Great visuals, bad plot (remember Battlefield Earth?)

Rating: 4/10 (23 September 2001)

((Warning: MILD spoilers ahead))
The good:
* Very nice animation, although it sometimes seems choppy and other times it is as detailed as a Saturday morning cartoon. I wonder if there was more than one team working on this movie, since the animation quality is not consistent.
* Special effects. The streaking lights on the motorbikes are superb, and they compliment the action nicely.
* 5.1 / THX soundtrack. In DVD format, this movie has terrific sound and video quality.
The bad:
* Forget about understanding the plot if you never read the comic.
* Editing is terrible. Imagine a cartoon version of Battlefield Earth (minus the dorky angles, terrible acting, and blandness). It all adds up to a confusing mess of a movie.
* The pacing is bad. The first half of the movie goes by pretty quickly. The second half is boring and confusing.
The ugly:
* What's up with the scenes where a 15 year old has her clothes ripped off and she is clobbered viciously? Isn't this illegal? Bad taste... really bad taste.
* Vices galore. Drinking, drug abuse, and violence. I thought these were only Hollywood traits.
* The level of aggresivity in this movie is way high. Way too high. It makes Fight Club seem tame in comparison. We get the idea on the first motorcycle scene; so why emphasize it over and over again during the entire picture? Is this a trick to make us believe the movie is great, when in reality it is just violent?
The verdict: you might have to watch it once, since it is really interesting (much more than the overrated Ghost in the Shell), but it is ultimately confusing, a bit boring, and unfulfilling. It's one of those movies you come out with a feeling of emptiness you didn't have in the first place.