Pope Gopher 999
New member
Didn't see a thread for this one. If there was one I apologize.
My Impressions or Lazy Review
(copied from my 1up Blog)
I have not yet played the game, Dead Space, due to the Fascist DRM schemes that EA is using for their PC products. So for me, the movie is my second foray into the Dead Space Universe. The first were the Dead Space Animated Comics which I downloaded on the PS3.
As a film, I found it entertaining and while I am not a fan of the Horror genre, it was more about the gore then the suspense. Yes the film is derivative of elements and archetypes that we have seen before in other various films such as Aliens, Event Horizon, and Predator. However, the biggest fault of the film is that it does not stand alone.
The narrative is, sadly incomplete and mirrors the Animated Comic too close for comfort in certain areas just in a different setting. Basically, our viewpoint is told through the character of Allyssa Vincent as it chronicles the events from the arrival of the ‘Marker' on the Ishimura until the arrival of the rescue ship. It uses the ‘message in the bottle' format and literally starts off with viewing a message recorded by Allyssa, which generally tells the audience the fate of the character right there. Her arc is the backbone of the movie in which she and her team encounter and battle the Necromorphs until only she is left. It is straightforward and works well.
It's the other, more interesting elements of the story such as the religion versus non-religion, demonstrated by the Captain and his crew, which are touched upon yet not explained make this movie feel incomplete. Why does the Church desperately want the ‘Marker'? Why did the same thing not happen to the first ‘Marker'? I was more intrigued by those themes than the actual main story.
It seems from the visuals that Film Roman had a healthier budget than their previously direct-to-DVD efforts (Hellboy: Sword of Storms) and they used it. The animation overall was better then I assumed it would be given the screenshots I had seen earlier in the year. That said, it was uneven at times and some of the characters ‘walking' movements used the old Hanna-Barbera technique of ‘bouncing' the character up and down to suggest movement in scenes where we could not see the characters legs. For the most part the CG elements incorporated nicely with the 2D and did not stand out too much. Some of the backgrounds though were a beauty to behold, such as the Ishimura's bridge, while most of the planetside stuff felt lackluster. The action choreography should have been storyboarded better as most of the action scenes got the point across albeit on the slow jerky side, they were not very memorable.
The character designs were serviceable, but felt generic. The best design had to have been the baby monster; it was the only monster that I felt was truly a threat to the crew as it was fast and viscous while all the other monsters pretty much stayed true to the 50's zombie school of acting. The colors were vivid, but the scenes and/or characters were too brightly lit most of the time. Good Horror movies use shadows and darkness as a way to build up suspense. Even the gore is given just enough detail to have our imaginations make the scene worse than it is, but when some of the characters get killed in this movie, it's as if a spotlight is shown on these areas and loses the impact.
The voice work for the most part was pretty good. Some background characters sounded like that came from a quickie anime dub, but the main cast did a great job. Sound design was also spot on though having sound in space does kind of lessen the tension, but that is a minor nit-pick.
Blu-Ray Impressions:
The video was very nice and the audio was pretty good as well on my meager system. However, the special features just consisted of an isolated audio track, production images from the comics, movie, and game (which some of the background art is incredible), one deleted scene (storyboarded with vocals), and some BD-Live storyboards which should've been on the disc.
Overall, I give it a C+.
With a better direction and a more tightly written script that treated this as a complete movie and not a part of a bigger project I felt this could have been great. It is an enjoyable film and worth a rent, which is how I watched it (thank the maker for NetFlix).
One sad note is that JM Animation, who did animation duties for Avatar: The Last Airbender, Wonderful Days, and Macross Zero, gets credited as a studio only. None of the animators, in-betweeners, etc. gets any credit time at all.
My Impressions or Lazy Review
(copied from my 1up Blog)
I have not yet played the game, Dead Space, due to the Fascist DRM schemes that EA is using for their PC products. So for me, the movie is my second foray into the Dead Space Universe. The first were the Dead Space Animated Comics which I downloaded on the PS3.
As a film, I found it entertaining and while I am not a fan of the Horror genre, it was more about the gore then the suspense. Yes the film is derivative of elements and archetypes that we have seen before in other various films such as Aliens, Event Horizon, and Predator. However, the biggest fault of the film is that it does not stand alone.
The narrative is, sadly incomplete and mirrors the Animated Comic too close for comfort in certain areas just in a different setting. Basically, our viewpoint is told through the character of Allyssa Vincent as it chronicles the events from the arrival of the ‘Marker' on the Ishimura until the arrival of the rescue ship. It uses the ‘message in the bottle' format and literally starts off with viewing a message recorded by Allyssa, which generally tells the audience the fate of the character right there. Her arc is the backbone of the movie in which she and her team encounter and battle the Necromorphs until only she is left. It is straightforward and works well.
It's the other, more interesting elements of the story such as the religion versus non-religion, demonstrated by the Captain and his crew, which are touched upon yet not explained make this movie feel incomplete. Why does the Church desperately want the ‘Marker'? Why did the same thing not happen to the first ‘Marker'? I was more intrigued by those themes than the actual main story.
It seems from the visuals that Film Roman had a healthier budget than their previously direct-to-DVD efforts (Hellboy: Sword of Storms) and they used it. The animation overall was better then I assumed it would be given the screenshots I had seen earlier in the year. That said, it was uneven at times and some of the characters ‘walking' movements used the old Hanna-Barbera technique of ‘bouncing' the character up and down to suggest movement in scenes where we could not see the characters legs. For the most part the CG elements incorporated nicely with the 2D and did not stand out too much. Some of the backgrounds though were a beauty to behold, such as the Ishimura's bridge, while most of the planetside stuff felt lackluster. The action choreography should have been storyboarded better as most of the action scenes got the point across albeit on the slow jerky side, they were not very memorable.
The character designs were serviceable, but felt generic. The best design had to have been the baby monster; it was the only monster that I felt was truly a threat to the crew as it was fast and viscous while all the other monsters pretty much stayed true to the 50's zombie school of acting. The colors were vivid, but the scenes and/or characters were too brightly lit most of the time. Good Horror movies use shadows and darkness as a way to build up suspense. Even the gore is given just enough detail to have our imaginations make the scene worse than it is, but when some of the characters get killed in this movie, it's as if a spotlight is shown on these areas and loses the impact.
The voice work for the most part was pretty good. Some background characters sounded like that came from a quickie anime dub, but the main cast did a great job. Sound design was also spot on though having sound in space does kind of lessen the tension, but that is a minor nit-pick.
Blu-Ray Impressions:
The video was very nice and the audio was pretty good as well on my meager system. However, the special features just consisted of an isolated audio track, production images from the comics, movie, and game (which some of the background art is incredible), one deleted scene (storyboarded with vocals), and some BD-Live storyboards which should've been on the disc.
Overall, I give it a C+.
With a better direction and a more tightly written script that treated this as a complete movie and not a part of a bigger project I felt this could have been great. It is an enjoyable film and worth a rent, which is how I watched it (thank the maker for NetFlix).
One sad note is that JM Animation, who did animation duties for Avatar: The Last Airbender, Wonderful Days, and Macross Zero, gets credited as a studio only. None of the animators, in-betweeners, etc. gets any credit time at all.