Memorable, crazy movie

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The picture starts near a village high on a huge vine called Axis. One resident is Kaena, a young adult woman who likes to adventure, while the rest of the village is bound to harvesting sap and offering it to the gods.For sassing the priest, she is exiled. She is captured by an unfamiliar group that is very interested in her because she has curiosity, and will venture beyond the village.Opaz and his people have reconstructed a star ship to return to their home planet. Kaena sees visions of a repository of knowledge of Opaz' people.After various machinations, the repository opens itself to Kaena, with conflict all around her.Will the disputes among the groups be resolved? -----Scores------Art/Animation: 2/10 There is seriously too much negative space is the artwork for most of the scenes, rather like the more disgusting parts of the Alien series, or most of H. R. Giger's paintings or sculptures. It is mostly dark, dull, depressing, surreal, and hideous. Other parts of the film are overly bright and washed out. Neither of these habits is attractive or 'eye candy' as I have seen this monstrosity described so often. Here and there I see serious frame jumps, the kind one sees in a flip book.Sound: 2/10 Amazingly bad leveling. Keep your hand near the volume control. This detracted seriously from the voice acting.Acting: 4/10 Richard Harris and Keith David were fine; Kirsten Dunst was much better than I expected. The queen and so many others were just terrible.Screenplay: 3/10 Next to opaque. Exposition of motivations was a distant, never achieved goal.

Anyone familiar with "Starchaser: The Legend of Orin" found here: www.imdb.com/title/tt0090065/ (1985) would see a striking plot similarity. Human slaves are forced to mine/harvest for false gods until Kaena/Orin decides to investigate the claims of these "so-called" gods. Thus an odyssey begins that puts the hero in a world they never knew existed inside their own backyard. I found my mind wondering during the movie (NOT GOOD) if this was stolen, borrowed, or lent? Both the films are foreign imports and both are computer animated in a fashion. This one is 100% CGI while "Starchaser" was painted over 3D wire-frames. This movie rated a 6 but I give it a 5. The animation at some points "cheats" (zooming & panning on stills) and seems too puppet-like. There are points you will feel like you are seeing someone doing SMA with dolls (e.i. Rudolph). However what red-blooded boy couldn't get into the fact that Kaena wears very little clothes in this movie! Wait a minute... she's not real. I might be young but I'm not stupid, give me a real half naked girl any day.

Have you ever played a game on the PS2, PC or XBOX and just drooled over the cut-scenes, those small cinematic snippets shown between levels? This entire movie, scene after scene, *is just like that*. And I'll tell you why: when it was originally conceived by the director and writer, that is precisely what they had intended to do... they wanted to create a game.Looking at the "Special Features" and the Making-Of featurette on the DVD before watching the movie, I learned quite a lot about why and how it was made. The majority of the CG artists who worked on this film were, at first, all novices, most of whom had some minor experience in doing CG game work. When they first started on "Kaena", the 3D software darling of Hollywood, Maya, hadn't even come out on the market. These CGI animators were all using, basically, a freeware 3D modeling/animation suite. They worked on a shoestring budget, I might add, which is one of the reasons why all of their animators were so inexperienced and were learning as they went along.Their animation/CG crew began as a five-man team and eventually grew to 50 persons at any given time. At a few key points they had up to 100 people working on the entire project, but most of the time they had a fairly core group of people all working in the same office building. Looking at the scenes individually, I can definitely see where they gave certain scenes to certain teams- as a 3D artist myself, I've gotten quite adept at picking out different styles and techniques used. MOST of the biggest differences between the scenes can be found in the lighting setups, which in some spots are breath-takingly exquisite and at other times amateurish at best.Due to the original intention for this project to be a video game rather than a feature-length film, I can totally understand why the storyline would have some plot holes here and there- I expect that those gaps would have been filled in during gameplay. So taking that into account, I can honestly say that this film has a pretty solid storyline and some fairly well fleshed-out characters, all things considered. It is also good to keep in mind that this story wasn't written by "professional" sci-fi writers- it was written, in part, by the director who hadn't done anything like this before in his life.Looking at the entire project with the trained eye of someone who's been involved with the business for a couple years now, I think that "Kaena" is not only a superb film, but it is a testament to what is possible when enough people throw themselves into a project like this. No major studio backing, no major software endorsement, no real experience in this field whatsoever... it's amazing that it even got rendered, let alone having been edited, scored, printed and distributed worldwide.This movie is similar to "Final Fantasy" only in the sense that it was done completely with CGI. In every other way, however, this one stands alone and it SHOULD be given the proper credit that is due.

This movie reminded me, more than anything else, of "Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within." I think that critics of movies like these sometimes criticize them for being A: animated, and B: science fiction. That's sort of like criticizing "Terminator" or "Lord of the Rings" because, as one reviewer wrote: "that could never happen." Well, yeah. I mean, isn't that the point, to create something that can only exist in the imagination? I have a hard time seeing the relevance of comparing "Kaena" even to other animated features like "Toy Story" or "Ice Age." SciFi is a genre unto itself and needs to be judged on its own terms. "Kaena" is a fully-realized fantasy. It has a comprehensive story, background and setting. The voice-over narration (English) is particularly good, especially Kirsten Dunst in the title role. The only real criticism I have is that the quality of the animation is uneven, ranging between mid-90's video game at one extreme and almost breathtaking at the other. The choice of a very muted color palate for most of the scenes doesn't quite make up in atmosphere for what it loses in vibrancy and realism. Overall, I give "Kaena" an 8 based on the strength of its story and characters.