Review:
Okay, let's see if I can come up with a halfway decent description for this... This takes place on a world in which eight tribes, collectively known as the Garm, were created by the goddess Danaan. For unknown reasons, Danaan abandoned her creations, who then proceeded to fight against each other. In the movie's present, only three tribes still exist: Columba (who rules over the skies), Briga (who rules over the land), and Kumtak (barely managing to survive as slaves among the Briga).
Wydd is a Kumtak elder who finds Nascien, the last surviving Druid, and becomes determined to go to the land of the Druids and learn why the Garm exist and why Danaan left them. He, Nascien, and a Gula (a sacred dog that looks like a basset hound) attempt to escape, resulting in a battle between Briga and Columba forces. Two surviving soldiers, a Briga named Skellig and a Columba named Khara, reluctantly agree to help Wydd and Nascien in their quest.
Sometimes I buy movies that I'm almost certain won't be good because some detail makes me want to see them. This was one of those movies. I happened to see that it was directed by Mamoru Oshii (the director of Ghost in the Shell), and so I figured why not?
I spent a good chunk of this movie saying to myself, "I have no idea what's going on." Things happened well before you had any of the context necessary to understand what was going on or why, and there were a lot of things that were just...never explained. I wouldn't have made it through the first half of the movie if it hadn't been for the occasional on-screen text telling me which tribe I was looking at, and I still couldn't tell you who some of the characters were or what their purpose was. And if you're the sort of person who wants to grow attached to movie characters, this would be an especially disappointing movie - there was some effort made to show "relationship development" (Khara once tried to have a conversation with Skellig about his first memory), but it wasn't particularly effective or convincing.
If you're seen Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell before, hoo boy will parts of this movie be familiar, though. The music, technology, battles, and aesthetics are all very Ghost in the Shell. The opening credits were "woman floating in stuff, with cables attached to her" (but very indistinct, so although I think there was nudity you didn't actually see anything), Khara seemed to be inspired by Motoko Kusanagai, and Oshii even managed to fit a basset hound into the story.
The Ghost in the Shell franchise can be prone to philosophizing at its audience, but it generally at least looks and sounds good while it's doing it. For that reason, I suspect I'd have liked this a bit better if it had been an anime movie. Yes, I know the bulk of the movie essentially counted as animation (CGI). It was also often blurry and indistinct, I'm guessing so that all the CGI would blend better with the live action elements. The next movie I watch is going to look amazingly crisp by comparison.
I thought the beetle-based aircraft looked and sounded good, and most of the cast sounded so good they could've easily been the dub cast for an anime version of this. That said, the story was disjointed and overly complex, especially considering how little actually happened. And if you do manage to get invested in what's going on, the very "to be continued" ending will likely frustrate the heck out of you.
It wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen, but that's not really saying much. And it certainly did feel very much like a Mamoru Oshii movie, warts and all. I forgot, until I started watching this, that I tend to appreciate Oshii's movies more for their aesthetics than their characters and stories.
Extras:
A trailer for the movie.
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