Harlock: Space Pirate (2013)

Probably my first 3D CG anime movie from Japan. There's no compromise in quality like they do for Anime movies. In fact, I found it better than American standards. The Japanese were already master in their animation called anime and now 3D anime. The new path has been created, yet to come some great stuffs on this way.

It was based on the manga and television series that I have not seen or read them. Earlier I had seen kind of similar theme movie named 'Space battleship Yamato'. Both were did not stand up to my expectations, but in the other perspective side spectacular action sequences made the movie look better.

The story was set in the year 2977, where 500 billion humans are sailing back to home planet who are waiting on the edge of the galaxy to enter the Earth's atmosphere. When the permission is denied by the inhabitant leaders someone must risk everything and fight for the rights. So our captain Harlock comes into the frame on the pirate flagged spaceship and would he break all the hurdles to make way for immigrants is what the movie describes.

A bit slow presentation, had great stunts, but was infrequent. Should have been little better in character development. Unfortunately, characters and story kind of merely merged. Flashbacks and twists were not striking as it desperately wanted in those parts of the storytelling. Other than those it had everything a space travel theme should have with it. Enjoyable movie, but not completely though opinion differs from a person to another. It may make you view a better, but still won't forget to keep in mind what I said here.

Fmovies: There's a strange tendency in Japanese animation , it often uses cryptic and vague script to give the illusion of depth. Those who are familiar with animes or games would recognize this outdated pattern, the quirky storytelling would seem to be meaningful as the characters brood over a crisis, yet it barely tells anything relevant to the audience. In some cases it might even alienate the viewers.

This is the persisting problem with Harlock. It certainly presents good quality visual as it floats across the light show, but the vague narrative hurts the presentation. The dialogues may sound flamboyant, yet it is actually shallow and superficial. Backstory is glossed over while the interactions are deprived of enjoyment. The characters, even though looking attractive, just can't generate enough interest as they banter with foreign jargon.

It even resembles teen drama instead of space voyage at times. Development is often crude, only to give dramatic scenes without substance. The main story follows Yama as he tries to catch the titular Harlock. Both of them are not that audience friendly, they are already in lamentation with barely any introduction. It's hard to relate since they look like generic RPG cast with average mellow issue.

Then it becomes heavily convoluted as the movie tries to mix strange terms, they sound ominously impaction like dark matter or ancient race, but material is too thin. After a hefty amount of scenery changes, cool poses and starship fights, the movie can barely hold interest for characters and with relatively long runtime it turns into a plodding endeavor.

This is Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within all over again, glossy effect and drab boring story. It will be hard to either garner interest for new audience or please old fans with such lackluster narrative, but at least it works for an eye candy.

The film was released yesterday, Oct 12h at Sitges Film Festival, here in Barcelona. This is a brief summary of my impressions:

The first half hour of film announces an awesome movie: with a great intro the movie is presented visually stunning with a wonderful soundtrack, interesting characters, great action, but soon deflated by the poor script.

Note that this is a Harlock film where Harlock is not the main character!

The resources and ideas in some of the action scenes are weary of repeated over and over again...

The cinematography is great until after the first 45 minutes aprox. , then the film becomes very explanatory , with many dialogues and voice- overs. It's from there when the script becomes poor.

The changes in the character of Harlock are very large and they even betray the original spirit. In addition, i was tired with that "dark matter", an element of the movie used as a deus-ex-machina over and over again throughout the film.

A great opportunity is lost because the movies is visually stunning and the artistic design work is very good. If they had wrote a simple script , elaborated but not so complicated and keeping the essence of the character, the result would have been much better.

It's a shame, but i had an entertaining audiovisual 3D experience and i could discovered a beautiful soundtrack that i want to listen again and again imagining my ideal Harlock film.