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| A.L.I.CE - DVD Review By Yodasnoog |
| FILM: It was a strange experience watching A.L.I.CE…given it’s look and feel (CGI animation), everytime a scene ended or faded out I kept getting the urge to reach down and pick up the game controller to play the next level. Yes, as you can probabaly tell, I am new to the genre of CGI Anime, but I can certainly see myself becoming a fan. Alice Hayashi is the youngest person ever to travel into space, but due to problems with her ship, she ends up crash landing in the North Pole. With the aid of a friendly female cyborg-waitress, she escapes an attack from an army of bad guys (who look strangly like a band of Rockateers…hmm) called Stealth Troopers. Alice and the cyborg crash their vehicle during the escape, and it is here we are introduced to Yuan, a young loner, who gives Alice shelter for the night. Soon Alice realises things are not right here. We find out that poor Alice has somehow been thrown thirty years into the future, and not all is well. As something called Nero is controlling the land, wiping out village after village and causing people to live in fear. But with some investigation from the trio, Alice’s arrival into the future may not be as accidental as it seems. Directed by Kenichi Maejima, and written by Masahiro Yoshimoto (who wrote, in my opinion, the greatest video game ever made, Shen-Mue), A.L.I.CE is great fun and not as cold and unemotional as i was semi-expecting due to the fact that it’s a purely CGI movie (And no, not in the same way that Toy Story or Shrek is). Maejima handles the characters as just that, characters, and not just tools to make a cool looking flashy movie and I respect that alot. There is also some rather nice cinematography here, which isn’t a surprise, because how many times have you watched a cut sequence on a game and said “wow, that was just like a movie” The Cyborg-Waitress character brings a lot of the comic relief to the movie, with her constant wardrobe changes, upgrades and cuter than a barrel of cuteness voice. Infact most of the characters here are pretty memorable, from Alice, Yuan and the Cyborg (who Yuan affectionatly calls Junk Heap), to the members of the underground movement intent on stopping Nero. I’m definetly looking forward to more films in this genre, whilst A.L.I.CE it may take a little getting used to, it’s certainly worth sticking with it. PICTURE: Spotless as you would expect given the fact that it’s a digital movie. SOUND: Very nice indeed, and here we have the original Japanese track and an English dubbed track, both in 5.1. I did flick the dubbed track on everynow and then to check it out, and if you can’t be bothered to read subtitles then I guess it’ll do for you. But the voice of the waitress is far better on the original soundtrack, as is everyone elses. But i’m a purist, although it’s good that the dubbing is here for those who think subtitles “spoil the film”. EXTRAS: Final Fantasies – A History Of CGI Animation – This was filmed at the London Sci Fi 2003 festival, and very interesting it is too, well worth a watch. Interview with Director Kenichi Maejima Trailers Filmographies and Biographies Image Gallery Artwork VERDICT: Once again, Artsmagic have taken a fairly obscure movie and given it the best possible release. DVD companies should start taking notice of what these guys are doing and stop taking the lazy way out and tagging “special edition” on a dvd which has “new subtitles” as one of it’s reason for being so…special (ahem….TARTAN…cough…Audition…) |
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