While a good homage is often a delightful journey to the shoulders of giants in which you stand, this film unfortunately does not get off the ground.
Fire and Ice, as well as Heavy Metal (which are incomparable to each other) are both classics in animation. Both told stories, and both overcame the odds to win the day, and both had a whole lot of sex appeal (not necessarily coital, but sexiness in general).
The men were often strong and defined, the woman were voluptuous and empowered.
This film takes the styling well enough (albeit a bit sloppy), and it has the action... but it is action and violence for the sake of action and violence. The Flower is little more than the Locknar, Tzod is an offbrand Teegra or Taarna, and Ghal-Sur is more or less offbrand Necron.
The biggest problem with the film is that it really doesn't resolve anything, and like a lot of post modern story telling, things happen, more things happen, and then it's over. No actual resolution, no actual anything other than the cycle begins again, defeating the whole purpose.
And the worst, if not the most distracting part was the serious lack of sexiness. Many of the characters looked like they were based off of a comic convention, and Tzod (Lucy Lawless) was not at all drawn in any way that struck myself or my wife as strong or empowering -- she was basically naked for the sake of being naked, and stuck out amongst all the generally strong and defined characters of the film.
At least with Teegra and Taarna you could see that they were drawn in a way that cared about how a epic real woman ought look Tzod more or less reminds me of how Druuna runs around naked for no real reason other than she just loses her clothes... and well... yea...
If you are looking for borish, violence for the sake of violence along with poorly drawn bewbs and muff, and a potentially good story-line with no real resolution, here you go. Also, I wouldn't exactly call it "Ultra-Violent", either. There are a dozen or so Anime's that come to mind that are far more gristly and visceral than this, most of them made in the 80's and 90's back when animation was interesting, and story's were actually told.
Def not worth the $7 Rental on iTunes, either.
Fire and Ice, as well as Heavy Metal (which are incomparable to each other) are both classics in animation. Both told stories, and both overcame the odds to win the day, and both had a whole lot of sex appeal (not necessarily coital, but sexiness in general).
The men were often strong and defined, the woman were voluptuous and empowered.
This film takes the styling well enough (albeit a bit sloppy), and it has the action... but it is action and violence for the sake of action and violence. The Flower is little more than the Locknar, Tzod is an offbrand Teegra or Taarna, and Ghal-Sur is more or less offbrand Necron.
The biggest problem with the film is that it really doesn't resolve anything, and like a lot of post modern story telling, things happen, more things happen, and then it's over. No actual resolution, no actual anything other than the cycle begins again, defeating the whole purpose.
And the worst, if not the most distracting part was the serious lack of sexiness. Many of the characters looked like they were based off of a comic convention, and Tzod (Lucy Lawless) was not at all drawn in any way that struck myself or my wife as strong or empowering -- she was basically naked for the sake of being naked, and stuck out amongst all the generally strong and defined characters of the film.
At least with Teegra and Taarna you could see that they were drawn in a way that cared about how a epic real woman ought look Tzod more or less reminds me of how Druuna runs around naked for no real reason other than she just loses her clothes... and well... yea...
If you are looking for borish, violence for the sake of violence along with poorly drawn bewbs and muff, and a potentially good story-line with no real resolution, here you go. Also, I wouldn't exactly call it "Ultra-Violent", either. There are a dozen or so Anime's that come to mind that are far more gristly and visceral than this, most of them made in the 80's and 90's back when animation was interesting, and story's were actually told.
Def not worth the $7 Rental on iTunes, either.