Reviews

The movie starts with the supposed killing of Naraku and then introduces a new enemy: Kaguya, who used Naraku's helpers Kanna and Kagura to free herself from her 1000-year prison. Her coming will mean an eternal darkness. She is supposedly the tennyo from the old legend of the angel who lost her feathered robe and was unable to return to her home in heaven.

Inuyasha and the gang gets drawn into all of it when Kagura and Kanna appear to steal a part of the Fire Rat Robe that Inuyasha wears (wouldn't it have been safer just to slay a Fire Rat and rent a seamstress to make a robe of it, I wonder... doesn't Kagura and Kanna fear Inuyasha now that he has supposedly killed their old boss?). Anyway, Inuyasha and the gang also meet an ancestor of Houjou-kun, who posesses the tennyo's robe that Kaguya desires. They figure out what's going on and decide to prevent Kaguya from being unleashed.

The basic plot is sound, but the movie suffers slightly from involving too many of the IY-characters. Kikyou's scenes are completely unnecessary - the only thing they accomplish is remind us that she is wierd. The Kohaku-story was slightly far-fetched, but given it's final developement, it passes for accetable. At this point, I'm just thankful they didn't try and squeeze Sesshoumaru into the story as well.

The problem with the movie is that it's slightly too short. Another 5-10 minutes would have been enough to let the plot sink in and allow the viewer to understand what is going on. For instance, the quick 2-line explanation given as to why Kanna and Kagura starts serving Kaguya doesn't make any sense at all.

This movie is, despite its flaws, excellent. It has the regular nice IY-humor, the characters feel deep and real and the Kagome/Inuyasha-relationship is warmer than ever (*sweeet*). The badguy is somewhat shallow and single-minded, but she makes up for it in style. She feels even more powerful than Naraku.

This movie is a must-see for anyone who whatches the tv-series. It contains some really longed-for moments and the action is superb.

Don't miss it!

Let's be fair here. The plot sucks, most characters are as dimensional as cardboard coutouts and the anachronisms are as frequent as the political correctness. This show has no courage at all.

When it comes to the characters, I find some depth only in Sully and also, sometimes (surprisingly) in Hank. These guys actually get to evolve a little.

I stopped watching the show after the baby came. That's when it really really really starts to be a pukefest. If you want good western, throw this in the trash and visit your local videostore. There are plenty of good westerns out there.

To be honest: the only reason women watch this is because they think Sully is hot. The only reason men watch this is because women (inspired by dr Quinns women-rule-the-world attitude) force them to.

And I would also like to laugh at the gullible person who said that other races are actually played by actors of the right race! Did you forget Inga and the swedish settlers? I am swedish, and I can reveal that it's always embarrasing when the swedes are in the show. Their swedish sucks so much it's impossible to understand beyond a few words, it's translated incorrectly by the in-show interpretors and Inga's accent is simply a joke. Not that swedes and americans are different races, but they are certainly different peoples and the casting of the swedes certainly qualifies as a catastophe.

I used to love Star Trek. Greatly. Used to tape every episode.

Until I watched Voyager, that is.

In the best sci-fi show ever, Babylon 5, three questions are asked over and over again: Who are you? What do you want? Do you have anything worth living for?

Voyager would have benefitted greatly from answering each of these questions for the characters before they started making the show. Most of the characters has no sense of who they are beyond being starfleet personell. They are too perfect to be human. Where are their flaws? Where are their passions? Who are you?

And what do you want? Most characters only want one thing: to get home. But this is not enough to support a storyline for seven years, especially not since only a few episodes actually focuses on the getting home part, and not even in these is the longing of the characters strong enough to make them cease the day. The crew is handed various chances of getting back, but there is always a price to pay. Why don't you ever pay the price? Don't you want to get home? What do you want?

Do you have anything worth living for? What is the point of placing the crew in a different, interesting situation if most episodes disregard this setting, through the use of convenient class-M planets, holodeck scenarios or chance encounters. Isolating the crew in the vastness between the stars would have forced the show to answer the third question for the characters: do you have anything worth living for?

Voyager offers almost no character developement, beyond Janeway's hair change. Gaaaasp! They actually changed her hairstyle! Oh-my-god! But how come her character is exactly the same at episode 110 as it was in episode 1? Has nothing affected her during these hard seven years?

Misunderstand me the right way, here... Voyager had some really good ideas from the start. Two crews, stuck together in unknown space without any way of getting home. A place of mistrust and conflicts.

Unfortunatelty, these conflicts were all sorted out by episode 5 and everyone was starfleet to their bones. Even Paris, who showed some promise at first, being a traitor and ex-convict with a little spirit. Too bad he was not allowed to develop.

And let me just clarify one thing: half a dussin of ethnically diverse people discovering american values together is NOT character developement.

Where is the passion, where is the courage? All I discovered in this show is stupidity and fear. Fear of using the good basic concept, unbelievable stupidity where casting and story-writing is concerned.

Do not watch this. Voyager is a dumpsite for all the scripts that were rejected from the other shows. Most episodes are fresh from the trashpile.

The best thing about B5 was that it was all planned from the beginning : all five seasons. That made it good. That made log story--archs possible. That created wonderful intrigues that could never be concieved in the regular kind of show (read: Star Trek) where the plot is always the same: "bust the alien-of-the-week for the mystery-of-the-week, or defeat the microbe-of-the-week with a stream-of-technobabble".

Rangers seems to be dangerously near falling into this trap. The crew was more Star-Trek-all-american-hotshots than the seasoned, competent people of a B5 crew.

The battle interface was an outright stupid idea. Let's just leave it at that.

The dialog was bad. Good lines were overused, like "we live for the one, we die for the one".

And for the love of all that's good and true... the Rangers are NOT kamikaze pilots! The original rangers were never some suicidal freaks ready to die pointless deaths just to save face. They fought in their own ways, but they were intelligent enough to realise when there was a need for retreat, to return to fight another day.

Marcus was a true ranger. He was a gentleman and a warrior of honor, dedicated to a great philosophy. This new bunch seemed more his opposits than his equals.

They were not rangers. This was not worthy of the great label B5. This is a story that might as well have been stolen from the Star Trek files.

The only thing that I really, really liked was a single line (reference to Lord of the Rings): "We stand on the bridge none may pass".

/Auryn

The movie started out fine. A little spooky, a little fun, the kind of film that shouldn't be taken too seriously. But what bothers me is that this film is (in a nutshell) a perfect example of what's wrong with the masses' understanding of the concepts of evolution. Yuuk... american filmmakers really need to take some basic biology classes! Maybe one of these years they'll get it RIGHT!

It was entertaining though, but it could have been alot better. The ending was just plain sucky. No explanations, no tying up loose ends. Nothing. Just a schampoo commercial.

I gave this movie 2/10. It was entertaining, but it was stupid. I felt insulted as an intelligent human being.

/Auryn

I have not read the Harry Potter novels. I should add a "yet" to that sentance, because I made up my mind to read them when I walked out of the cinema. This was a fairy-tale, just the way they are supposed to be! It wasn't too cute or too cartoonish, and it didn't leave out the darker elements. That, for me, means that the makers have respect for the audience. This is the kind of movie that children are supposed to see - something that includes the sad and the scary as well as the happy and funny.

Harry Potter has a very nice Astrid Lindgren-style to it, which I loved, since Lindgren is one of my favorite authors (Mio my Mio, Lionheart Brothers, Ronja, Pippi Longstocking and others). In fact, there were a lot of common elements, like the huge pile of gold coins, the invisibility cloak and not least, the evil presence of Voldemort who somehow brought Night Kato and Tengil to mind: someone so dark he can only be fought by a child.

Harry Potter is truly the masterpiece it was made out to be, athough the movie DID drag out at some points, and it took a little too long for the actual plot to start up. Nevertheless, I'm givning the movie 10/10.

Next stop is the bookstore...!

An old legend tells of how a fisherman stole the wings of an angel, so that she could not return to heaven. Instead she stayed on the earth became the fisherman's wife. Ayashi no Ceres is based upon this legend. The souls of the angel (or tennyo "heavenly maid") and the fisherman have been reborn in the bodies of the twins Aya and Aki. Aya carries the Tennyo named Ceres, who seeks her wings so that she can return to heaven, and Aki carries the evil soul of the fisherman, who stole Ceres' wings and forced her to become his wife. Aya flees from the people who wish to kill her and Ceres, and she flees from her brother Aki, who now carries a darkness inside him. She meets Touya, a mysterious amnesia-stuck hitman sent to observe her, and slowly they fall in love.

I got lost in the plot a couple of times, since the anime covers a very large manga series in relatively few eps, but it was still a wonderful show with movie quality animation. As could be expected coming from the crew behind Fushigi Yuugi, there was a lot of romance, but it seemed more true and more beautiful than anything shown in Fushigi Yuugi, mainly because the heroine, Aya, is much more sympathetic than that annyoing brat Miaka with the ugly Princess Leia-style hairdo. We get to follow Aya from the first attempt on her life, through a great adventure of love, sadness, laughter, tears, life and death. There is a love triangle, very skillfully handled, and many subplots that brings a great depth.

This show is NOT for children! It is very realistic in its style, and includes some really nasty scenes where people get hurt in very cruel ways. It's also confusing, as it tries to tell a very long story with very few episodes, but overall it's beautiful and amazing with an almost surreal fairy-tale color.

Highly recommended!

Mix fairy-tale with fantasy, legend with reality. This is a dark fairy-tale, beautiful and compelling right from the explosive start.

Inu Yasha, a creature that is half man, half dog-demon, attempts to steal an enchanted jewel from a shrine, to change himself into a full-blooded demon. However, the priestess sworn to protect the jewel fires an arrow into his heart, and nails him to a tree. The priestess dies from her wounds, and Inu Yasha falls into an enchanted sleep. 50 years later, the soul of the priestess returns to the forest, reborn in the body of Kagome, a girl from modern-day Tokyo who has fallen through time into the era of myth and legend. Inside her, the jewel has been reborn along with the soul of the priestess. Her precense awaken the dog-demon from his long imprisonment, and along with him awaken his long-alseep desires for the jewel. However, by the power of Kagome's arrow, the jewel is broken and its shards scattered across the lands. Each shard holds the power to make evil hearts stronger, and bestow misery upon the land. Kagome and Inu Yasha reluctantly set out together, to collect the shards and make the jewel complete again. "Inu Yasha" is the story of that journey.

What captured me about this series was Inu Yasha himself. His character is dark, evil, and mean, plus he behaves an animal. The makers have really managed to capture his animal side, and this (along with great, charismatic voice-acting), gives him a precense seldom seen in animated shows. In the beginning, he is betrayed, hostile and alone, but as the show moves on, he developes greatly, by slowly but surely warming up and gaining kindness in his demonic eyes. The reason for this is Kagome, a brave heroine that far exceeds your standard shrieky-maiden-anime-chick.

There is some humor to this show too. It's nicely done, it doesn't steal time from the story, and it fits where it is placed. But don't expect this to be some light comedy-show like Ranma: Inu Yasha is a deep and dark fairy tale that deals seriously with questions like the want for strenght, the want for life, the want for revenge, and the slim line between love and hatred. All within one huge story-arc with many meaningful subplots.

As for the enemies, they not only display great strenght and cruelty, but some of them are also allowed to develope as characters, which is extremely rare for bad-guys. The action is very cool, skillfully done and overall fantastic. Inu Yasha, the one who does most the fighting, fights to kill and doesn't hold back. A lot of blood and some really nasty scenes in some episodes.

The animation is magnificent, as well as the soundtrack. I have only seen the subbed version, but I can highly recommend it about any dub. There is no way any translation could outdo the original cast.

This is the best anime I have EVER seen. It's original and powerful with a lot of depth, in a world where fairy-tale has merged with fantasy. Plus, Inu Yasha's dog-ears are super-kawaii... ^_^

Don't miss it!

/Auryn

Neverending Story goes anime.

That's what I thought after episode one. =)

This is a kawaii fairy-tale that takes place inside a magical book. A girl from the real world (she is super-annoying and I hate her) is pulled into the book, in which she becomes the priestess of Suzaku, a red phoenix-bird. To bring Suzaku to life, and fulfill her wishes, she must find the seven stars of Suzaku, seven men with marks on their bodies. She falls in love with the first she finds, Tamahome, who has the make of the Ogre upon his forehead.

This is a cute show, but I was surprised of the darkness that springs forth in a few episodes. Between all the puke-kawaii "I love you - I love you too - I love you more - W'll always be toghether - Yes, I love you!", there is torture and rape. Some episodes are not for children.

Overall, I really like this one. The shrieky heroine gets slightly less annoying as the show goes on, but if you can put up with her, the rest of the characters are much more interesting.

Beautiful, fairy-tale-like and cute, with some dark streaks.

Don't miss it!

/Auryn

I kinda like Ranma... but the whole thing drags out waaaaaaaaay to much. whenever they run out of material, hey, let's add another character in love with Ranma and have a old one beat him up, or hey, let's add another character in love with Akane and have him beat Ranma up! This movie isn't funny. The Ranma jokes are old, old, old. We've seen it all before. Akane kidnapped, Ranma duels with the guy who did it, and whoever wins gets Akane. Yawn. Some pretty cool fights near the end though. We actually get to see Ranma bleed!

But after seing this movie, I just kinda feel: "what was the point?" There was nothing in here that was even remotely new, so what about this story was considered special enough to make a movie out of?

/Auryn

This show has a lot of potential, especially with the Kenshin character. He has inner demons and a dark past that makes him very interesting. But I find it hard to stay interested in him, since his biggest goal in life is to lead a peaceful every-day life with his friends. I prefer characters who has dreams and ambitions.

The supporting cast is nice, and complement each other very well. There is the ken-jutsu instuctor Kaoru, the young-but-eager-to-beome-a-man Yahiko, there is the bad-ass ex-villain Sanosuke, the foxy female doctor Megumi, and many others.

While this show has excellent potential, it is only on rare occasions as good as its potential. For one thing, the show contains a large number of lame fillers. Also, the show seems to, for some wierd reason, to focus on the bad-guys rather than on the main-characters that the viewer actually cares about. Another annoying thing is that Kenshin is so fast that the eye cannot see him move. Which is cool at first, but boring in the long run, since you'll seldom be able to see him fight. On occasions there is chemistry between the characters, but it never seems to go anywhere, and after 90-something episodes, I don't even care anymore.

Most of the fights are kind of lame. At first, there is a long seqence showing the bad-guy bragging of how good he is. Then there is a long sequence showing Kenshin's friends talking about how good he is. Then the bad-guy tells his entire childhood-story to Kenshin. And then Kenshin tries to defeat the bad-guy by giving him a *lecture* of what's right and what's wrong. Then the bad-guy shouts: "shut up you talk too much." Then the entire sequence repeats itself, along with part 2 of the childhood-story. Then they shut up and look at each other for a couple of minutes. And then, finally, the bad-guy attacks. Kenshin does his faster-than-the-eye-thing, and the fight is finished in a split second. And then the bad-guy changes his beliefs and becomes good. LAME!

There WAS, however, an excellent arc of episodes, known as the Kyoto-arc. It spans from episode 28 to 60-something, and in this arc, Kenshin returns to Kyoto to defeat a man who threatens to take over Japan. The story-arc is good because there is a bad-guy that's actually *dangerous*. Also, it is good because we get to learn more about Kenshin's past, as because he considers letting the demon within take him over. A very enticing story-arc with many powerful combats. Excellent episodes!

However, the show should have ended there. Because after the Kyoto-arc the show turns lame. It doesn't really get any better than the end of the Kyoto-arc, so the last 30 episodes feel kind of stuck-on and sucky. There were some cool episodes here and there, but not really worth the time to watch.

In all, Kenshin is a very uneven series, that ranges from TOTALLY EXCELLENT to I-WANT-TO-KILL-MYSELF-BECAUSE-THIS-SUCKS-SO-MUCH.

While I enjoyed this series, I found it to be a little anti-climatic when seen after "next" and still having that series fresh in mind. In "Try", the plot is more complicated (I got totally lost at times), the filler-episodes are somewhat less good than the previous fillers, and I was very disappointed in that Lina cast the Giga-Slave after what happened last time. There was no chemistry between Lina and Gourry this time =( , but on the other hand, Amelia is starting to get hooked on someone (hehe...). Also, I totally adored the interaction between Filia and Xellos. And I loved Valgaav! He had that sad, pained air about him that just makes me want to be on his side instead...

But what's up with no Drag-queen episode? ;-) I missed that. Would have loved to see Zelgadis in drag again... ;-) The closest they got in "try" was dressing Gourry up as a mermaid to make a virgin sacrifice out of him for a dragon.

See it!

/Anna

This is... beyond words! I was pretty impressed with the 1st series, but this one outdoes it in every aspect. We've got more chemistry between the characters, more powerful badguys, better animation and even funnier jokes. And best of all: the mysterious priest, Xellos! I absolutely adore that guy! "Sore wa himitsu desu. ^_^" He's so evil and sadistic, while at the same time handsome and charming with a classy style. Every time he opens his eyes it makes me shiver... they have really managed to caputure his age, wisdom and wickedness in that glance.

And the finale of the series! WOW! It really had me on the edge of my seat, heart pounding the whole time.

See this... you won't regret it!

Just one piece of advice though: see the subbed version! The english dub absolutely SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS and doesn't at all manage to capture the charm the japanese voice actors created.

/Anna

The first hour of this film was fantastic! It was a sensitive story about dead men walking, living on death rope, life and death, etc. But then suddenly a condemned prisoner turns out to be a magician or something, and he starts helping the guards. From that moment on, everything is utterly predictable, cliché, and dumb. Why did they have to mix these two things together, when the first was good enough and more?

The first half is worth 9/10, popped down from a perfect ten only for being too slow. But I still don't give this movie more than 6/10, because of the dumb second half.

/Anna

Finally Disney has created an animation that isn't sugar-sweet!

What usually bugs me about Disney's films is the constant bursting-into-song sequences that clog up the stories, and the comic side-kicks that keep making bad jokes. No such thing in Dinosaur! It's a serious movie that is very sad and partially cruel: a wonderful tale of courage and survival, told with respect for the audience, with unpresidented animations. The dionsaurs merge seemlessly into the real surroundings, and they move and look absolutely real. Finally, computer animations have reached the stage where it doesn't look animated anymore!

I was also very touched by Aladar's attempts to save the old dinos, and although I'm a grown-up, I jumped in my seat when the carnotaurs emerged. There was violence in this film: cruel battles between carnivores and herbivores. And surging through it all there is a feeling of sadness and loss, for a world that is about to fade away into the pages of history.

Thus, it's not for the smallest children, but it's a great story that treats it's audience with respect and pays homage to that great lost Earth that was buried in the dust millions of years ago.

9/10

Eddie Murphy is not funny anymore. And in this comedy-version of dr Jekyll and mr Hyde, Murphy plays almost every role in the film, thus effectively preventing someone else from rescuing this horrible movie.

Is that a computer-animated waistline the fat guy has? If so, it's the least credible animation ever.

Sucky, sucky, sucky...

South Park was excellent for 20-minute episodes. The tv-shows were soooo cool, and had me laughing from start to finish.

This movie, on the other hand, has a plotline good for about 40 minutes, stretched out to the double... and is filled out with crappy songs. I guess the lyrics were ok, but I'm just not a fan of musicals.

Also, the animations are (and no one can deny this) CRAPPY. I don't mind them for a while (say... 20 mintes?), but to spend a movie-length worth of time with this sucky graphics... just isn't worth it.

If you want to learn how to swear, watch this movie. If you want good South-Park, watch the TV-series. If you want good animations, watch japaneese anime (or possibly disney). For a good time, watch something else.

And don't show this to your kids!

/Anna

What was good?

*Leigh's character was very strong. She was not tall, perfect and beautiful, like most females we get to see naked in movies, but young and cute, barely adolescent. *Interesting and believeable lovestory between Leigh's and Hauer's characters. *The rape-scene was very cool, and innovative. It really tells us how strong Leigh's character really is, to be able to keep her wits about her and use the rape into strenghten her own position. *Good costumes.

What was bad? *Did they even look up the word "plague" in a medical dictinary?!? Yikes... they really should have! *Okaaay... what's the deal with this monstrous moving castle they built over night? Credible? naa... come on! Over night?!? *The good-guy is pathetic. I kept thinking about Agnes: stay with Martin! He's cool, he loves you and he's much better looking. *The side-story about the nun is just dragging things out. It has no relevance. *Too much unneccessary nudity. In many cases it was all right... but there is barely a whole scene in the movie that doesn't have a breast in it!

/Anna

I really liked this film. The bio-tech was fascinating and innovative, and I agree with most the positive stuff people have said about this film.

But it had some flaws, too.

I didn't mind the plot changing again and again. It was cool, and it went with the style of the film. But I had some problems with the bio-tech. It just was not credible. If we, in the future, invent these bio-gadjets, it will not be tomorrow or next week. It will not be within the next 100 year. In this movie, everything feels exactly like today (clothing, cars, overall feel etc) except that there's a lot of really wierd bio-tech-stuff. Nope. I didn't buy it.

Also, the characters popped in and out of the film so fast I didn't recognize most of them in the final scenes. oops, a new person in, he's in it for 2 minutes, he's out again, and I'm supposed to recognize him an hour later?!? Nope... too many characters for such a short film.

But I liked it, and I thought this monvie was cool.

Thumbs up!

,... But whoEVER thought of the idea of filming the arthurian legend and cut away Magic, Merlin, Morgana, Mordred and Excalibur. This movie is outright horrible! It's full of anachronisms (crossbows, telephone poles, blue outfits for everyone, wierd armor... I could go on and on)

It IS a charming love-story, however. But since all the elements of the arthurian legend is cut away, there is no point in seeing it as an arthurian tale. See it for what it is: a beautiful love-story set in some odd parallell-universe.

If you're looking for an arthurian tale, see "Excalibur" or "Merlin".

Thanks you Miyazaki, for making two of the best movies of all time: Nausicaa and Mononoke Hime. I have not yet seen Laputa, but I am going to. :-)

I fell in love with "warriors of the wind" when I was a little girl. And it remained my favorite movie throughout the years, right there on my top-ten list along movies like "star wars" and "braveheart". But I always felt that there was a portion of the story lacking. As if someone had cut scenes out... after watching the movie about 50 times, these gaps really started to annoy me.

And finally, yesterday, after loving this movie for 15 years, I got to watch the real movie, "kaze no tani no nausicaa". While "warriors" left me touched, "nausicaa" left me crying. Both for the beauty of the story that now became obvious to me: I had found the missing pieces at last, but I also cried because of what they had done to this great movie.

Almost no scene was left uncut. There was something lacking from almost every scene, as if someone had chopped this movie up with the deliberate and evil intent to destroy every single scene. Furthermore, whole sequences was cut out, like *all* of the scenes that explain what it's all about. Add to that a lousy translation from japaneese. (And after that, someone translated from english to swedish, added annoying swedish dialects and stupid jokes. (I saw the swedish version earlier)). It was two totally different movies. "warriors" feel like a commercial for the real thing: the have all the action sequences, but the story itself is lacking.

The "new" scenes always leaves me crying: little nausicaa trying to save the baby ohmu...

/Auryn

This is a beautiful (true) story about the relationship between a mother and her daughter, and their struggle to make it to the top in the music world. It is about hopes and dreams... about relationships and about growing up. The actors make great performances, and the chemistry between Naomi and Wynonna is extraordinary. One second they love and support each other, the next they can't stand each other. Reminds me so much of my relationship to my own mother. The music is great (even though Naomi is singing in a whisper - you can't hardly hear her!). They story is touching and feels close to real life. Very nice to see actress Ashley Judd ('and he loved them all') play herself as well as narrate the story.

I give it 8/10! An all-time favorite.

The series started out really good, starring Jane Seymore as the strong, good-hearted feminist physician. Joe Lando also plays a good characters, Sully, a white man who adapted to the cherokee ways after the death of his wife. The setting is intriguing, the landscape stunning and the characters lovely. Up to a point.

Dr Quinn is a prime example of a good show that "lost it". When the makers ran out of diseases for the woman doctor to cure, they have her perform plastic surgery (in the 1800-something), cure various diseases not even discovered at that point in time, save the president and so on, and so on.

The show turns into a soap opera, the actors quit (both the girl who played Colleen and the one who played Myra), the same problems are dealt with over and over again, but without heart the subsequent times.

The thing that remained good the longest was the chemistry between Dr Quinn and Sully, and it kept the show interesting. But once they were married the makers replaced the lovely chemistry with edited-for-children sex-scenes.

My advice to you: See the show, but stop watching in time. It starts really good, but it looses a LOT along the way.