Reviews

The movie itself is not bad, but when supposedly based on reality, the dishonesty leaves quite the sour taste. For example, in the movie, a clip of 9/11 is played to justify the war, but 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. Secondly, our sniper gets himself into a pickle when he is falsly accused of having shot someone only carrying the Koran, and not a weapon. I found this scene particuarly odd as Chris Kyle supposedly wanted to kill anyone with a Koran -- even if he says he didn't.

The movie just shows a very heroic depiction, someone who only did what was necesary to save himself and his men, where as in the book, Chris wrote that he relished in killing and had a blast doing it: "I only wish I had killed more," "I loved what I did...it was fun. I had the time of my life."

I have nothing against a well made movie alternative; for instance, I found the japanese live-action versions of Death Note very good. Unforutnately, this is just not quite able to adapt the show into good movies on their own. If they are just meant to serve as recap movies before watching the forth one (taking place after the show ending) they might be 'okay'. On the other hand, watching six hours to prepare for a sub two hour movie seems rather wasteful...

The problem is that the movies can't replace the main series, and so are really only worth watching if you are already familar with the source material, but at that point, why even watch them at all? These movies (aside from the fourth) have no notable changes that would affect going into the fourth movie, so you are perfectly fine going into that one while skipping these.

Some episodes in the main show were just filler (like hunting for a cat), but apparently there was still more than ~6 hours worth of content because the movies are very rushed if this is going to be the only format you get this story from. The pacing for the first half in movie 1 and 2 are quite good, and follow similar pacing as the show. That means, however, that after about 3-4 episodes have been adapted into the first half of those movies, the remaining hour has to adapt another 10-12 episodes. The results are very rushed and the weight that is needed to make all of the events feel important is missing. One of my favorite scene in the original series (the coronation) fall completely flat due to the lack of setup. The rushed feeling is exasperated by the fact that many important story beats happen during mecha fighting scenes (in both movie and show), and when you only have 1/3 of the allottet time, that means that nearly every scene revolves around some big action scene, without any of the inbetween politics/planning that is needed to be more varied, to give more weight to the battles themselves, and also so that the dramatic curve doesn't always have a single state.

With it's short length of only 45 minutes, it's hard to call this a full movie - although don't let that deter you, as it's still better than most that I have seen, anime or otherwise.

When you hear about this movie one of the things that get repeated mention is it's visuals, and I concur. It's probably the most well made anime from a visuals standpoint.

The story isn't bad either, for only 45 minutes it sets up and tell a surprisingly deep and moving story. It is simplistic storytelling, but still very powerful. It is somewhat reminiscent of one of the director's previous films, 5 Centimetres Per Second, in that it uses a similarly "simple" story but one that relates strongly to emotions and situations felt by normal human beings. I also think this is a great movie to show people who normally don't like anime, as anime very often have different storytelling than I think many are used to. This one is more grounded without many of the "fantasy" elements that most anime's have.

The plot summary on IMDb do just fine setting up the story so I wont bother explaining it, it would just be redundant.

Like most hand-drawn animations, they are often quite the treat to look upon, this is no different. It uses a "watercolors" type aesthetic although much cleaner. I wouldn't say it's the same as anime, but it share some similarities, like how the backgrounds are usually hand-drawn and the characters are drawn digitally (they still fit very well into the scene though, which I can't say for some anime's).

The story takes inspiration from Irish folklore, primarily with the "Selkie". A creature who becomes a seal in water but human on land. One of the two main characters, an odd mute girl is one of these creatures.

The folklore inspiration work quite well, however as far as the story goes - It leaves a little to be desired. It seems somewhat uninspired without anything to make it truly stand out. It'll probably make an excellent kids movie, and one that is very gender neutral. I have however seen much more sophisticated storytelling within these kinds of movies. It's not at all bad - just.. bland. The visuals though are still enough to warrant seeing this movie if find them appealing.