honest, I would find it difficult to describe this film as good when the treatment of women in it is blatantly terrible. So I guess that is something that should be kept in mind if anyone else ever reads this.

(Oh, also just remembered there is another woman character who appears - an unnamed woman who is very literally just there getting fucked by the head of Kagero's village when she goes to report back the death of her squadron to him. The guy doesn't even stop to have this conversation with her and just keeps fucking this women, who of course has to scream and moan the entire time. She's presumably a concubine, again showing the type of women the writers wanted to see in their film).

To speak about the other elements of the film then, I'd say that its concept, design and style are genuinely pretty cool. The 9 monsters is a great vehicle/set-up for driving interesting action sequences and overall creating obstacles in the story. Sadly, none of the monsters themselves really get enough screentime to properly create a problem, let alone have the main characters solve it meaningfully. A lot of their powers were really cool and very thematic for sneaky, hidden ninja technique type stuff, but the fights semed to end as soon as they started, pretty much. There was also randomly one of them whose power was just like... bees? That was a bit odd; maybe there's some Japanese mythology I'm not familiar with.

The story is pretty much a nothing story and doesn't really make much sense (to me, at least). All of the aura and mystique of the secret ninja techniques and the Edo period is kinda lost in the main storyline basically revolving around government representatives and a trade deal for blocks of gold(?). Super boring and just means the plot has no real weight to it. We're kinda just told that we should care about this trade deal enough to follow it, rather than it being geuinely interesting. Then right at the end of the story, Gemma, the big bad, decides to change up and want all the power to himself, which is so unbearably boring and predictable. Again, it carries next to no weight, because both he and the people he betrayed only appeared on screen 2 minutes prior. (I will however excuse the plot being boring and predictable, given the fact that this is one of the films that would have laid the foundation for these types of stories on the big screen - it is now 32 years old!). Gemma himself as the main antagonist is also very surface level. Pretty basic design, no interesting powers to speak of, just immorality (which is conceptually huge but narratively pretty pointless).

Even Jubei (the main character)'s journey to halt this evil plan is literally forced, so there's actually no real buy-in to wanting to see how it all gets resolved. Jubei has no specific or even general motivations in the film, which is good for forming his identity as this rogue shinobi but terrible for making the story engaging in any way. Also, the hatred Jubei feels towards Gemma is all based off an implied past that we learn very little about. We see a few flashbacks here and there, then get told that Gemma's an awful person and a demon over and over in the dialogue. It's a little bit patronising.

The animation is good! However, I think I could only give it 'good'; no higher. The fights are animated really well, with lots of environment, clothing and flowy hair also moving pleasantly and believably around it. And generally, whent things move, they move through 3 dimensional space very convincingly. The artwork is also fantastic throughout, especially how they use light and shade to describe forms in quite a lot of visual detail (which really adds to the sense of depth to the characters and movement). There is a fair amount of the animators being 'economical' but that's understandable; it also happens to a point that it breaks your suspense or looks uncanny.

For the storytelling, I think the fights, the tone, the style and concept etc. all come together to create a decent viewing experience. Your eye is directed well and it's clear what's happening, where things are etc. Although there aren't any particularly interesting storytelling devices, like. Plus the explanations around the plot are a little bit clunky. So not great but can't say it's terrible.

To be honest, I've struggled to find the focus to sit and write about this film and I think that itself explains how I feel about it. It's a film that didn't really strike me in any way for its brilliance and and no point did it make me feel any emotion more than mildly (other than contempt for its creators). So sadly, although this film is maybe a cult classic, I'd say that overall, it isn't actually very good. I would maybe relegate it to being great for having on in the background for visual interest but even that would be suspect, what with all the women getting raped and stuff. So really there's no place for this film. But it is kind of cool in some parts. That's about it.

Castlevania (2017)

Creator & Writer: Warren Ellis

Directors: Sam Deats, Spencer Wan, Adam Deats, Amanda Sitareh Bautista

Studio: Mua Film, Tiger Animation

Finished first watch: 14/11/2024

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Castlevania

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
4		3	4	5	3

Easily one of the weakest series I have ever watched. I hate to say that about something so many artists worked on over several years but it's honestly inescapable how poor this series is in almost every department. I'm genuinely confused how it got 4 seasons, especially considering how boring that 3rd season was.

I'll start with the one shining positive from the series, which is its artwork. Every drawing, painting, background and setting in this series is really beautiful. It has a clearly anime-influenced style that looks great and they use it to great effect. I'd say it has a strong visual identity. It even has a clear direction in terms of colour, with everything obviously being shifted towards dark and broody. The designs are also brilliant. Trevor, Alucard, Dracula, the forgemasters, the vampire sisters, all legitly fantastic and appealing designs. Big big shout out to Striga's day armour as well, fucking sick design. Someone clearly loved Berserk on that team. And of course, the castles, laboratories and libraries all felt very grand and wondrous. They did a good job of creating an aesthetic and a feeling of the series's world and it all fit together with the overall dark and sinister subject matter.

That leads onto the most disappointing aspect of the series, which is its animation. It's so upsetting to see such beautiful drawings move so lifelessly, if they move at all. The vast majority of screentime is taken up by super limited animation; maybe just a chin moving up and down as a character speaks, or drawings literally just being slid across the screen. I get that studios and producers want to save costs as much as they can but it made the show feel completely lifeless most of the time. And how much they did it was absolutley eggregious. There was an episode where Isaac talked to a night creature for about 10 minutes straight, with almost no animation to it. And the conversation they had was not relevant in any way to the story (which I'll come back to). So it didn't come across as being savvy and saving costs for the bigger moments; it honestly felt like they were trying to pull whole episodes out of their arses with as little substance as they could get away with. Another thing that I personally dislike and that makes the character acting/posing feel super uncanny is characters' heads being completely side on. Just makes for really flat animation and breaks any sense of immersion.

    There were, of course, scenes with significantly better animation quality. But they didn't do anywhere near enough - in my opinion - to make up for the low effort marathons across the rest of the show. That's partly because they were really few and far between but also because they weren't actually that good in themselves. All of the fights generally have lots of quick cuts, rarely show multiple characters on screen at the same time and never show complete, fluid action - it's always the wind up from one angle, then a flip to show the outcome from another. So so so much implied action as well. They had lots of detailed guts and gore (again, great drawings) but it would always be shown after something had already dropped dead. You'd never see the actual slashing and the gore as a clear single shot - and any slashing you did get was very Fist of the North Star. It's really disappointing to watch, because the fights were actually really well choreographed. The characters had cool and unique fighting styles and would usually pull off impressive and unorthodox manoeuvres; it was just a shame that we only got to see it in bits and pieces. Also in the later seasons, you could sadly see the quality of the drawings drop off noticeably in quite a few of these action sequences, which honestly felt like an insult being added to an already pretty bad injury. The later seasons are in fact a consistent disappointment across the board too.

Just watch this clip and look at how stiff and robotic all the animation is. If it's animated at all. This is very standard for the show and what the vast majority of screentime looks like. Watching it without sound really helps illustrate how lifeless it is. Listening with sound on highlights how mismatched the voice acting and character acting are.

Although you can still see how nice the character designs and drawings are - look at Saint Germain's jewellery, for example!

This clip, I think, gives a very fair representation of what the approach to fight scenes is like throughout. It's very cool, dnyamic, stylised and well choreographed. It might be entertaining to a lot of people. But there are so few drawings over such a long clip. And the two characters never really interact. Everything is implicit, which is made to look good but to me, just glosses over a lack of substance. Draw the fight!

Moving onto the plot: there basically isn't one. The first two seasons at least have an overarching story of Dracula wanting to kill all the humans and Trevor, Sypha and Alucard (TSA?) trying to stop him. That was incredibly loose, because there was a whole heap of inconsequential nothing that happened in between this. Dracula's war council being summoned and then having in-fighting all had close to no impact on the story at all. Even Carmilla's successful betrayal is kinda just... nothing. Like okay, she becomes the queen or whatever and usurps Dracula but that all just has so little significance. We don't care about Dracula very much (as we've had very little insight into who he is outside of the backstory given in episode 1) and Carmilla is a genuine side character, even after this whole thing. Then you have whatever TSA was up to; finding the library, getting into random night creature fights etc. All very cool and flashy but did very little for the plot. You could remove most of it and still have the same storyline play out unimpeded. Then the last two seasons were just totally unnecesary. The main reason for these characters to exist (in fact literally the only reason Alucard exists) was gone. They then set up these random, regional conflicts that meant absolutely nothing to anyone. Definitely dragged the show out for 2 Seasons 2 Long and in my opinion, ruined any chance Castlevania had at being remembered as decent.

    Supposedly significant scenes having very little impact was basically the theme for entire 4-season run, to be honest. For example:

•The final fight vs. Dracula at the end of season 2. Firstly, it comes after basically a full season of people just talking and posturing for a war that might happen; there's no real fuel given to the fight. Add to that the fact that we also never ever saw Dracula engage in combat (other than a flashback in which he kills a bunch of villagers), so we had no sense of how powerful he actually was or what sort of abilities he had. Defeating him didn't feel significant in any way or like any kind of challenge.

•You can add to that the fact that Alucard has zero on-screen interactions with Dracula - not even in flashbacks. So the first interaction you see them have is when Alucard arrives to kill him. That makes Alucard's crying scene another one with absolutely no emotional weight.

•Why was Death the final enemy? Of course we all understand the concept of death as an entity but he has no establishment whatsoever in the story. Literally appears and disappears in the penultimate episode. We have no attachment to him whatsoever and again, no idea how to kill him nor whether it's a big achievement to do so. Trevor says some shit about some ancient weapon but these things are really not plot relevant and spoken about completely off-hand.

It's extra disappointing because the idea of Death being a vampire with an insatiable thirst for human life is a great concept. Even Death's plan to play Saint Germain and bring back Dracula to feed his hunger is great. Was just executed in a really underwhelming way. Plus I honestly don't think I could have been any less invested in Death's analogue, Varney, as a character. Also why bother making it seem like Trevor died for like... 19 minutes? It's a cheap tactic and it achieved very little.

•Isaac literally spends about a season doing fuck all in the middle of nowere - twice. Why does he have such a massive fight with a random unnamed necromancer and why does this need a full season of prep?? And coming back to the earlier point of Isaac's conversation with his night creature: the writers raised some interesting and potentially significant questions in that episode. They suggested that the night creatures aren't just mindless killing machines and that they can experience things beyond their forgemaster's orders. They might even have memories of the lives they lived before being resurrected. Then after that episode, the writers just completely ignored that fact for the rest of the show and the night creatures went back to being silent, brainless pawns. That, to me, is the hallmark of a terribly written and generally directionless show. They would have improved the quality of the end product by not raising these profound questions, yet did it and then ignored them. Whatever their reasoning was, it made for an inredibly disengaging viewing experience.

•Both Carmilla and Dracula are considered villains because of completely hypothetical tyranny. Dracula does hit Targoviste hard once but that doesn't really give sufficient gravity of his scorched earth campaign, for me. And Carmilla's plan to turn humans into cattle is actually never actioned nor even depicted on screen. So again, we don't feel any real opposition or hatred towards her.

•Isaac suddenly deciding to kill Carmilla comes out of nowhere. Yes, she killed Dracula but he spends 2 seasons seemingly pretty unbothered about that, then suddenly switches. Decides he wasnts to kill Hector but then equally abruptly decides he doesn't.

•Similarly, Striga and Morana just decide they don't like Carmilla's plan, even though they were very enthusiastically planning it the season before. There was no turning point, no moment of crossing the line. They just decided to switch up. Then didn't even go to the caslte to see what happened after watching it blow up. Insanely bad writing.

There are probably more examples but I think the point has been made. In general, the show did a bad job of actually having a coherent story that made the events on screen have real significance. They basically relied on the viewers' own sense of morality. In fact the entire show hinges on (what I consider) the most boring and counterintuitively low stakes motivation in fictional stories: the fate of all the people in the world (with whom we have no relationship through the events on screen - if anything we'd be justified in thinking what they did to Dracula's wife was worthy of punishment). To finish it all off, there was of course the cowardly meta self-admission in the final scene, when Lisa turned to Dracula and said "none of this makes any sense". That was a big slap in the face. It doesn't make the show any more enjoyable and just confirms that you knew your story was some bullshit but you put it out anyway. CC: Tenet and Evangelion.

Moving on: storytelling. I've said this about so many shows now but Castlevania had very little storytelling to do, because there was so little story. You can't use any clever plot devices if there isn't anything clever in the plot. You can't use a visual metaphor to represent fuck all happening. Equally bad was the pacing of the show. There so many long stretches of nothing happening, then big ticket events would happen upon you so abruptly. All that talking didn't even build any tension nor expectation. Again, this was made even worse with later seasons. You're just spending ages watching characters have boring conversations about absolutely nothing, then suddenly all killing each other. You could maybe consider this standard, does-a-job kinda storytelling but the show then draggs down its own score with its constant need to tell rather than show. It made the the viewing experience mind-numbing for me. Two quick examples off the dome are the realisation that Zamfir had gone crazy and Greta saying that she was starting to like Alucard. Like please trust that your viewers can connect dots in a straight line based on what you have shown them on screen. In fact, rely on that to build up to your big flourishes significantly better!

    I also have to mention one of the sequences in season 4, when Alucard and the villagers are fighting off night creatures in a forest. That was genuinely terrible TV. It kept cutting back and forth between the fights and dialogue and it was so unclear whether the journey was progressing or not. I felt like I was having an aneurism watching it. I honestly expect the explanation for it to be that someone put the shots together in the wrong order in the final edit.

    Also not sure if this is the proper place to mention this but the script for the show is seriously bad. Like really, truly terrible. None of the lines come across as clever nor even thematic. They also just throw in random swear words; I'm guessing that's to make it clear it's aimed at adults but it's so forced and awkward. It honestly sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old who's just been told they're allowed to swear but only during drama lessons. Not natural whatsoever and just adds to the overall very stiff and honestly quite cringey dialogue. I can't think of anything that could have undermined Saint Germain's character story any more than "I get to have sex again". Without a doubt one of the worst lines I have ever watched.

    Visual directing might just get a pass as okay. Some cool poses, cool shots, as I said good choreography of the fights at least. Consistent visual style and good, clear framing. I just have to call it visual directing, because there wasn't any real storytelling to mention.

I think I've said enough in the above to cover my thoughts on Castlevania's characters. Mostly very bland, especially Trevor and Sypha. Nothing remotely interesting about either of them. Trevor is the irresponsible, rash boy and Sypha is the organised, brilliant girl. We've seen it 100 times. Not to mention their romance has no substance to it whatsoever. They just suddenly become in love. Alucard probably has the most significant journey, as he goes through loneliness and lack of purpose once Dracula dies and the TSA team splits up. But that didn't really do anything. The rest of the cast is woefully dull. Honestly, there isn't a single good, well-written and interesting character in the entire thing. Maybe Lenore but that would be me being incredibly generous.

I'll admit, I came into watching Castlevania with some high expectations, given how liked it is and how many clips seem to pop up across the internet. I won't hold the resulting disappointment against the show but even then, it's undeniable how bad the series is, at least in my opinion. I also note that it seems to have opened the doorway for a bunch of similar animated Netflix series (e.g. Blood of Zeus, Tomb Raider). I'm glad to see more animated series and movies, of course, but I honestly hate that this incredibly stiff style of limited animation is becoming so common. Again, won't hold that against Castlevania - I'm already scoring it low enough - but just worth mentioning as not my favourite trend across the industry.

I'm sincerely sorry to have written this review and can only hope that if any Castlevania artists ever read it, they undersand that it's written honestly and with respect for the ways they have to work on animation these days with tighter and tighter budgets and deadlines. But I'll say it outright, I did not enjoy the series and I blame the executives responsible for it.

Some more random thoughts:

-The Isaac vs. Carmilla fight did feel really cool. Even though Hector's secret passageway was some bs (and not even necessary), the staging and overall execution made it feel pretty epic.

-I laughed my ass off when Alucard got his dick sucked so good he started crying. Felt that shit, especially since he was living every bisexual weeb's dream of getting with two kinky japanese siblings at the same time. I know the animators put their heart into that scene.

-Bloody Tears during the Dracula fight was really cool. Wish they'd built up to it more by maybe having motifs throughout the music across the rest of the series.

-Broader point, I'm sure there were lots of little easter eggs in the series for fans of the game and maybe even the Metroidvania genre. That probably contributed to its success and I'll admit I'm an ignorant neutral in that regard.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003)

Director: Tim Johnson, Patrick Gilmore
Writers: John Logan
Studio: Dreamworks Animation
Watched on: 19/02/2023

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		6	7	7	6

Sinbad. Pretty cool film. Obviously not perfect but that's what the state of the audience and the industry was at the time. But overall, a really great, very fun film. Has the typical romance storyline that ruins most fun films but it's just brief enough to ignore. But almost everything else was well done, executed nicely and came together for a solid end product. So the first thing to talk about is Eris and her amazing character acting. The way she flows in and out of states of being, from place to place, glides through the shadows, all of that comes together to make her an incredibly likable villain. I honestly think if they had gone all out with some chilling, creepy music, she would definitely have given kids nightmares. Naturally, it follows that the animation in this film is wonderful - for the most part. Right from the start, the film has really well animated (and choreographed and framed) action sequences. The very first fight scenes of Sinbad and then Proteus fighting multiple guys at the same time were excellent. It was a little bit disappointing that there was then nothing like that afterwards. But overall, the 2D animation was fluid and fun. And typical of the time, they included a loveable and very expressive pet companion. Which shows they absolutely had the capability to do the same for Eris's massive mythical beasts; unfortunately they didn't. Just like Treasure Planet, the early CG creatures have aged poorly. Fair enough, they were pushing boundaries for the medium but I can't say it looked good most of the time. What I can say though, is that it worked really well for when the beasts were in Eris's realm and their bodies were these ethereal, galaxy substances. Wasn't executed perfectly but definitely much better in concept than the normal creatures. So yeah, solid animation overall. The characters in the film are definitely a mixed bag. Obviously we have different views on gender and stuff now but as mentioned, the main female character, Marina, has a pretty stereotypical woman character's journey and is of course, mainly a love interest to the two main men in the movie. Fine, it's based on an old folk tale but I'm just as critical of the source tbh. Marina is a cool character with a lot of agency over herself and to be fair, her main character trait of wanting to explore the world does make the annoying little lovel triangle have a sensible resolution. Proteus is a very likeable character and does the honorable thing of letting a woman make a choice, which is pretty cool. Eris is fantastic but the rest are just kinda nothing.

The plot is nice and straightforward. All the trials and tribulations faced by the gang are actually created by the villain, so there isn't really any genuine conflict nor challenge but it serves its purpose of driving us through all the cool settings they want us to see. (Side note, the design of Republic City (it was actually called Syracuse lmao) was pretty sick). No major complaints, aside from the fake paradox of Eris's final gambit. Think the writers probably all knew that was a weak ending.

Storytelling was pretty strong. Lots of ideas communicated visually and some cool shots, especially in the action and chase scenes. I'm giving it a 7, although it's now been over 7 months since I watched it, so it's probably getting the benefit of the doubt because I found the film so fun.

In conclusion, yes I do consider this film to have massive value from an animation perspective and I think it's really cool in a similar way to Treasure Planet (does fall short though). However the lack of substance probably explains why this is more of a cult classic than just a classic. Glad I've seen it now/

Anstasia (1997)

Director: Don Bluth, Gary Goldman

Studio: Fox Animation Studios

Watched on: 11/09/2023

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Anastasia

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		4	5	7	6

Watching Anastasia properly for the first time (I'm sure the VHS got played in the background at my cousin's house many times through my childhood), I realised it's no wonder at all why the film did so well. It's magical, it's pretty and it rode the princess wave of the time incredibly well. I did find it a little bit strange to see an American depiction of Russia but obviously it's based around some real people. Also I don't know enough about history to say why it was nuts but the evil arch-wizard being called Rasputin did feel weird coming out of an American studio as well. Maybe it was just a common name in Russia, historically. Anyway, the film is really lovely and I'd highly recommend it to nostalgic milennials and anyone who likes a gorgeous setting.

That's actually where I have to start: the background art/design for the entire film was absolutely stunning. And I have to say it's the art and the design, because the backgrounds are so beautifully made, but the conception of the grand palace and it's massive halls make up a big part of how good it looks on screen. The filmmakers also did a great job of (what I think was) using contemporary Russian art and stylings in the film; my favourite example of this was the family portrait hanging up in the palace, with little baby Anastasia in it. The fancy balls felt magical and even some of the settings that only appear for a scene or two (like the European countryside, or even the view from under a tablecloth!) are really beautifully done. Even Paris! I loved how they styled everyone in the city and captured the idea of boujie paris so well and even topped it off with a fun little song.

Seriously, look how pretty these backgrounds are

Overall, the animation is really good. Nothing incredibly unique nor innovative but fantastic traditional animation, done the right way. Really great character acting and a great balance of exaggeration and realism (i.e. leaning heavily towards exaggeration) and although they went for a really sparse and simple approach with the line art (especially for faces), they still captured lost of details, like rolled-up sleeves, fur coats etc. One thing that really stood out to me was that they really did not shy away from animating hands. There were loads of complicated hand gestures, characters fiddling with props etc. and it all looked amazing. Also ther was a bit of CG stuff but that looked fine (not sure if it's remastered on Disney Plus or what but no real issues there). So yeah, great animation, as you'd expect from a Don Bluth classic.

The story is a bit odd. It works fine as a vehicle to carry you through the scenes and let the characters get into their songs. But it is a bit of a straight line. They want to do something, they try to do it, then something gets in the way, then they do it anyway. I totally get that this is a kids film though and actually aimed at an audience that had a totally different relationship to the screen to what kids have today but they definitely could have made the story a bit more interesting.

That also ties into the storytelling. And here, I just mean storytelling, so not even just visual storytelling. So firstly, we as the viewer know that 'Ania' is Anastasia, the lost Princess. So there's no curiosity and no tension. But then the film acts like we're all discovering her true identity together. So moments where she 'uncovers' things that suggest she might be the Princess just have no impact. Story-wise, I reckon it would be way more impactful to have us start the film in the orphanage and learn about the lost Princess slowly throughout the story as Ania goes out to find herself, but I actually get why they did it the other way, because it allowed for that amazing opening royal ball sequence. So yeah, odd way to literally tell the story but the visual storytelling was okay. Got the job done, nothing really striking and mostly pretty obvious. But no complaints.

The characters are pretty good. I think all of their designs are really brilliant, especially within that era. They might not all get the screentime they need to talk about the complex lives they'd had to live in post-Tsar Russia but they all had a tiny bit of depth to them. Like it would have been really easy to have Grand Duchess be jumping for joy when they arrived in Paris to meet her but instead, she was emotionally exhausted and combative. Dimitri is principled but also slimy, Anastasia is smart but self-aware and interesting (those two have that classic 'fiery' teen romance but can't hate on that too much). I even liked characters with small parts, like Sophie. Oh and Rasputin himself. Dark bastard he is. Whoever his key animator was did an amazing job. He's got that real sinister streak but also the quite funny dramatic flair. Thought he was excellent.

On a side note, two quick things about Rasputin's white bat sidekick, Bartok: 1.) I think Hank Azaria did pretty badly at his attempted Russian Accent, which came out sounding more like parody Dutch. 2.) The very last shot has a 'female' bat appear and woo Bartok and it was just such a weird unnecessary moment that shows some pretty standard deeply ingrained sexism in animation, with the female bat needing to be shown to be visibly female, so they obviously gave her massive eyelashes but then also pink fur (which is extra bizarre, because Bartok is presumably supposed to be Albino, so she's either also albino with eye shadow all over herself or like... erythristic?).

So overall, the film's pretty much what I expected. Really wonderful and pretty with not the best story but deservedly earned itself a spot as a classic.

One thing I almost forgot: Fuck me, that sleepwalking on the boat scene is insanely morbid! Definitely think that was a bit too far but it was very cool visually at least.

Spirit (2002)

Writer: John Fusco

Directors: Kelly Asbury, Lorna Cook
Studio: Dreamworks Animation

Watched on: 29/12/2020

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Spirit (AKA Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron)

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
4		4	4	6	4

Am I even that glad I've seen this? Shit was weird and it feels like nothing even happened in it. It was just 90 minutes of nothing, really.

Why did the Horses not speak? They were humanoid enough with all the emotions and expressions, so them exclusively neighing felt really strange - especially with the spoken voiceover for Spirit's thoughts, which came at seemingly completely random times.

As mentioned, there wasn't really an overarching story or narrative. It was more like just recalling some events that happened in this horse's life, with some of them kinda relating to each other but not really. Like the US commander guy letting him go was a good end to that little sub-plot but the rest were just a middle or an end with no hook in the beginning. Was Spirit's wish to find a partner? That would make meeting Rain make sense. Was his wish to bond with the 'two-legged's? That would give meaning to his thing with that native dude. Or was his destiny to free all the horses taken as slaves? Because that would have at least given all his actions in the training camp and the railroad some significance.

    Also, there were a few moments where the mood of the music, styling and tone just did not match what was happening on screen. Like the scene where Spirit first gets chained up for his shoes and stuff; that's a really horrible moment for this horse and I was feeling terrified for him... but they made this a silly, comedic back and forth with the shoemaker. Maybe that was edited to be more upbeat because it's a kids' film but that would just mean the film had no clear angle it was coming from. It also suffered from the same thing that Treasure Planet did, with the weird rock music interludes, instead of characters actually breaking out into song. That was weird and only added to the confusion of the horses neighing. If they'd gone completely with no words (like Wall-E did and like I Lost My Body should have done), I think it could have been improved by having a clear identity but also pushing the animation to something amazing.

The animation is a bit of a mixed bag but sadly its high point isn't actually that high. The clear strong point is the traditional animation of the horses. The running motions are believable and really make you feel the force of the animal and they also managed to translate all these animal movements into coherent, understandable emotional gestures too. I feel with though that it shows they did their research and design incredibly well beforehand but then didn't take it anywhere special after that. Once they'd nailed down the porportions and anatomy, all the animators were given the tools but no one took it to any heights that were really impressive. Then the bad stuff. The weird, lifeless CGI horses that have no personality or believability. They're really robotic and untextured. The end result really disrupts the feeling of being out on these great planes, because these weird 3D running blobs just remind you that this is not the natural world. They also weirdly used the same for the american soldiers sometimes. And speaking of the great planes, there was some pretty poor CG environments, which felt really artificial, especially when used in conjunction with such a heavy parallax effect.

Basically, I can see why this film isn't really a classic. So plenty learned from it.

The Black Cauldron (1985)

Director(s): Ted Berman, Richard Rich

Studio: Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Feature Animation, Silver Screen Partners II

Watched: 31/10/2020

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for The Black Cauldron

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
3		3	4	7	2

Disappointing. Would never have imagined such brilliant animation would make such a boring film. Pretty much a story and storytelling disasterclass.

The animation is really nice and in that classic Disney style but it falls just short in some areas. For example, the character animation is really expressive but movements are in little jumps, rather than being completely fluid. The mouthing of speech seems to miss out a few syllables here and there, which makes it look a bit sloppy. A fair few of the animations feel a bit weightless too. That said though, it is still very well done throughout and definitely makes the film look appealing at least. One sequence that really stands out for being good is Hen Wen being captured by the dragons, especially where they used the dragons' shadows to build up the anticipation. The art design is a bit bland. Like the character designs are so bog standard that I don't even think an allowance can be made for the time the film was made. Shit was already tired back then. But the art itself is quite nice.

Anyway, here's a very poorly structured stream of thoughts on why the story and characters are so bad:

Taran's only want in life is to be a warrior. Fair enough in itself but we have absolutely no idea why. He just says it. Yeah there's the cute little fake swordfight thing at the start but that only half ties us into the already weak character motivation. Basically, they tell us but don't show us. Then in the castle, he finds a magic sword (through no action of his own) that kills all the bad guys for him. So he has no actual development - he's no closer to being a warrior than in minute 1 - but even worse, he starts being a cocky little prick about it. There's just no reason you, as the viewer, would be behind him.

Also, when he's in a situation, he stands around saying "no", "don't", "come back" and stupid shit like that instead of just getting stuck in and trying to help. That gets really annoying really quickly and is made worse by the voice actor, I think. It's honestly so bad that it makes the previously mentioned scene with Hen Wen almost unwatchable, despite how good it looks. His little winge at Gurgi is also unbearable.

The only character with anything likeable about them is Princess Eilonwy, who's actually proactively trying to escape from the castle. No idea why nor how she got there in the first place but at least she's influencing her own destiny (despite her magic little light ball thing doing a fair amount for her). But then of course she has a completely baseless romance with Taran. So that's 0/2 on characters.

There isn't really much wrong with Fflewddur Fflam but you could basically remove him from the entire film and the story would be exactly the same. So clearly a poor character and just highlights how weak the story is. I will give credit for his snapping strings being quite a cool quirk and the decent banter between him and one of the witches.

Speaking of the witches, what was the point of them? They were a terrible 'challenge' for the main characters to overcome to get the cauldron. Every rule they set out ends up not sticking, so they could literally have been replaced with something like a small hill that needed to be climbed. They con Taran and co. out of the magic sword but then Taran gets it back at the end. Then the very fundamental story device they add is that someone will have to give their life to destroy the cauldron... but then at the end, Gurgi just comes back to life anyway. It also does not make any sense why the witches would want the sword or the cauldron. They're another one that seems to just be there for decoration.

The fairies are rubbish and literally magic the main characters to where they need to be. For free. They didn't even ask them a riddle - just did it. So again, what was the point of them?

Gurgi was possibly the worst comic relief/cutesy character I've ever watched. His voice was creepy more than anything, so I never found him cute. His design was cool but the very prominent moustache made him look too adult-like, which just did not sit right with the rest of his design. Made him confusing and a bit uncanny. Also, he has no affiliation to anyone, so doesn't put himself in danger, which I quite liked. But then he sacrifices himself to destroy the cauldron for no apparent reason. At that point, he'd escaped capture and could easily have just carried on with his life. We didn't see any moment of resolution or rising to the challenge; he literally just popped up and was like "yeah, sorry about that" then hopped in the pot. Made no sense.

So that's like the main story point solved by a side character who doesn't even develop into the role but even worse, the big bad Horned King literally just dies. It's not said in the script anywhere that committing in the cauldron would cause someone who rose people from the dead using it to die. So Taran and them didn't even have to fight the Horned King in any way. Everything really does just seem to happen at random, with no link between anything.

Also, earlier on, they have the Cauldron and knew exactly how to destroy it but just sit around and don't for some reason. They aren't even deliberating about the fact someone would have to die; any one of them could have just popped themselves in it and wrapped ths whole thing up. Really dumb.

So yeah, basically a rubbish story with really unlikeable characters. Wasn't even spooky. Would not recommend this film to anyone, honestly.