Digimon - The Movie [VHS]
Like the similarPokémoncraze, the animatedDigimonTV series has spawned a full-length theatrical film. The two phenomena are similar: kids collect monsters and go on adventures. WhilePokémonhas a sense of odyssey and a wisp of a moral,Digimonis flat-out rough-and-tumble adventure. Can an adult figure out the digi-details of the digi-world? Here's a digi-shot. That world is full of evolving monsters that live and fight in their own ways. The digi-world and real world can intermix, and one of the portals is the Internet. So kids sit at their laptops and fight with their digi-monsters in an abstract environment that looks like something fromTronbut with none of the cool. The first 50 of 83 minutes is backstory that takes place eight years earlier. So everyone is grown up (as the time frame leaps over all the originalDigimonTV shows), and Digimon and humans interact on Earth. A bad digi-virus is bent on revenge, and it will take more than a laptop to defend the planet. That said, if the end of the world ever looms, a golden digi-egg will be a good thing to have. (Ages 6 to 12)--Doug Thomas