Reviews

Everything about this relatively family friendly film encourages you to keep watching, from the action to the characters' interplay to the gorgeous backgrounds, even the music. Lupin's Inspector Gadget style inventions coupled with his sneaky plans are great to watch, there's always something else getting schemed up.

The only problem I have with this movie are a couple of instances of toe-curling dialogue of the vaguely romantic kind - doesn't quite get it right, but perfectly forgivable. Coupled with that, I've seen no other Lupin film which comes close, except for 'The Fuma Conspiracy' - it's a shame they're not all up to this standard.

Anyone who enjoys a good adventure yarn which is more about the characters than having a complicated plot would probably enjoy this - think Indiana Jones or James Bond but less violent. It's also a good foil for when you've had enough heavy violence etc.

and a small amount of blood coagulated beneath the nail. What has this (perhaps somewhat) gruesome little snippet got to do with Amazons and Gladiators? It's this: that blunted digit was considerably more gory than the 'big' gladiator fight in this film.

A prolonged close-up of a throat-cutting involved a smear of ketchup on said fool's hand, between thumb and index.

The camera wobbles and pans around so that you cannot see weapons contacting (read: missing by a mile).

Swords 'cut' through flesh and bone by passing several inches in front of them and being accompanied by the same cloth ripping sound.

Is this a serious film? Is it? No, I think this is too heavily influenced by Sesame Street. The fight scenes should have been dropped in favour of can-can dancing, or maybe a Chinese lion dance, it wouldn't have made the film any more ridiculous and may have presented something worth watching. Get those knees up!

But wait, it doesn't stop there. We have a cast of characters who are just about all as unlikeable, unremarkable and shallow as each other. We have clichés spilling around like claret in a proper gladiator film. We have a combination of Xena and Hercules with all of the (few) good bits ripped out. We have a plot that would be laughed off the side of cereal packets.

There's plenty of nudity, attractive naked young females draped around the sets. Quite how they managed to make such nymphs SO unappealing and non-sexual is beyond me - it's more interesting to watch the clock.

The crowd from the 'arena' (possibly assembled and filmed within the director's shed, by the looks of it) acting like the three stooges in smocks. How did they get that many people to look so DENSE and act so annoying within one film? How? I'm giving this painful pile of tosh a 1, because I am extremely hard pressed to find a single good thing to say about it. Well.. some of the weapons and armour looked nice enough, but that isn't going to cut a 2.

Don't waste your time watching this tripe, seriously. Have a nap for a few hours, read a chapter of a good book, go for a walk, call your mother, heck.. watch Spongebob Squarepants. Just don't say you weren't warned. I will fight lions in the arena armed with a biro before I let anyone submit me to this torture again.

Despite doing nothing horribly wrong, this game is determined to shy away from any chance at greatness as soon as it gets close.

Think about a well presented luxury liner. Think about zombies and escaped bio-weapons. Think about a horrific control system when it comes to turning your character around. Think stop-start-stop-start-stop-start lightgunning sections mixed with the ability to run in circles. Think typical RE game mechanics, painfully simplified, puzzles removed, tension removed and half-decent characters removed.

What you're thinking probably resembles this game.

Whilst many regard it as a brave attempt to mould two genres into a playable game, I can't share their sentiments. The controls are laughable, for a game associated with RE and considering what the RE games were like at the time of this game's release.

Add in the short completion time, the tired enemy types and the unappealing characters, this really didn't require or deserve the RE tag.

Those requiring some adrenalin-fueled action will already own games far superior to this, those looking for survival horror may well become quickly annoyed at the shallow gameplay. RE fans might well become drowsy at the re-repeating enemy types.

As a footnote, those behind this game have obviously got some talent and could create cracking software I'm sure (that's if the actual RE team wasn't behind this in the first place?), but this game would need rebuilding from the ground up to really shine.

Boy Eats Girl is the kind of film to watch when you're in a non-committal mood, something that demands only vague attention and which doesn't try to be clever. If you want a horror or a zombie movie then look elsewhere, it's neither nor does it try to be.

It is a comedy, let's get it straight right now, not a zombie film. Romero's legacy to pop culture and the film industry certainly gets a good outing here, but this isn't a film to make gorehounds feel fat and happy, nor will zombie purists find anything to debate over.

A lot of the characters are like those from sappy American Teen comedies but with Irish accents and in situations involving blood and throw-away limbs.

Perhaps this helps: It's California Man with gore.

It entertained me for the short running time (about an hour I made it) and I liked it enough to cough up £5 for it. If you give it a chance as a silly gory comedy, you may well like it too.

^ These are the voyages of the starship: Wolf Creek.

Boredom lasts for a full hour, as we're introduced to three achingly irritating 'characters' (they're more like faces attached to bodies, saying they have 'character' is giving credit where it isn't due) and watch with dismay as they drive to Wolf Creek for no real reason and attempt to partake in conversation. Painful stuff, I can see why this is classed as horror.

After their rusty old banger dies in the middle of nowhere, they are rescued by the offspring of Crocodile Dundee and a demented children's' entertainer. Could this guy be plain wrong in the head? Is he dangerous? Does he have a fluffy-blue boggle eyed puppet? Will he show them how to make hats out of sheets of newspaper? God only knows, I struggled to care.

After a little longer, some more abortive stabs at the actors communicating amongst themselves on camera, we're finally ready for the head-clutching.

The gore and sadism. After being bored to tears for an hour, we're now treated to some good ol' video nastiness. Except it isn't, gory or shockingly sadistic that is. Having built absolutely zero connection to the characters at this point, I was having a real problem giving a tinker's cuss about their problems. What followed absolutely bowled me over. I take it readers of this.. er.. review? have seen or heard of the 'based on a true story' guff that surrounded this film? Well, it ain't, at least the vast majority of 'head clutching' is entirely pulled out of a writer's backside. It shows - horror clichés by the bucketfull.

Worst culprits: separating, standing around and actually watching a home video whilst inside the dragon's den, going back to the den at all. There's more of them, and they stick out all the more in what has been billed as a 'serious' film. This nonsense continues till the end of the film.

Raised eyebrow - that's what I was wearing as the credits rolled.

To say that this garbage is based on a true story is.. well it should be whacked by the trade descriptions act or somesuch. The wasted hour leading up to the witless and bizarre actions of the cast during the 'good' bit makes this film an absolute stinker.

If you're interested in modern horror, then I'm sure there's something, anything which can entertain you - I don't think Wolf Creek will. If you just want to be scared, see one of the horror greats. Gorehound? Look elsewhere, WC is a lightweight.

I don't rec. this film for viewing, renting or owning, unless the film's concept really seems to draw you in then please save your time and do something else.

The above title took more effort than this film has warranted.

It isn't meant to be a genuine horror film, more of a goof-spoof, so I won't dwell on it being neither gory, scary or even remotely thrilling.

What I will dwell on is the supposed 'humour'. What.. the... heck. The only humour I found in this picture is the thought that some folks have been paid to create this soulless drivel and that thousands of poor schmucks paid for the privilege of wasting their time. Quite funny, in a warped way. Ricci's on-screen brother is supposed to be the comic relief. He's neither comical nor provides much relief, except that he's not quite as painfully annoying as the rest of the cast. We have seen these annoying stereotypes plenty, please earn your pay and think of something new, TRY.

The characters are cookie-cutters, the acting is wooden (Christina Ricci is totally wasted here with such a pathetic script), the obligatory 'bully boys' 'sassy girl gang without a cell of brain between them' 'vamp rival' etc. etc. etc. should've been head shot with a werewolf. That's probably not possible, but it would've made it 'a werewolf film' whilst disposing of the on-screen bores.

What really puts my back up about this film is the feeling that nobody involved could be bothered to make something worth watching. Clag it on film and shove it in the mail, that's what the entire thing seems like. No aspect of this film is better than what has been done a thousand times over - what's worse is that teenie-bopper horrors are so staid that they're now self-parodying. I can't remember who said this originally, but they're right: "once you get to this point, STOP".

There are far better examples of horror/comedy/werewolf films already available, if teenie-bopper horrors are your bag, then stick with Scream, Last Summer, Cabin Fever or whatever. A few segments of Cabin Fever would beat this entire movie hands down.

2 out of 10, the extra point for the brother character not being quite as annoying as every other member of the cast (hooray).

Whilst every game in the SH series has been picked over and impolitely prodded every which way already, I feel I have to write my own review/nitpick of this particular title somewhere.

This game, despite being a departure from the previous trilogy, is still very much a SH title. Awkward melee combat, creepy atmosphere of the kind RE could only dream of, squeezy females to admire (hey, blame the developers for putting them in), it's all SH. With one exception, these bloody 'ghosts'. Whilst the voodoo behind it is intriguing, having a melee-based combat engine (I've been through most of the game and not used a fire arm once) with enemies you cannot kill seems a bad mistake. There are also several other issues I have with changes to the SH format, not because I hate change itself, but because they're just changes for the sake of fiddling. Almost of the changes are for the worse.

Rather than trying to paragraph it, here's a few lists of what I really liked and what I despised about this game.

Here's what I liked about the game:

* The story was good, it was interesting, I'm impressed.

* The twin-headed enemy is one of the best survival horror monsters ever, what a fantastic design.

* The first half of the game (apart from the annoying gameplay changes) was as superb as ever.

* Some aspects of the room, it was an interesting plot device and things like the notes under the door, the peep-hole and the hauntings really ramped up the atmosphere.

Here are all the problems I have with the game:

* Copying and pasting vast swathes of your own software in a vain attempt to get content for nothing sucks big style. I don't care what excuse/reason anyone comes up with, it's lazy, ignorant and someone needs beating with the ugly stick over it. If they weren't interested in creating a full game then they shouldn't have started it.

* Lack of enemy types. Again, how many survival horror games do you need to make before you bother to at least add a good dozen enemies? The ghosts really don't count, 'leeches' ... how many seconds did it take for you to think of that? Dog monsters! Oh please.

* Dog monsters. They're not part of the SH universe, what cobblers, their only association is that the SH dev. team(s) insists on clagging one into each game. I think we didn't have one for SH2, but then that's another reason to like SH2 :D Dog monsters in survival horror games have been done to death. Let's act like we're making new games, not rehashing our own success, K?

* Puzzles - where? Were they copied and pasted over by accident? Lining up a few blood-splotched rooms to jump down is neither interesting nor difficult.

* Ghosts - why? Why on earth are invincible monsters here? I really don't care if it was supposed to be another game before you clagged SH stickers on top, these do not work, the bug involving Eileen constantly slapping them shows how little the impact of these monsters has been thought over. I got stuck on more than a few occasions in tight corridors by these things. I beat you down, now stay down for 2 seconds or just get the hell out of my way, I don't want to lose precious energy just because of flawed enemies.

* Hauntings - nice idea, why do I have to sacrifice my precious energy(again) in order to deal with them/save? I've scrimped and saved my restorative items, risked being sent to Game Oversville by not using them when I'm half-dead, now you're going to crucify Harry when he isn't even in the game environment? Silly, annoying and pointless.

* Limited inventory space - if you're going to change something, at least change it because you've found something which works. How does limiting the amount of bullets I can carry, limiting the health packs I can pick up, limiting the golf clubs I can pick up HELP me to enjoy the game? Does someone on the development team think trogging back and forth to stick items in the chest is fun? Take some time off, you need it.

* Save system - as above, why? Does the thought of needless time wasting make you people happy? Take another week off.

* Prescence of ghosts sapping energy - yes, I know about the St. Christophers, but why punish us just for accessing that part of the game? This really wasn't needed or well thought-out.

So, as you might have guessed, I'm not much of a fan of SH4. What really annoys me is that it was, at its core, a solid game. If the dev. team/Konami had bothered to make sure the basic game mechanics worked, this could have been an absolute corker. I can only despair when one of the best franchises in video games is rolled out of the showroom without wheels - if SH5 isn't a major improvement then Konami can keep the rest -.-

Despite being annoyed at this series' needless re-emergence 10 or 15 years too late, despite being horrified at tales of Mad Max and Fist of the Northstar styled influences, I actually enjoyed this film.

I shouldn't enjoy it, really, especially since it reminds me of Super Mario Bros the movie (Hopper + Cholo's actor + otherworldly setting = podgy plumber attack).

I shouldn't have enjoyed it at all, considering how flat the characters seem, how shallow and 'mainstream' it all appears.

I shouldn't keep watching it, considering how needless the entire thing is, how it does nothing to advance the zombie genre, how annoying most of the cast are.

The problem here is that I DID enjoy it. The mish-mash of things which I'd naturally find entertaining and pinches of things that I usually loathe has produced an unremarkable picture that I cannot help but watch.

There aren't enough zombie encounters for my liking, some elements of the film are painfully twee, Hopper's character is just silly - more like a baddie from a kids' series than a serious character. But then, I could reel off hundreds of things I disliked about the film, but I'm still going to be watching it every few weeks and I'm still going to be glad I paid £5 to own the thing.

As a film in its own right, it's better than most of the soulless drivel that the horror genre gets lumbered with these days. It's worth a quick spin, but NOT if you're going to sit on the couch with a grin and weigh it against the Night trilogy - just look at it as a separate entity entirely.

As a third sequel to Night, it was completely unnecessary, just call it something else George and change the record please. I would like to see some other Romero works getting a little airtime, not just the Night films. A remake of The Crazies would be welcome!

..and you get this bizarre snorefest of a film.

Whilst I was a fan of the original Ring and thought that it did justice to the original Ringu, this seems like a quick cash-grab with a slapdash script. I can only boggle at the millions spent on creating it and the millions raked in from it.

The opening part of the movie simply repeats what we've seen before in Ring/Ringu. Then we get a couple of completely uninteresting 'scares'. For the rest of the film, we have a 'don't touch my BAYBEE' scenario which could've been pulled out of any made for TV horror movie.

Whilst I cannot bring myself to hate the movie, I can't dredge up any kind of feeling for it whatsoever. I returned it to the video shop sound in the knowledge that I'd never sit through it again.

4 out of 10 - the highest of my 'will never watch again' scores because of a few decent effects and some nice atmosphere. A real shame that atmosphere wasn't connected to a decent film.

Next time, at least TRY to write a film rather than cobble together a few odds and sods?

If you've never seen the original, then go right ahead and get hold of an enjoyable zombie romp.

If you've seen the original (and particularly if you are a fan) then this should be OK to watch, it's pretty much the same thing with a few changes to Barbara and shot in colour. That is unless you are a die-hard fan in which case you'd probably gain nothing from the experience.

There's nothing that I can throw at this movie, it doesn't reflect badly on the original, nor is it a bad film in its own right.

I just don't get why it was remade, we know and love (maybe loathe) these characters already, do we need another clutch of actors to repeat the performance like a dodgy kebab? Nothing's added, no new light is cast, no performance is either bad nor outstanding, it's just 'there'.

Ah well, if you see it cheap then you probably won't regret your purchase, just don't go expecting something new.

This is a real gem, 50 minutes of pure joy and brain-massage, ahhhh.

In a nutshell, it's Terminator gone animated, with a cutesy cast and some great fights with the killer robots - keep your overblown plots and twists which don't make sense, this is what entertainment is all about. Military VS murder machines, what a result! If nothing else, watch this once for those few scenes - some of the best sci-fi combat I've seen on any medium.

Although it's a only a short-film, there's nothing to really go wrong and the pace is so fast that you're too busy enjoying the ride to get nitpicky.

If you like sci-fi anime, Masamune Shirow or wearing a smile then this is headed for your DVD collection.

Someone, somewhere, punished me the day I rented this.. thing.

In a nutshell: It's a feature-length coffee commercial which thinks it's the bee's knees. It is that awful.

I can forgive it looking like a high-school project gone wrong, that really isn't the issue, the problem is that it's so busy trying to be deliberately bad, it ends up being genuinely bad in every sense. Every voice actor on it seemed smug about their involvement, the sound quality was lamentable, it was BORING in the extreme.

There's little more to say, my dismay forced me to remove this insult to my wit from the DVD player after mere minutes, I've seen 'real life' stories that probably have a smaller budget completely blow this out of the water.

If the idea of this movie appeals, please go ahead and resent the money you wasted. Perhaps it'll go some way to repaying the poor, wretched publisher who allowed this thing onto DVD in the first place. I'd give it a zero rating if I could.

It's been awhile since I owned several discs of this, so I'll have to be a little vague..

Pros: Nice intro and music, good fight scenes, nice locations, stylish, semi-interesting ongoing plot. Also, the set-ups for each episode really do hook you.

Cons: Too long spent listening to dull dialogue between the main characters, one is a cute zombie, the other is just aggressive (often for no apparent reason). The whole 'heartless unstoppable killer' really isn't new, it's a character stereotype which can VERY easily bore (it does here) without care being taken to make the character interesting. The same goes for 'femme fatale' characters. Here we have a heartless unstoppable killer femme fatale... *yawn*. Oh, and a heap of other femme fatale characters. It gets old, we aren't all 14 year old boys trying to get our jollies from murderous young females with an arsenal that'd make the Gunbuster crew twitch.

Overall, it's a decent looking modern anime which doesn't involve fantasy, sci-fi or teen romance. In my book that's a real plus.

I wouldn't turn any anime fan away from this if they like the look of it, if any of the above has caused you any concern, go for a rent. Internet-based rental shops now carry anime even here in the UK :)

Whilst the paper-thin plot may annoy some viewers, the crunchy amphibians may revolt others (you'll see..), this film shines in its simplicity. It doesn't TRY to be deep (there may be hidden meanings wrapped around umpteen parts of the film, there may not, frankly I'm always too busy enjoying it to care), it just entertains and strips away the office-induced headaches and stress.

It's good to know that there's something heart-warming, attention-grabbing and homely in a film, yet it demands so little from you. You just fire it up, lay back and melt into the couch.

Other aspects of the film have been probed to death by scores of other reviewers. So, I'll leave it at this: try it if you want something different, it really doesn't demand you think differently, just be in the mood to relax. Don't take preconceptions of the film being this or that, just sit and watch it, empty your head.

This film is certainly not for fans of mainstream flicks, I'm not even sure if it's for all fans of the darker side of Asian cinema either.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to be honest, even when you do force some framework of a plot onto the film (and think "there, that's what it all means"), you're still wondering why one character did this, what that scene meant etc.

The plot itself could be written in a few sentences, but it's the characters which really flesh out the film. Their mannerisms, the fact that you REALLY want to dislike some of them, you want the main character to dislike them. Yet, he doesn't it seems, and neither did I. Very rarely does a film actually make me want to think about the characters, decide whether I'd ever want to encounter such people in life.

One thing that really bites about this film (it's been highlighted by other reviewers) is the length of the picture. A lot of this extra time comes from empty scenes where nothing happens, nobody says anything and there's precious little to think about. The film could easily have lost half an hour of 'gawp-time' and still been just as delicious (if not more so). That knocks a point off the score, particularly when a film is this good! I don't want to have internal arguments about whether to fast-forward or not, I want to enjoy the film.

That aside, I'm delighted to have this film on the shelf.

If you're not 100% sure of your love of Takashi Miike's work, I'd recommend renting this first. If you've seen none of Miike's work, definitely rent first!

I have no soap-box to stand on regarding the original version and this remake, I looked at this as an entirely unrelated film and this review is without fanboy mailce.

First impressions.. bloody brilliant! It was high-octane and genuinely unsettling, the whole running-zombies doesn't cause me any concern either - admittedly some die-hard zombie fans were unimpressed but I think the majority will find them believable and quite acceptable. The opening shots in particular were a joy to behold.

This delight continued till at least half way through the film, till things started going badly wrong with the script. Having laid it on thick that these characters are in a survival setting, the film starts inducing cretinism which spreads like a disease through the desperate band of survivors.

It seems to me that the writer(s) ran out of ideas when it came to the grand finale, and resorted to bodging up the second half of the film in order to make something happen. It's easy to see the way the writer envisioned this, if only because the deterioration of the script is so profound.

An irritating antagonist figure (who was never needed in the first place), a dog and a conveniently timed empty stomach all add up to a bizarre sequence of events that occurs where something a darn sight better should have. Won't elaborate - see for yourself if the idea of the film tickles you.

Opportunities to darken the tone of the film, make the characters likable or at least someone you could be sympathetic towards are wasted. Character emotions are botched completely - misplaced 'romance' and cheesy lines seriously detract from the film. Again, this happens as a domino effect, no sign of this early in the film, then halfway through the stodge sets in fast.

The most irritating thing is that if the film had continued in the same vein as it had started, this would probably be one of my favourite films, period. As it is, I can't stand to even watch the thing again.

Despite having a marked dislike for the end product and scoring it as such, I would expect the majority of horror fans to enjoy this, with two exceptions:

A) Hardcore zombie fans who are really into the idea of zombies slowly shuffling - softly softly catchee meatbag style. B) Those who've ever thought "what the hell are you doing!? That's just stupid" when seeing this kind of film.

Some argue that this kind of dumbness is a necessity in slasher type films, but to me the film set the scene with arguing survivors in a situation and promptly made them act like complete chimps because nobody could figure a way of playing the film out properly.

If nothing said here puts you off then please do go ahead and enjoy yourself with this film, regardless of the factors which get right up my nose it can't be said that the film has no merits.

I expected nothing from this, except that being a fairly modern film that it would at least spare me 80s denim and bad haircuts xD I don't think I even got that.

If it had just been total rubbish with no glimmer of potential, that would be OK, predictable and OK.

What really gets me is that this film could have been something, it really wouldn't have taken much at all! Ordinary camera shots, kids behaving evil rather than like mannequins, a heroine character with the ability to realise she's in a horror film not some 'real life drama' and a few other things, this could have been a good straight to video/TV film, it really could have been :( Another thing which bugged me is that the film had something over many of its rivals: the picture quality really wasn't bad. Oftentimes it's this alone which betrays a shoe-string budget movie from a supposedly 'better' picture with more money. SO close to a good film, it's so annoying..

COTC films already have the basis for a good creepy feeling, those pesky kids! It was evident here too, there was some good atmosphere when the kiddies were on the prowl, but it was messed up with some very poor direction.

Stupid 'ghost' sounds (kids laughing in this case), silly ineffective camera cheap-shots and minutes wasted watching the heroine wander around when it's obvious she will find nothing. These annoy viewers every flipping time, yet once again they're here to annoy COTC: Revelation viewers too. These pathetic acts of film-making sloth knock the film down a few pegs on their own!

The kids act like robots in bad threads most of the time, these are self-assured, murderous and downright evil kids from hell without a scrap of empathy. So.. why are they gimping around like second-rate zombies in goofy clothing? For God's sake. *Scowls*

The main apartment building doesn't seem inhabited at all, a total ghost town, yet within a few shots it turns out that there's a bunch of people living there. The audience shouldn't have to be faced with such cack-handed bloopers like this. Sloppy, it jarred and brought me straight out of the film. If the crew can't be bothered to put a film together properly, how can they expect anyone to bother to watch it?

I was glad when it was over, there's nothing worse than glimpsing what could have been.

In short: don't rent, don't buy, don't bother.

Throughout this film there was an atmosphere of.. expectancy, a sort of electrical feeling if you like. A good thing in itself. Behind that, there was another feeling, the "is this going to develop into something watchable?" one you get when a film really isn't gelling within half an hour.

That was extremely valid, since this film didn't develop into anything at all. The characters were disposable, the 'enemies' turned out to be not a fraction as interesting as they could've been, the 'twist' was more of fumbled swivel and the last ten minutes ensured annoyance as the most notable feeling I got after pressing eject.

Opportunities for the crew to make us feel any empathy for the cast were wasted, it is difficult to feel anything for these characters. Keaton's character himself has the depth of a puddle, it's Keaton's own.. presence I suppose is the word, which managed to hold my interest through the film (despite my increasing annoyance as the goofs kept piling up).

There's atmosphere in spades, but too long just watching Keaton being boring and obsessed (from a variety of camera angles). Whilst the flick had potential, quite a lot of it really, in trying to be 'clever' it ended up as a complete mess.

I couldn't recommend this for a rental, since I believe a lot of viewers would resent their £2 (or equivalent) being spent on something which made them feel like throttling somebody.

This film was a waste of actors, waste of money and a waste of special FX. It's slipped beneath the radar almost immediately and may I humbly, humbly suggest you don't bother watching it just to find out why. There are countless films which get the best aspects of White Noise right without fumbling the other facets so badly.

Any feeling of wanting to nit-pick this film only happened after I logged into the IMDb, watching the film itself was sheer escapism and I loved every minute almost. During the film itself, there was only one scene which jarred, and it was a common annoyance with films in general. A couple of horror film specific blunders were in evidence.

One of these was selective invulnerability, where the person/thing should have been injured (based on what has gone before) yet wasn't simply for purposes of the film. Sloppy but forgivable.

The agonizing pause, where a horror movie character just WAITS instead of acting upon what every fibre in their being must be screaming. Sloppy, less forgivable.

Those were the two things that bugged me, the rest of the film had excellent atmosphere which really reeled me in, the characters actually had a basic personality, unlike teen slasher crud. The setting was excellent.

The ending was poor, could have been a lot more interesting - but hey, it doesn't drag the film down badly.

Give it a rental rather than buying, it's worth the cost of entry.

For the purposes of this comment, the version I watched was the European (region 2) DVD of this first volume.

I caught one of these on late night TV, probably as I was hopping to BBC Parliament (don't ask), so it made a pleasant change :) Next time I was in the video store, I was chuffed to see this, though it only caught my eye as I was passing the kids' videos. (why does animated automatically = kids?) (I mean STILL?). The concept is simple: Cute, fluffy bun-bun and friends get decapitated in a variety of ways. Lots of lovely gore, lots of Grade A screaming from the voice actors and actress. Sweet.

I think I'm right in saying that the total content of this DVD only lasts less than an hour. That and the fact that the intro and ending of each 'toon' are included, stretching the viewing time with the same ending over and over. The intros include the name of the sketch and the characters in the sketch, so I can see why they should be left in, but the only different aspects of the endings are the 'thought for the day' suggestions, like 'don't forget to floss' etc. They're funny, but I'd have rather just seen the thought for the day, then onto the next intro. The last sketch could've then had the full credits.

I wouldn't recommend paying more than about £8 (or equivalent) for this disc, as it's pretty short, however: These are great for winding down. No plot, no 'back story', no nothing. Just a cute and happy scene suddenly splattered with gore and intestines. Also, the DVD extras are brilliant, 12 animated shorts of 4 of the character getting geeked in even more varied ways.

There's nothing here that'd satisfy gorehounds, but for those who REALLY need something to take the edge off their stress levels, this could be just the ticket.

Having owned this movie on both DVD and VHS, I have to say it remained one of my least watched movies until I admitted to myself that I didn't want to watch it again - sell!

Whilst watching this movie for the last time, I tried to link up the plot devices to make a tangible journey, and failed. On top of that, the parts of the film which are supposed to add flesh to the characters and suck you into the oppressive atmosphere just don't WORK.

The visuals are gorgeous, yes, but then the same could be said for most modern console games, I wouldn't want to sit and stare at those for an hour and a half either. Talking of visuals, the film makers seem to have an obsession with disrobing the main character at every verse end. That's a pity, since it lowers the tone of the movie needlessly. The Major isn't exactly anime totty either, miserable monotone cyborg as a pin-up? Naaaah..

Technology has a major part to play in this film, probably more so than any individual character. That's unfortunate, since the flat dialogue between the characters doesn't bring any of it to life. (That's a strange sentence, but it's a little difficult to put into words). Perhaps this is a better way: It's like sci-fi buffs who rant on about fictional technology in series like Star Trek. At the end of the day, the technology isn't what it's about, it's the characters who make the entire thing worth watching. Worrying about what warp-factor 5 or whatever actually 'is' means that you've missed the point entirely.

So with that in mind, we have all this business about what defines a human being, what defines life and what ethical problems are created by scientific advances. In this case the internet, IT and artificial intelligence are all bundled up and thrown at humanity's slow-to-adapt ethics. Great, wonderful, lovely... if you were faced with a script which can deliver that whilst getting to know the characters, keeping the film interesting and leaving you satisfied with the outcome - GITS fails quite miserably on those fronts.

The conversations between the two main players delivered nothing more than a couple of minutes worth of brain-tickling. They struck me as simply being miserable as opposed to 'deep'. At these points of the film I've been sorely tempted to hit F-FWD.

The action sequences are well done, but there's only a couple of them and they're short-lived. Then we're stuck with another long sequence of events which add-up to little.

The ending hit the buffers rather than wound down the movie. Either an uplifting final note or something chilling would have been .. nice? Instead I found myself gawping at the credits and wondering why on earth nobody came up with something better.

Most of the above thoughts have come around after actually mulling over the goings-on in the film some time after last watching it. At first I enjoyed watching the film, but after digging deeper and looking at what the message was the whole thing just unravelled. Going deeper with the anime medium is great, but it shouldn't get in the way of the film's flow. Couple that with a message which is neither original or particularly valid at this point in time, what could've been a corking film is instead boring and disjointed. Less talk about electronic gimmicks (who cares? How did it add to the film?), less monotone self-pity from the lead chara and a few more action seens would have gone a long way.

More anime thrillers, horrors and sci fi like this would be most welcome. In my opinion though, this film has had too much praise nailed to it and is one to rent and enjoy a few times before the flaws begin to bug you.

The animation quality here is decidedly below par IMO, regardless of the age of the OAV. The plot itself makes sense, but the characters don't.

This might sound picky, but considering that the city of Olympus is almost exclusively populated by living machines, would YOU feel comfortable there as a human? Would any machine ever emulate human arrogance, short-sightedness and greed quite so effectively? I doubt it. There are some pointers towards this in the movie, but only when the team can be bothered to put them in, by and large the 'bioroids' (or whatever they are) are interchangeable with human characters. Seems sloppy to me.

The main characters seem to have some kind of emotional entanglement, though no light is shed on this. Little light is shed on the backstory at all, a great pity. The short length of the film coupled with the focus on mecha and the crime means that we don't see any character depth. The groundwork's all down, yet we're left with no finished product. A cropped version of this OAV would have made a great TV episode, once some character sub-plots had been established.

The highlights of this short film are the mecha designs and the action/espionage.

The flaws really start to show through once you've had a chance to digest all the goings-on, so I couldn't recommend this for owning, but it's certainly worth a watch or two! Whilst this review is mostly negative, I really do think it's worth your time to watch this, but it's not something to rush out and buy.

In a nutshell: A watchable wasted opportunity.

Having seen this OAV a few days ago, I was interested to see so few reviews, so I'll write my own ;)

The plot basically revolves around the pirates on board the Sol Bianca, who find a young boy as stowed away in a cargo crate which they've just half-inched from a space freighter. Said boy wants to go to the planet where he was bound before his 'kidnap'. After buttering up his (all female) 'captors' with stories of treasure, they head off to the planet, full throttle. Blah blah blah. Feeling excited yet? I wasn't.

About half way through, it had become obvious that the female leads were busy following their stereotypes, and would do nothing more. The 'baddie' is identical to a thousand and one evil generals seen elsewhere in Venus Wars and Plastic Little, though both those characters had at least some interesting facets.

Every aspect of the OAV is well-trodden territory, from the characters themselves, the character designs, the plot, the settings, the relationships between characters, it's all 'ditto'. There's no time given to explaining what's going on, because what's going on is painfully obvious. You sit there in stupified silence and wonder if the few minutes of decent viewing (most of the way through the film) justify watching the entire thing. They don't, unfortunately.

What bothers me intensely about this is if there were a few more minutes running time, and a little more LIFE in this short film, then it could have turned out differently. As it stands, I can't see it being of much use to many people.

If you can see this for nothing, borrow it or watch it on TV, then go for it and form your own opinions. I would heartily discourage all but completists from paying good money to own this, there's nothing here they won't have seen being done better on another anime film.