ARK (2005) movie review

Well Lets hope that this review will make it on to the site, as my last 8 or 9 reviews have still not been published over the last 5 months so I'll have to put this review elsewhere on other sites also as Amazon cannot be relied upon, shame really, I have lost a few reviews because of them as I didn't save them anywhere else and Amazon have been completely non responsive about this. anyway here is my review for the film. I didn't expect this to have such a great storyline as well as stunning visuals after watching a few of these region 1 CGI offerings including Kaena the prophecy and Dragon Hunters, I initially thought this would be the weaker of them, but I was wrong, (I haven't watched Delgo yet so I can't compare it to that) The film feels very final fantasy like so if you enjoyed the spirits within or advent children you will like this, the visuals are just as rich as those movies, perhaps a little more game-looking, I suspect that maybe the film was made using a game building software or engine, I don't know much about that so I can't really be sure, however the colors, textures and details are very good and definitely on par with, if not a little below the final fantasy films. This was by far the superior film in contrast to Kaena the prophecy, (dragon hunters is too different to give it a fair comparison, with that being more like ice age, igor etc) having a much more solid storyline and more rounded and three dimensional characters, the voice actors were also very good and I never felt that any of them were wooden or lacking in depth aprt from a few minor issues with facial/voice matching, for example, when the queen is shouting out a speech in one scene, her face would have benefited from more expressions, as her face didn't look as passionate as her speech, but things like this only happened far and few in-between and didn't effect the overall brilliance of the film. The theme of the film is not so unfamiliar, the Korean animated feature "Sky Blue" has alot in common with this film in terms of the story as I'm sure alot of other films have, ie: separation of races, dome like city's amidst wasteland, (Ergo Proxy) fantasy elements, slavery, man rescues child from opposing race and raises as his own, (I know I've seen this done before but can't remember where?) but despite all of these similarities to other films the film still works on many levels, holds your attention and still offers some surprises along the way. The characters are well fleshed out , even the minor ones and you do feel some sort of connection to them and you are bothered about what happens to them, whether good or bad. Whilst watching this I also thought of a few live action films such as Bladerunner and the 5th element, maybe even a little minority report, just for one or two touches like the backgrounds or the feel for the environment. This is definitely a must for fans of anime, especially if you like sci-fi, fantasy, mecha, although it was not overloaded with mecha and mecha was not a main theme, just that there were a few robots around but not all the time, nor was there any signs of a cyborg entourage, but there was a little robot bird thing to add a touch of quirkiness to the fil but nothing was too OTT or overdone which is what I liked about it. Some parts would have benefited from a little more explanation but for what was covered in the time alloted I found it easy to follow and understand and no rushed, (90% of the time) A great movie definitely worth watching if you can, yes it's quite expensive to buy at the moment, especially as it is not a region 2 release, so you will need a multi region DVD player to watch. It's probably worth paying out for if you can get it for less than £20 considering that it's hard to find, and if you like this sort of thing you probably won't mind spending that to watch and own it so why not! If you are a fan of anime, particularly sci-fi/fantasy then I would definitely recommend it if you don't mind CGI, if you liked" Kaena the prophecy" then you will like this as it's a much more solid venture all round, If you like world cinema such as Pans labyrinth, Belleville sisters etc then again you might enjoy this, obviously it's not for people who don't like sci-fi or animation etc but I guess if you are looking at this page then you are already mildly interested so all you need to do now is get it and watch it! how I rate the film/brief summery Visuals 10/10 (stunning, special effects were excellent too) Vocals 9.5/10 (very good voice-overs, forgot I was watching an animated feature) Characterization 8/10 (good strong characters, especially the laeding roles) Character design 9.5/10 (everyone looked different and were not too stereotypical, besides maybe the bad guy) Story 9/10 (excellent story, only loses a mark because it's been done before, but the director has still made it unique in may ways) Concept 10/10 (I really like the idea behind the story, although simple I think it makes for a good story and it has) Execution 9/10 (this is where most ideas fail flat but I'm pleased to say this was not the case here and that it was handled very well!) So my final thought is that this was a great film, great story although done before it was executed well enough here to make this a clear winner, I would also recommend Kaena, although it wasn't executed as well and there was some technical glitches it had more innovative character designs, and a more imaginative world, it also felt much much more unique in it's story, visuals etc, although the leading protagonist in that film was not as visually pleasing as this one, the film still gets my vote, Definitely buy this, "The Ark" if you can and are interested, and if your hesitating between this and Kaena just buy them both, they are very different in their methods but similar in story, (sort of) and are both rewarding viewings, with this one rating slightly higher for me, but then again you may prefer Kaena depending on your tastes so I'd say get them both together, you won't be disappointed (beware that there are some time frame rate issues in Kaena but it's not too bad, maybe a little distracting)