Noble attempt, but ultimately not an accomplished artistic achievement.
These dolls would be appropriate for a children's film, which this is most certainly not. Sloppy, jerky animation and awkward character movements once again remind us of cute stop motion shorts from around 1960s, but in an adult feature from 2000s it doesn't work and is simply unpleasant to look at. In short, aesthetically this film is for kindergarteners, while the story is obviously not. The direction is more or less adequate although not particularly inventive, the action is somewhat slow, not everything onscreen is interesting or necessary. For this reason, and also because the story is not really developed into much detail, the film seems somewhat overlong.
Take for comparison Jim Henson's «The Dark Crystal» (1982) to see a well-developed story of the same kind or Tim Burton's and Henry Selick's films to see good stop motion animation.
The overall impression: not bad, but not good enough.
These dolls would be appropriate for a children's film, which this is most certainly not. Sloppy, jerky animation and awkward character movements once again remind us of cute stop motion shorts from around 1960s, but in an adult feature from 2000s it doesn't work and is simply unpleasant to look at. In short, aesthetically this film is for kindergarteners, while the story is obviously not. The direction is more or less adequate although not particularly inventive, the action is somewhat slow, not everything onscreen is interesting or necessary. For this reason, and also because the story is not really developed into much detail, the film seems somewhat overlong.
Take for comparison Jim Henson's «The Dark Crystal» (1982) to see a well-developed story of the same kind or Tim Burton's and Henry Selick's films to see good stop motion animation.
The overall impression: not bad, but not good enough.