| Things Blowed Up Real Good |
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| written by Calafragious |
September 20, 2004 - 8:04 PM PDT |
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3 out of 5 members found this review helpful
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| This splendidly animated film presents what feels like one episode out of a very long manga story. The beginning and end of the film are both rather abrupt, the setup and basic premise are hinted at more than stated, and there is no character development to speak of. If you can swallow all that, and enjoy lots and lots of violent gun battles and scenes of things "blowing up real good," Spriggan will make for a pleasant evening's entertainment. I found the first half better than the second, which (as another reviewer noted) feels very much like an Akira knock off, especially after the stereotype crazy kid in a baseball cap with superpowers, starts lecturing everybody about Judgement day and God knows what. Don't waste too much thought on it. |
| Had potential but........ |
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| written by OKhan1 |
January 19, 2004 - 12:40 AM PST |
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3 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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Spriggan is one those anime properties which should have been given the OAV treatment to really tell the story. Compressing a sizable manga to an hour and a half movie was a mistake.
If anything, the movie felt incredibly rushed, nor do we really get to know the main character well enough to really care. Spriggan does have an ambitious plot with high production values...just not enough time to really tell us the story as it was written for the manga. |
| Like Indiana Jones meets Akira |
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| written by hneline1 |
December 15, 2003 - 11:48 PM PST |
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2 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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Spriggan starts as a rollicking, action adventure movie ala Indiana Jones. Yu Ominae is a combat trained high school student (Full Metal Panic, anyone?) who travels the world like a hotshot mercenary soldier and fights bad guys attacking archeological digs. The shootouts and chases are nicely crafted with detailed animation and dynamic camerawork, and this film boasts a much better production value than a made-for-TV anime. This first half is definitely about guns and combat and it was pretty fun.
Then the movie morphs into something like Akira with the appearance of Colonel MacDougal, an evil little psychic boy with computer cables hanging out of his head and the maniacal goal of destroying the human race. Personally, I'm not into evil little psychic boys so I lost interest right there. But if you don't mind crazy blue boys in baggie jeans and a backwards baseball cap who act big while tossing people around with their telekinetic powers, you'll probably like the ending.
Unfortunately, the DVD itself had some problems with the sound being uneven and some of the visuals being grainy. Also, the audio commentary is by the director and the engineer for the English language dub, not by the Japanese creators. That's great if you want insight into the dubbing and release process but not too helpful if you want to know more about the film production itself.
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