robertheinrich73 Reviews

The Cat Returns (2002)

beautiful fairy tale full of fresh ideas

[9/10 · 1 January 2011]

First of all, if you are looking for a sinister experience comparable to Mononoke or Spirited Away, you might be disappointed, because this one aims for a younger audience and therefore is much more "harmless".

So is it a dull fairy tale only suitable for children? Absolutely not!

I feel compelled to compare it to "Alice in Wonderland", not only because of the obvious similarity of the plot (young girl ends up trapped inside a parallel world and tries to get home before it's too late - sounds familiar, eh?), but especially because of the abundance of unexpected miraculous twists.

The story is so full of hilarious and surprising ideas - I really envy the writer for his imagination. If you like fairy tales and don't hate cats you will certainly enjoy this movie very much, regardless of your gender, age or culture. If you love cats this one is a must-see anyway :)

The only flaw is, that I think the animation could have been a bit better. While most scenes are animated really good and realistic, there are some which seem quite coarse and sketchy. But the excellent plot makes good for this.

Summer Wars (2009)

no masterpiece, but not too bad either

[8/10 · 1 January 2011]

There are some anime masterpieces which can be recommended as a must-see to virtually anyone, and not only fans of the genre. Movies like Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, etc.

If you know them you will understand what I mean. In addition to being visually compelling these also have an original plot with some twists here and there, and will leave you with the feeling that you have just watched something really awesome.

Let's be honest: Summer Wars will not enter this eternal hall of fame, mostly because the plot is far too conventional and straight-forward.

On the other hand, a solid plot is not necessarily a bad thing, and makes this movie suitable for a broad audience. While a real fan of anime will probably be disappointed by the lack of weirdness and original ideas, Summer Wars might be a real good starting point for a newbie.

And if you are willing to excuse the fact that the plot won't knock your socks off, apart from that Summer Wars is a really good movie. It does quite an excellent job in introducing literally dozens of characters and still managing to give every single one of them a unique personality.

The story unfolds on parallel levels (the action part about saving the world, the part about the values of a family, the dangers of relying too much on technology, a little bit of teenage love story, ...) - while each level is too obvious and shallow on its own, they blend in together nicely. Reminds me of a virtual chop suey - nothing special, yet very tasty.

The visual presentation is quite good, too. The scenes in the real world are well done, and the cyberspace world is amazing.

In conclusion, Summer Wars is OK. Not really original and far from being excellent, but good nevertheless. No unique masterpiece, yet solid work, and if you won't set your expectations too high, you will enjoy it.

Ponyo (2008)

super cute, but not quite as good as I would have expected from Miyazaki

[9/10 · 30 December 2010]

Being a huge fan of former masterpieces like "Princess Mononoke" and "Spirited Away", I had really high expectations, and was a bit disappointed, unfortunately.

But lets first comment on the good features of this movie. The animation and the artwork is as brilliant and stunning as you would have expected from a Miyazaki movie. Ponyo's cuteness is mind-blowing, and you will fall in love with her the first second. The soundtrack is also excellent, and a perfect fit.

So, what is missing? Well, since the cast of characters in the movie is quite small compared to other animes, I would have expected to be able to form an intense bond with all of them, not only Ponyo and Sosuke. Which was not really possible, since they lack personality and intensity.

Ponyo's father, for example, should have been presented a bit darker, since he is the "villain" after all. Don't't get me wrong, I don't think that he should have been characterized as the bad guy, but rather his concern for Ponyo seems a bit too shallow. Sosuke's mother is stereotypically nice and caring, really sympathetic, but that's all. Sosuke's father is reduced to a dummy with only some few seconds screen time.

That's the flaw, I think: Most characters in the story merely fulfill their function (being concerned, being caring, being absent, ...), but don't have enough soul that you can really relate to them. Maybe this is deliberate, since the story focuses on Ponyo and Sosuke, but I had the feeling that something was missing, though.

The ending was also a little bit disappointing for me, in terms of the pace of storytelling. Until the very last moments the story runs quite slow and gets lost a bit in beautiful yet longish day-dream like scenes with some dramatic cuts now and then. And suddenly there are only a few minutes left to go, and lots of unresolved issues. Therefore it gets quite hectic when they try to tie up all loose ends in the last minutes.

Well, some minor flaws in an otherwise excellent and nearly indescribable beautiful movie. I would rate it 10, but I hold a production from Miyazaki to higher standards, I guess. Definitely worth watching with your whole family, if only for the perfect hand-drawn animation, which excuses any hole in the plot.

Ah! My Goddess: The Movie (2000)

A beautiful gift for all who love the original manga, OVA and anime series, and still desire for more.

[28 December 2010]

As implied in the title, I strongly recommend watching a couple, better yet all of the episodes of the TV series before this movie. Or, of course, read as many episodes of the manga as possible, but the TV series will be easier to acquire. The OVA might also help, of course, especially if you don't want to invest a couple of hours of "preperation" for the movie.

Why? First of all, obviously for chronological reasons, because the events in the movie occur ca. two years after the series ended. But more important is the fact that you will lack important background knowledge if you jump into the universe of "Ah! My Goddess" with the movie. For example, you would simply have to accept the fact that a Japanese student lives in a buddhist temple together with three goddesses without further explanation, among many other details (calling heaven via telephone - huh?).

One of the strong concepts of the series is that the key characters are slowly and sequentially introduced, allowing the viewer to grow on them. While it might not be necessary to actually watch all episodes of the series or the OVA, I think it is mandatory to watch at least the first ones until Urd and Skuld are introduced. The more, the better...

You will get sooo much more out of the movie if you don't have to wonder why the goddesses live on earth under rather mundane circumstances. Watching the romantic relationship between Keiichi and Belledandy being endangered will touch you far deeper if you are already acquainted to the AMG universe and actually watched it grow and blossom in the first place.

Imagine watching this latest Star Trek Movie with the young crew (e.g. Kirk and Spock being rivals in a time prior to their deep friendship) without knowing the series or earlier movies. You might enjoy the movie anyway, but will get only a fraction of the experience out of it compared to a trekkie.

I hope you get what I mean - watch the series first! :)

So far soo good. Well, what will you get out of the movie if you know the manga and/or the anime? In a few words: more than you would have expected! But let's first comment one some missing elements.

One would be the lack of near-nudity and (sexually) emberassing situations which would frequently occur in the series as comedic elements. No big deal - I loved them in the series, yet didn't miss them at all in the movie. Notable though, since they were one of the key elements in the series. I guess it's better this way, because the movie can be presented to a broader viewer spectrum.

Also I was a bit surprised that some key characters from the series did not appear at all in the movie (Marller, Hild and Sayoko). A new villain is introduced instead, and in a very clever way which makes it impossible to apply black/white thinking.

A refreshing element of the plot is that while in the series Keiichi ended up with some naked women, goddesses, even the devil himself in bed every other day, accidentally drank love potions etc, I cannot recall any episode where it was the other way round - and in the movie we actually get exactly this scenario. It is the first time (at least the first I can think of) that Keiichi gets a serious rival.

Furthermore, it is the first time since the invasion of the bugs at the very beginning of the series that the AMG universe has a really big problem and the future of the whole world is at stake.

There is not really much more to say... If you liked the series or the manga there is no doubt that you will love the movie. It is a worthy sequel for the series (as well as a worthy representative for the manga). The animation is beautiful and elaborate, the soundtrack is awesome. If you have a soft, romantic spot, prepare for it to be touched. If you don't, maybe you can enjoy the great artwork, but probably you will find most of the scenes a bit cheesy.

Weird Anime Excel Saga (1999–2001)

A perfect parody.

[28 December 2010]

Some reviewers call the Excel Saga the most insane anime ever. Well, I guess they don't know "Fooly Coolly / FLCL" yet, but I understand their point. You don't need to be a huge anime fan to get hooked to this series, but it surely helps, because Excel Saga provides a perfect parody to the whole genre.

There are lots of genre specific insider jokes, but there also is plenty humor which can stand on its own, as well as parodies on well known stereotypes (SF movies, B Action movies, blockbusters like Titanic, classic tales like "in 80 days around the world" and much much more). In addition, Excel Saga uses every opportunity to make fun of itself, too.

The self-parody goes so far that the main character is sent on a mission to assassinate the original author of the manga series in the first episode. Later on, the author, the director and other stuff from behind the scenes will have constant reappearances in the story.

Therefore, for every joke you will not understand, there will be a dozen more you can laugh about.

And it should be made very clear, that while some of the humor is a bit silly and slapstick style, many if not most of the jokes are quite intelligent. If you try to compile a list of funny quotes or dialogues, you will soon notice that you end up with a transcript of 95% of the script (the missing 5% will be jokes which you didn't understand).

This hilarious masterpiece reminds me of Monty Python's works, since it is an ingenious mix of silliness with witty and often pitch black humor.

The optical presentation is also very good. Compared to other animes there are relatively few repetitions in animation and background art. And if they reuse art, they even manage to do this in a funny way (for example in one scene the characters explain that they have to use an old background picture because the responsible artist is unavailable right now, and so on).

I would also like to mention some flaws. First would be the vocal artist who synchronized Excel, the main character of the series, in the English version. Well, it should be honoured that she accomplished a nearly inhuman task (Excel talks so much and so fast, and it should be mentioned that the original artist had to be replaced after the first couple episodes because of an injury of the vocal chords - you will understand this perfectly after having watched one or two episodes), and overall the English dub is really good. But I simply don't like the voice. I think she overdid it quite a bit, and sounded too shrilly and hysterical and annoying. Though it fits the character, I liked the original Japanese voice actor better.

Second there are two episodes which consist mostly of flashbacks and reuse existing material. While this is excused in a humorous way and these episodes still provide some exciting new animations and dialogues, I was a bit disappointed and ended up fast-forwarding most of them.

Despite this, Excel Saga is an absolutely great anime series. I enjoyed every single second of it (except the above mentioned flashback episodes), laughing or chuckling all the time, and I can recommend it to everyone who has a sense of humor - you won't be disappointed.

Ah, one last word about the soundtrack. The title song is a nice spoof on Japanese pop music. Not too outstanding, but nice and funny in a weird way. The sounds and music used during the episodes are generic and inconspicuous and fit in really good. The credits are hilarious, but since they are described quite well in other reviews I would only repeat what others have already said.

FLCL (2000– )

The best Anime ever produced (if you can accept its beautifully psychedelic weirdness)

[10/10 · 28 December 2010]

For some years I was convinced that Elfenlied was the best and most touching anime series ever produced. So I was quite disappointed to find out that the winner of the first American Anime Awards in 2007 was not my beloved Elfenlied (nor any other of my favourite animes), but a comedy named "Fooly Coolly" aka "FLCL" which I had never heard of until then. I decided to give it a try to find out what all that fuss was about...

At first sight, FLCL overwhelms the viewer with its weirdness and seemingly random events. One example for this is the main character's head being clubbed repeatedly by a mysterious woman with an electric bass guitar. A little later a giant robot and some kind of alien creature grow out of his head and start fighting each other. One such WTF moment follows the other in breathtaking speed, underlined by an awesome soundtrack from the Japanese rock band "The Pillows".

Therefore, when watching FLCL for the first time, you will most probably understand only a tiny bit (if anything) of the storyline. Many viewers will not be able to endure all the weirdness and stop watching after the first or second episode, I guess. And I am quite sure that the (few) negative reviews found here come from narrow-minded people who watched only one maybe two episodes, and then decided that FLCL is too random and whacky. Shame on them.

But many others will be fascinated (like I was) by the beautifully psychedelic scenes and continue watching, if only to find out if it can get any weirder (believe me, it can!).

And those who watch the whole series open minded and pay attention to the story will be rewarded by far more than having experienced an one- of-its-kind anime LSD trip - suddenly it will all make sense. Nearly every weird twist of the story is explained in later episodes, and in the end you will suddenly gain deep understanding, maybe even some kind of revelation.

At some point you will realize that most of the crazy stuff which at first sight seemed to be mere eye candy and sick ideas randomly put together in fact are rather metaphors. And that parallel to all the craziness FLCL actually delivers an insightful story.

If you don't get it the first time, don't bother and give it another try. FLCL is so dense and fast-paced that you might have to watch it multiple times to discover all the hidden puzzle pieces you need to understand it.

In conclusion and retrospective, I still have a place in my heart for the above mentioned Elfenlied, and other great animes (like Mononoke, Nausicaä, Spirited Away to mention just some few), of course. And I still regard them as, well, best productions inside their sub-genre.

But FLCL kind of transcends all of these, mostly since it cannot be nailed down to one specific subgenre. FLCL is all that manga/anime stands for. One of its own kind, as I said before. If you don't know it yet, you must give it a try. But maybe you should start with watching a trailer on youtube first to find out if you can cope with it's weirdness.

Tron: Legacy (2010)

extremely entertaining despite some minor flaws

[9/10 · 22 December 2010]

As this movie has already received more than 200 reviews, there is not really much to add. But because I am really grateful that Disney decided to produce a worthy sequel for a great classic movie (which did not get the attention it deserved for being one of the very first cyberspace movies, I think), I feel the urge to write some comments anyway.

Well, decades passed since the original TRON. While everybody will understand why classics like STAR WARS get resurrected after many many years, TRON: Legacy will have surprised many, if not most, old fans. Yes, I understand that over the last few years there have been some teasers, but nevertheless the final product hitting the cinemas felt like some kind of unexpected yet beautiful Christmas gift.

I have read most of the other reviews, and most of them agree on the obvious points:

*** stunning CGI (3d graphics) Hey, it's 2010 - would you have expected less, from a giant producer like Disney?

*** great soundtrack Well, this is a point worth commenting on. Everyone expects that the soundtrack for big budget movies is not too bad. But DAFT PUNK did more than a satisfying job - they did great! Most of the soundtrack reminded me of the good old times of C64 SID music (on purpose I guess). This was really a surprise - you wouldn't hear anything like that nowadays except maybe at some meetings of retro tech demo scene fans. A perfect fit, underlining TRON with an homage to the good old times of computer game music, when ingenious artists like Rob Hubbard squeezed amazing tunes out of tiny analog sound chips.

*** nice story The story of TRON:Legacy could be reduced to "son searches for long lost father, joyous reunion is challenged by evil being, challenge is overcome -> happy ending". But, again surprising for a family friendly main stream label like Disney, there is far more to that. One of the reviewers even compared the protagonists to Shakespearean characters.

This movie travels into unexpected depths, and leaves the consumer who just went for trivial entertainment by nice optics and sound wondering about the future of the human race.

And this is why I want to thank Disney for this movie... It could have been so much worse and lame. It could have been for kids only, thrilling them while satisfying their parents so they don't get bored too much - like many other Disney flicks. But this one went another way - your offspring will enjoy the effects, understand most of the story, but YOU will be the ones who are startled by subliminal issues (as I was).

Hmm, I checked the "contains spoilers" box, so now I want to disagree with some of the people who criticized this movie: (until now people who did not watch the movie are safe, but if you want to watch it without knowledge and prejudices, you better stop reading this review)

• one reviewer said that it was ridiculous that the appearing virtual characters had earth-like late 80's or 90's appearance (especially haircuts) instead of a perfect, digital one. And, that the protagonist's father using language like "radical, man" would not fit into the TRON universe.

I dare to contradict. First of all you must consider, the creator of the presented universe got stuck in there in the late 80's. It makes perfect sense to me that the female programs wear tight latex suits and use digital hairspray.

Also, with nobody telling him that it was lame to comment on startling events with phrases like "Hey dude, that's radical" with "hey, we don't talk like this anymore" - how would he know? How would he learn other phrases, being stuck inside a system with no input from the outside world?

But there are some minor flaws I would like to mention:

• first thing that comes to mind is the fight scene at EOL bar... it was too chaotic, therefore not really entertaining. Why didn't they hire a good choreographer? While the scene fulfills its purpose (heavily injure Quorra, steal the disc from Kevin), most bar fights from a random western or eastern movie do better in presentation. Also, after the fight Flynn yells at the deactivated Quorra "I will help you baby!" - not really in character, I think.

• why would Kevin have aged inside a digital world? Yes, of course, to make it easier to relate to him as human, and to be able to distinguish him from CLUE - understandable yet illogical.

• the gladiator stuff - why? Yes, it's part of the original TRON universe - but we are told a few times that the grid was designed to be a perfect world, a perfect society. Monarchy and gladiators don't really fit into my visions of a perfect society - do I get something wrong?

• other users: in the opening scene Kevin tells his son, that the grid is now a place where programs and users can coexist peacefully. Yet he (and decades later his son) are the only users who are actually present. What happened to the others? Are there others at all? Also, the role of Kevin is a bit confusing... in the original TRON he was "only" a user, fighting against the system. In LEGACY he is called the creator, and we are told that the GRID is his design.

But all these are minor glitches in a really good movie. And I am silently hoping there is a director's cut which will explain some of the unresolved stuff. And yeah, a sequel would be nice, but please don't let us wait another 3 decades for it! :)