User Reviews

I'm not sure if it is the same makers of Wallace and Gromit, but it is a very good cartoon. On a planet where everything is flat and made of paper lives Matt Phlatt with his cat and fish. He one day (while working) electrocutes himself with TV wires and then after a short while touches a puddle. Then every person he touches could go into a puddle porthole to a world where you are on TV in a 3D world. The cat enters this world first and changes channels with the touch of his remote. Unfortunately, when opening this porthole Matt let out a dastardly TV villain from a cop show. The showdown sequence between them is good. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Animated Short Film. Very good!

This film is a must for any animation fans, or anyone willing to spend just half an hour watching a very funny film. While there are no great surprises in the story, and no real emotive content, this film tries and succeeds in transporting us to another world where we can escape and forget about life for a time. Flatworld has animation that, while not ground-breaking, is decidedly different and interesting to watch. The characters, despite not speaking a word, still manage to be hilarious and engaging - of special note are the cat and fish! Essentially, we are taken to a grey, dreary world where everything is flat, and the hero of the story goes about his day to day job with a humdrum lack of enthusiasm. However, when a TV wire breaks and malfunctions, he is suddenly zapped into the TV with his cat, whereby he encounters a criminal mastermind amongst other adventures - the story follows his adventures as the remote control suddenly becomes an object of extreme power! Very good, hilarious fun for the family, this film is recommended by the vast majority of those who see it. Suitable for everyone, this universal cartoon should be sought after and supported!

Daniel Greaves won an Oscar for his short, MANIPULATION. I was not particularly impressed by this film and said so in my review. However, a few years later, he made what is probably one of the best animated shorts ever--yet it didn't even get nominated! Now to be fair, the 1998 Oscars was a tough year for this category, as there were so many wonderful and inventive animated shorts. GERI'S GAME (by Pixar) won, though it was among my least favorite of the nominees--and it's still a wonderful film. Somehow THE OLD LADY AND THE PIGEONS lost, as did Alexandr Petrov's sublime RUSALKA--and, as I already mentioned, FLATWORLD didn't get a nomination. While you might be tempted to chalk it all up to a tough year, FAMOUS FRED somehow got nominated and it was a rather annoying and lesser quality film. The only nominee that year I didn't yet mention was Disney's REDUX RIDING HOOD, as oddly, it isn't available anywhere and I've only seen a few tantalizing photos of the cartoon. It's on none of the Disney DVDs and was only briefly shown during animation festivals. Why--especially when the reviews of those who saw it were so positive? So why did I absolutely love FLATWORLD? Well, the biggest two reasons are that I've never seen a cartoon like it and because it's so funny. The animation style is just amazing.

The story begins in an odd world where all the people, animals and cars are paper-thin--sort of like the Paper Mario characters from the GameCube game. They live in a 3-D world that was apparently made up of an elaborate set--very elaborate. The story centers on a nice guy who has two pets--a nice cat and a nasty fish that's always messing with the cat and making it look like the cat is at fault. The interactions between these pets is very funny and it's nice to see the fish be evil for a change.

As this guy is going about his life, there is a bank robbery and the robber switches bags with the nice guy so the cops won't catch him. And, speaking of cops, I loved the big cop--he was a wonderfully drawn character. Now here's where it gets weird...our hero (the main character) has somehow gotten a jolt of energy from a cable that makes it possible for him to jump into puddles on his world and end up in a world that looks like a traditional animated film. Seeing him, the pets, the crook and the cops go back and forth is a real treat--as the styles change so abruptly and are so clever. Even better, later in the film, the traditionally animated characters start slipping into Flatworld.

It's really hard to give an adequate description of the film and I know my ranting over the last two paragraphs might not really make a lot of sense. The bottom line is that this is one of those films you have to see to believe and appreciate. It's currently posted on Youtube (hopefully legally) and I encourage you to take a look. It's great.

I first heard of this film when I watched Jambareeqi's review of it on YouTube and his opinion of it was very favourable. When he announced that the whole film can be seen on YouTube, I was intrigued to see it; however I was slightly disappointed. While I like the execution of the idea, I was dissatisfied with the lack of dialogue, the slow pacing and the story being a little complicated.

On a more positive note, I liked the use of 2D cut-out characters over 3D backgrounds (similar to those used for stop-motion set designs) and I also liked how the characters were made to look paper-thin. There are several references to the characters being made to look super-flat or created from paper such as the goldfish swimming inside a picture frame and newborn triplets made to look like cut-out paper dolls. Although the colouring of the 3D world may look bleak, the world inside the television is more vibrantly coloured with smoothly-designed minor characters. Despite the story being complicated, it had some funny moments and clever ideas such as the cat playing with the remote control and the robber escaping from the television world to the 3D world. The musical score is epic and cinematic for the film's nature.

All in all, there are a few disappointing aspects but the use of hybrid animation and the concept made this altogether a worthwhile animated short. 7/10.

Flatworld maximizes every tool available to stop-motion and cell-animation, and seamlessly blends them together. Uses the 2-dimensional characters to every means possible, for hilarious gags and fascinating transitions.

Every shot is painstakingly crafted and stocked with detail. Gets better on rewatch. Transitions between different "channels" are flawless and fun to watch.

I thought the plotline was somewhat lackluster, throwing sequence after sequence.

Flatworld is a masterpiece of a stop motion film. It provides the audience with a unique perspective of combining 2 dimensional scenes with 3 dimensional scenes/cell animation. The story doesn't go into too much depth as far as plot wise but it entertains the audience to an extent to where you don't feel bothered to really care. It enriched the way that stop motion films are made today and how they were in its time. I would recommend this film to anyone that is interested in animation and would very much like to watch it again!

The movie: "Flat World" is a well done movie when referring to it's date of producing, 1997. Back then there haven't been techniques there are nowadays. Still the movie is interesting and entertaining because of the different locations and characters. All though it wasn't said at least one word one still understands what is going on and what the characters are up to. Nevertheless some scenes where kept a bit long for example when the characters switched the scenerys on and on. You could also predict the next steps that happen at some point. Still it was a well produced movie that I can recommend and rate it 8 stars out of 10.