Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Writer: Erdman Penner (based on the original tale by Giambattista Basile)
Director: Clyde Geronimi, Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark
Studio: Walt Disney Productions

Watched on: 26/12/2020

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Sleeping Beauty

Ratings:

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

A classic "glad I've seen it" but the film was pretty bad overall. Obviously a lot of leeway has to be given for the fact the film is 61 years old at this point. So it would be pointless to go into detail about how poor the film does in terms of women's agency, stereotypes and consent but obviously that does form part of my very subjective low score. I will say that this film really highlights (what I think is) the point of the Bechdel Test though, as the 3 fairies are a big focus of the story and talk lots to each other, passing the test, but then for example, Aurora's mum - the literal queen - appears on screen but doesn't actually say a word throughout the entire film.

The story's pretty poor. As funny as the idea of a witch cursing a baby to death because she wasn't invited to a party is, the actual plot had little substance and basically drove itself. Things happened exactly as they were supposed to and there were literally zero complications - the only potential issue was Aurora and Philip falling in love with the 'peasant' version of each other, so a non-issue. Felt a bit like a panto.

The characters were pretty boring in general. As suggested above though, Maleficent is brilliant. I'd honestly put her in the top tier of Disney villains, because on top of her flair for the dramatic, she actually has a plan in place to realise her very clear ambition (literally killing Aurora lol). There could have been far better depth to all the characters though, Maleficent included.

Animation was nice but not amazing (but obviously we're talking manually painted cels, so fair play), although it was cool too see huge names like Kahl, Thomas and Johnston in the credits. I did actually notice the odd error here or there but overall it was smooth, expressive and a good balance between realistic and exaggerated. A lot of stuff in it was also cute and charming, which ties into the directing as well. I think they managed to have some pretty good storytelling mechanics in there actually, like the spells coming out of the chimney and the little smirk on the raven's face as it overhears the conversation.

So yeah, overall poor film that's terrible to women but has a cool villain (who even turns into a dragon). Undeniably a classic but definitely not timeless.

Dragon Ball Super: Broly (2019)

Writer: Akira Toriyama
Director: Tatsuya Nagamine
Studio: Toei Animation, 20th Century Studios

Watched on: 23/12/2020

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Dragon Ball Super: Broly

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
8		6	7	9	7

Wow wow WOW! That was a fucking amazing experience. Without any of the added value of nostalgia, this film straight up had some of the sickest fight scenes I've ever seen. With the nostalia though, I feel like this was some long overdue closure and a lovely way to wrap up a 30-year journey through the DBZ series, the Budokai Games and a bunch of (apparently non-canon) movies. It wasn't quite so perfect as Endgame was for MCU fans but the film paid its respects to all of that stuff and nicely put a ribbon on it. And it looked amazing doing it.

Nowehere else to start than the animation. Legitimately unreal how good it is. So much of it is hand-drawn, which always looks amazing to me. But it's done so well, with all the little angles and turns and small touches that the rest of Super really didn't have. It's just high quality traditional animation. They also made the decision for the cleaned up animations to keep a sort of unkempt 'grease pencil' look on all the outlines - that worked perfectly! It never looked messy but always felt hand-made, as if someone genuinely put their heart and passion into it. Speech isn't quite that fluid, fully-acted, perfectly-synced style I like but the characters are at least expressive with their bodies when they speak. As mentioned, the fights are what really make this film such an experience. Even the early sparring match between Goku and Vegeta just looks sick. Genuinely interesting hand-to-hand combat that's clearly articulated, well choreographed and super active. Never stands still. I'll come onto the 'final' fight in a bit but the art design is all unmistakably Toriyama as well. He's got a very distinct style that so many people are familiar with and enjoy, so it was nice to see that really shining in every character, outfit and animal. The style can also fit both serious and playful moods so well and switched between both pretty seemlessly throughout. Leaning so heavily into that style really let this film be a bit of a swansong for Toriyama, which was pretty sweet.

        Now onto that final fight. First of all, I'll say I'm impressed with just how long it lasted. They actually genuinely spoiled us viewers with how long it was, whilst keeping it visually interesting, constantly evolving, and even story-related in bits. It goes way past the usual allotment of high-quality action (fucking 'sakuga') you'd normally expect. The fight also has maybe a dozen passages of distinctly different animation styles, likely by multiple key animators and studios. The amazing thing is that they're each stylised enough to distinguish themselves but they're never dissonent with the main style. They all fit together perfectly. That even goes for the parts where they clearly rigged up 3D models for a few seconds of action, with the characters and the environment moving around mad quick. They even sometimes smoothed this out by hand drawing the last few frames to bring it back home, which worked very nicely and just speaks again to the quality of the whole thing. The 3D models even had those hard outlines that give them that faux-2D look and I read that as almost a direct tribute to the Budokai games (although will concede that might be a bit of a reach). The same harmony was clearly shown with the effects animation, which was definitely a mixture of hand-drawn and computer-generated. All the powering up, auras and energy blasts looked amazing. There were sadly 1 or 2 parts where the CGI environment (icy mountains and water) looked a little soft (I may learn a better word for what I mean here one day), as did the Frieza Force's CGI ships in the rest of the film. But yeah, what a whole load of fun that fight was.

    Also a clear reason why this film was so much better than most of Super was the environments. A ridiculous amount of Super takes place in a bland, flat arena in the middle of space. There's nothing to interact with and a plain back background all around is really boring. The vibrant, varied, dimensional arenas in this film make for far more interesting fights. Also, setting the big fight in a glacial tundra just gave it a nice feeling, kinda like the library planet in Rogue One.

    A lot of the above of course comes from great directing and storyboarding and I gotta give major props in that department. The decision was clearly made to really make the film as much about wicked fights as possible, as Dragon Ball always should be and that alone deserves praise. It was really nice actually to see the things we liked about DBZ brought back and honoured, without the things we disliked, like excessive dialogue and hours of powering up. That said, it wasn't perfect. There was a bit of trying too hard with the fusion - although it was funny-ish to see them do the 2 staple fuck-ups of the fusion dance, it seemed very weird to suggest that all 3 of Goku, Vegeta and Piccolo spent a full hour sitting around doing nothing while Bulma and a few others were definitely in danger. That could have just been a funny thought or flashback. It was also really nice though to see 2 fan favourites finally given their place in the canon, in Broly and Gogeta. My main experiences with Broly are through the games, so all I know him for is being the Legendary Super Saiyan and basically a mindless, raging brute. So it was interesting and refreshing to see this portrayal of him as a sensitive, kind-hearted young kid, although I haven't seen any of his older movies, so that may be who he always was. Either way, it made for a great character, who you will really feel for as a viewer. A lot of the Saiyans we saw were pretty good characters actually.

    I do have to be critial of a few things in terms of the directing/story. Firstly, the pacing of the story was a bit off. I think the Planet Vegeta opening was a little too long and could have probably been improved by having bits of the second half of it drip fed throughout the rest of the movie. All the same, it was cool to see Bardock and quite a bit of Planet Vegeta. Young Vegeta and Raditz looked a little odd but oh well.The same timing criticism goes for the Broly fight. It was too long to be watched in one go. They should have split it up into an initial encounter that ends fairly quickly and a long final fight (maybe 3/4 of the original) after some other plot stuff and/or training. The film also put too little or too much focus on certain things, which felt a bit odd - like the fuzzy green ear wasn't necessary at all and they spent like 5 minutes talking about it but Broly breaking the shock collar is a pivotal moment in the story and isn't acknowledged at all. Also probably just an issue with the dub but there was a lot of unnecessary explaining, which was a bit annoying but that's not really a criticism; gotta remember this is aimed at kids/teens after all. I will also say on the big fight that it was the same old formula of the fighters randomly being better than each other, then switching with no real explanation. That will always be poor storytelling but you kinda allow it because 1. it's the last hoorah, 2. it's a movie, so has limited time to set stuff up and 3. the fight is so thoughtfully executed, that things like that becomes way less important. It's also fundamentally Dragon Ball, so you can't complain. The same goes for the stupidity of Beerus being more powerful than all of the Z-fighters at "15%" of his power, then Whis being far more powerful than him, then Zeno being incomprehensibly more powerful than him. You just gotta gloss over it.

    The story itself was pretty simple and straighforward but ironing out a few points would have made it that much more fulfilling; like Frieza revealing an actual serious plan for the Dragon Balls. I did like the fact that it basically ended with "well Frieza still on his bullshit", that was fair. I found the last scene between Goku and Broly really lovely too.

Nothing else to say, really. I can now happily put the main story of Dragon Ball to bed and move on peacefully. Also makes for a nice change that I'm finally happy with a closing chapter.

Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus (2019)

Writer: Jhonen Vasquez

Directors: Hae Young Jung, Young Kyun Park, Jhonen Vasquez

Studio: Nickelodeon Animation Studio, Maven Animation Studio

Watched on: 12/12/2020

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		7	7	8	6

What a pleasant surprise. Went to watch this for some nostalgia and a bit of a laugh but it turned out to be way more fun than I'd anticipated. It's top quality in every department and so well considered throughout. I have no idea why this wasn't more of a hit.

The movie (short film?) starts strong, with a quick recap monologue set over a sick anime-style opening scene. That there is a masterstroke, right off the bat: it gets the viewer interested, explains the basic premise of the show but also makes it clear that this is years later, so distances this particular story from the main series. No need for you to go back and watch 27 episodes of Invader Zim - you're already in and it looks fantastic. (The sequence was also animated by Spencer Wan!)

The animation is very bloody good. Every pose, motion and expression has clearly had thought put into it. It's flash animation but from what I could tell, they didn't just have 1 rig for each character/face - when they wanted to exaggerate expressions (which was often), they redrew them and really pushed the boundaries, which worked amazingly well, without ever going off-style. Then obviously, there was a nice mini-love-letter to animation towards the end, with all the different animation styles being showcased as the 'alternate realities'. The best of the bunch was the genga/key animations, which still had timing charts and notes on them; really let the animators have their moment.

    Action-y sequences were also great. They used simple but clever methods to make things feel quite dynamic, like the warped, stretched dimensions of the backgrounds. In addition to that, effects animation and the few CGI spaceships etc. all blended well with the style of the film.

Some of those simple tricks to make their flash animation feel really dynamic

Maybe I'm just dumb but the story was actually good enough to keep me really entertained. Stuff fit together, made sense for all the different characters and even caught me out once. That's not to say it was perfect - there were definitely a fair few things that didn't need to be in there - but it was surprisingly good.

The directing was pretty great as well. Stuff only made sense for the characters because we had each of them showcased nice and plainly and they even managed to do it all in funny ways. The genuine lunacy of the show is still there too, which you have to give props for. I laughed a fair few times watching it and as mentioned, everything's really thoughtfully done. Lots of nice little details. All the animation goodness is of course encompassed in the direction as well, so lots of points for that. Side note - with the anime bit and the crazy, strong poses, I did get slight Jojo vibes from this. I wonder if it would be the same for the original.

So yeah, a nice surprise on a boring saturday. Would recommend.

A still from Spencer Wan's wicked opening scene.

Gunbuster (1988)

Director: Hideaki Anno

Studio: Gainax

Finished Watching: 18/11/2020

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Gunbuster

Ratings:

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

I wanted to not mention that Gunbuster was Hideako Anno's directorial debut (even though that's basically the only reason I watched it), because things should be judged on their own merit and Anno's name is a pretty heavy one. But I have to admit, it's almost impossible not to mention that fact, since Gunbuster is pretty much exactly what you would expect from the mind behind Evangelion. It's even got a lot of very similar elements to NGE, the main similarity being you'll have a lot of questions as a viewer and receive next to no answers.

The plot is okay, maybe on the low end of 5 outta 10. There's no real explanation of why Noriko is the chosen one (other than her dad being a space hero), which is made worse by the fact Coach literally chooses her but never explains his decision. No explanation of why Gunbuster is so good either. The main storyline is that some monsters want to destroy the earth so they can survive and breed; although the show does flirt with the suggestion that that's understandable and the humans are the real threat, they barely scratch the surface and it just turns into an 'us vs. them' with no real substance. The enemies literally do not communicate in any way, so it's pretty brainless. I did like that the cost of missions was the passage of time on Earth - that felt very real. Everything else was very predictable though. There's also quite a lot of pointless side stuff - e.g., Smith was basically a convoluted plot device to make Noriko suddenly get serious and Jung could have just not existed and we'd have the same story.

This stuff kinda ties in with the storytelling - there aren't many plot hooks, so there isn't much 'storytelling' in that sense. Screen direction is good though - you see what you need to and they weren't afraid of a scientific/military map to orientate you. The ridiculous fanservice is enough to actually decrease your enjoyment of it, though.

The animation is a little bit plain. Frozen jaws, sliding cels and all that. The fight scenes are a bit of a mix, because the Gunbuster suit itself moves really well but the majority of the battles are just long-range gunfire, which is a bit naff (despite the effects animation being pretty good). Machinery on board the spaceships was animated well and I'm almost completely convinced they didn't use any kind of modelling for it (not sure what was available in 1988 tbf). They also did this outline blur thing at high-impact moments, which just looked a bit dead to me. I'll give it a 6 overall, just because the artwork was really nice (on the aliens especially).

Characters were pretty meh. They weren't complex as much as they were just inconsistent with themselves. Coach is the clearest example of an anime staple taken straight off the shelf. In contrast, Kimiko was someone who felt very real. Wouldn't get a poster with any of the characters on it though.

A kinda interesting watch but would only recommend if you're an Evangelion obsessive.

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.