wayouteast
Sr Member
I watched this the other day, having been aware of an adaptation of the original web-comic/graphic novel for some time. The film has had a fairly rocky road to the screen. Originally made by Blue Sky, the company behind the Ice Age movies, it was 75% complete when it fell victim to the Disney take-over of 20th Century Fox, Disney closing down the company and cancelling the film. It was saved by Netflix, who acquired the rights and the existing material, and Annapurna, who completed it.
All I can say is, thank goodness it was saved. It's absolutely fantastic! It's very, very funny, heart-wrenchingly emotional at times, brilliantly voiced and simply gorgeously animated.
I won't go too much into the plot or the themes too much here - it's perhaps not the place - but I will say that it's wonderfully inclusive and conveys its core messages about 'othering', perception vs reality and the dangers of institutional 'programming' incredibly powerfully without ever becoming preachy or losing sight of its primary goal of entertaining the audience. I was hugely moved by it and it resonated strongly with some of my own experiences and feelings over the 67 years I've been around.
What's more pertinent on this forum is the world in which the action occurs, which is a beautifully imagined and realised 'futuristic medieval' city. Imagine 'Blade Runner' but with knights in armour. Flying cars and 'hover horses'. Laser crossbows. Energy swords. Skyscrapers that resemble castles, giant animated billboards towering over town-square markets. Ground-effect vehicles that look like carriages. Dank dungeons with energy force-fields on the bars... you get the picture.
All this looks absolutely gorgeous, and is animated and lit with enormous care and love. The tech manages to be funny, cool and (almost) believable all at once and perfectly suits the world itself. The many references to genre tropes are witty and nicely integrated and the soundtrack is awesome, using several laugh-out-loud songs at the perfect moments.
Anyway, I loved it. All the characters (especially the title character, voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz) pop and sparkle with life and are very relatable. The plot zips along, shifting tone seamlessly between chaotic mayhem and hearfelt introspection as required, and the whole thing has a fabulous energy about it. Even without the important underlying theme it's all great fun and well worth checking out. Add in the deeper, sometimes darker, aspects and it's simply incredible.
And I really want to make one of those laser crossbows!
All I can say is, thank goodness it was saved. It's absolutely fantastic! It's very, very funny, heart-wrenchingly emotional at times, brilliantly voiced and simply gorgeously animated.
I won't go too much into the plot or the themes too much here - it's perhaps not the place - but I will say that it's wonderfully inclusive and conveys its core messages about 'othering', perception vs reality and the dangers of institutional 'programming' incredibly powerfully without ever becoming preachy or losing sight of its primary goal of entertaining the audience. I was hugely moved by it and it resonated strongly with some of my own experiences and feelings over the 67 years I've been around.
What's more pertinent on this forum is the world in which the action occurs, which is a beautifully imagined and realised 'futuristic medieval' city. Imagine 'Blade Runner' but with knights in armour. Flying cars and 'hover horses'. Laser crossbows. Energy swords. Skyscrapers that resemble castles, giant animated billboards towering over town-square markets. Ground-effect vehicles that look like carriages. Dank dungeons with energy force-fields on the bars... you get the picture.
All this looks absolutely gorgeous, and is animated and lit with enormous care and love. The tech manages to be funny, cool and (almost) believable all at once and perfectly suits the world itself. The many references to genre tropes are witty and nicely integrated and the soundtrack is awesome, using several laugh-out-loud songs at the perfect moments.
Anyway, I loved it. All the characters (especially the title character, voiced by Chloe Grace Moretz) pop and sparkle with life and are very relatable. The plot zips along, shifting tone seamlessly between chaotic mayhem and hearfelt introspection as required, and the whole thing has a fabulous energy about it. Even without the important underlying theme it's all great fun and well worth checking out. Add in the deeper, sometimes darker, aspects and it's simply incredible.
And I really want to make one of those laser crossbows!
