Reviews

I've always loved good kids movies, because good kids movies do more then entertain kids, they entertain the whole family (Not a good idea to bore the parents taking their kids to see a movie to tears with drek). I also have special movies of my own childhood, and I appreciate movies that really push things to the limit of what should be appropriate for children to see, old classics such as 'Return to Oz', 'A Mouse and Child', and 'Monster Squad' to name a few.

This movie really seems to fit along those lines. It's not a simply happy tale like you might expect a kids movie to be, this movie has bite too it, hence the PG rating rather then a tame G rating. This movie also has some of the best work done on it I've seen in a while. I've seen stop motion before, even the latest one which I believe was the Corpse Bride. But this one was so well done, there were many parts of the movie, the majority of it, that was so well done, I could not tell it was stop motion. It looked far too good, more along the lines of CG films like Wall-e and Shrek. That takes skill and time and effort you never see in movies anymore, where making a quick buck is not the exception, but the rule.

The story is simple at first, a girl moves to a new home, an old house that has been converted into a 3 level apartment, and is struggling to deal with her parents, who are hard pressed with their work and too busy or tired to deal with the attention demanding girl. She is forced to deal with her neighbors, a crazy and eccentric circus performer and two retired bickering actresses for neighbors, a black cat that gives her the creeps, and a typical loudmouthed and rambunctious boy named Wybie, short for Whyborn. He annoys Coraline (mostly because he is a boy and also because of the fact that he was raised out in the boonies, he has few social graces) but gives her a doll he found in his home, which for some reason is identical to Coraline. Not long after Coraline stumbles onto a strange small door in the gathering room of their flat, but finds the door is not only locked but leads to a brick wall. Its not until that night that Coraline follows a mouse (Her eccentric circus neighbor claims to train dancing mice in his home) to the door, but finds it now leads down a dark tunnel, which leads to a mirror image of her own home, only its populated by strange versions of everyone in her world. Mostly she finds it a dream come true, her 'Other' mother and father, everything Coraline wishes her real parents were, doting on her with gifts and attention, meanwhile her neighbors are transformed into successful versions of themselves and perform for Coraline's amusement. The only other difference is that everything and everyone in this other world has buttons for eyes, and as Coraline visits this place every night, she is offered the chance to stay and be happy… if she replaces her own eyes with buttons…

I honestly think this movie should be something every child should see. It has moments in it that are so dark and twisted it reminded me of such things as the Silent Hill games, so I'd say make sure your kid does not scare easily. But then again kids need something to scare the snot outta them once in a while, it builds character. Too many things now are pacified, defanged and declawed, left harmless. This movie is sweet and endearing, but can also make you writhe in your seat and even jump from it at times (the 3D does tend to help with this). Honestly I have to say that this movie spooked me out a lot more then any horror movie I've seen in recent memory. It's use of subtle changes and twisting images that we would normally find comforting and safe to be concerning and insecure. I'm immediately reminded of such films as Return to Oz where everything we remembered from the first movie was rendered stagnant, dangerous, and decrepit, leaving you to feel very unsafe in a familiar yet horribly unfamiliar environment.

Hopefully, we will see more films like this, and maybe more film makers will be willing to put a bit more effort into their works, focusing on creating classics rather then market success. As for this film, I would recommend it to everyone. Give your kids a good scare, they could probably use one, as it builds character. If you are concerned about scaring your kids too badly, then make it a point to not admit your kids unless they are around 8 or 7. This story definitely reminds me of the older stories children were once told to scare them to sleep or keep them in line, though this one is far more entertaining.

A true cinematic treasure from the earlier days of anime. When other shows featuring robots were either too childish or too outlandish, Yoshiyuki Tomino's vision of a world that featured giant robots, but was also filled with emotion, politics, and the basic human nature of conflict and war would be the very first movie to feature a more mature undertone for such categories in anime.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Movie is the very first installment of the retelling of Yoshiyuki Tomino's original story first featured in the TV series which had ended early due to bad ratings but quickly bounced back in popularity and would become popular enough to be the Japanese equivalent of Star Wars.

The first movie of the trilogy introduces us to the world already ravaged by war, where the earth's overgrown population has migrated partially into space with the aid of colossal space colonies. After being oppressed by the combined earth governments known as 'The Earth Federation', the group of space colonies furthest from the earth launches a war under the flag of the Principality of Zeon. Due to technological advances, the earth and space becomes flooded with static that makes long ranged weapons useless, so the Zeon develop close combat vehicles in the form of giant robot suits. Greatly outnumbered, the Zeon forces still ravage the Earth Federation fleets with their use of their mobile suits, invading and partially controlling earth. However, unrestricted gas and nuclear weapon attacks, as well as the action of dropping a colony on the earth, has caused massive casualties on both sides and resulted in the loss of half of humanity's total population. After 9 months the war grinds to a halt, and a stalemate takes grip of both sides until one faithful day when the Earth Federation finally develops mobile suits to fight back with, the main prototype called the 'Gundam'. But as the Federation is about to test it's new suits a special Zeon scouting team lead by the top Zeon ace Char Aznable attacks the space colony the suits are housed in, killing nearly all the crew for the also new Federation carrier 'White Base' and also killing all of the suit pilots. It is this fiery confrontation which leads to the death of many of the civilian population in the colony, and also leads the destiny of a 15 year old boy named Amaro Ray to stumble across the Gundam and out of desperation pilot it to defend himself and the those left alive. So begins the crucible of the White Base crew, most of which are the civilians of the colony forced to man the carrier out of desperation, in their attempt to survive the countless waves of attacks by the relentless forces of Zeon in their attempts to capture the new and vastly superior mobile suit which renders their own suits as useless as tin cans.

The Characters in this anime are both realistic and entertaining, each one struggling to adapt to being involved in such a brutal and relentless war, and as the movies progress, they evolve into very deep personalities which are amazing to witness. Most notably, the bitter personal rivalry between the Char and Amaro takes seed in this movie and will eventually bloom into the massive hatred visible in the later installments.

This movie is a true testament to Anime, timeless in its message and comparable to most conflicts we have seen in current times. The story leads most views to be compelled to watch the rest of the series play out and find out the fate of the White Base Crew, and Tomino's skillful storytelling draws emotional involvement to a few, if not all of the characters in the movie. Some will find themselves cheering for the survival of the White Base crew while others will be cheering for the success of the Principality of Zeon, but there can only be one winner in the great war. The catchphrase of the movie still rings out; "Who will survive?"