pkos Reviews

Quest for Camelot (1998)

Good action, mixed animation

[7/10 · 16 December 1998]

Quest for Camelot is the first attempt to a full animated feature by Warner Bros, and it shows.

This story of a young girl that dreams to become a knight and ends up saving the kingdom is a mixed dish of great and poor animation.

Oddly, the two main characters Kayley and his blind friend Garret are the worst: their animation is unnatural and the character design is unappealing. But the rest of the cast more than make up for them. Ruber, the evil knight and especially his gryphon Griffin are awesome, scary and funny at the same time. Bladebeak, a chicken transformed in a killing machine is hilarious.

But the best of the bunch is the odd couple Devon and Cornwall, a two headed dragon that looks straight out of Warner's Looney Tunes. This wacky character literary steals the scene: the movie really starts flying when we first meet him and keeps getting better.

The plot is original and fast paced, packed with wonderful action sequences and (luckily) few songs, all pretty decent.

The CG is sometime effective and sometimes poorly integrated, (the stone ogre is the worst example).

I heard a lot of bad things about this movie, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that is not half as bad as they say. Pity that it did poorly at the box office, it deserved much more.

I'm looking forward to the next movie from Warner, if they can fix some of the problem they had with this one, Disney may find another competitor.

FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

A well executed ecologistic tale

[8/10 · 15 December 1998]

Ferngully is an example of how to do an educational movie without being boring. It is the story of an Australian rainforest endangered by human development. Zak, one of the worker of a team that is destroying the forest to build a road is shrunk by a fairy (Chrysta) and introduced to the magical world that he was destroying.

The animation is good, with rich colors and gorgeous visuals of the forest. The characters are well designed and funny, the bat Batty being the most hilarious. The music is nice, too, with modern rhythms that mix well with the fast pace of the movie. The best song is the one performed by the bad guy, Hexxus, a literaly slimy demon, that perfectly represents the greed of modern society.

This is a little gem in the Disney-dominated world of animation. Don't miss it.

Fire and Ice (1983)

The best heroic fantasy movie ever

[8/10 · 3 December 1998]

This movie is based on the art of Frank Frazetta, the mythical fantasy illustrator. Some of the characters are straight out of his paintings (the Death Dealer being the best example). Surprisingly, the animation manages to keep the feeling of the original art. Bakshi is well known for his heavy use of rotoscope (the technique of tracing a live action sequence) and this film is no exception. However, since the subject of the movie is quite realistic (all characters are humans), this works pretty well.

But what I really like here is the plot: for once we have a story with interesting characters and nice action sequences, a really hideous villain and a gorgeous babe. This movie has the feeling of the best Conan comics, not surprisingly since Roy Thomas is the writer of the Marvel series of our favourite Cimmerian! This is a far cry from the crappy live action Conan, not to speak of all the B-movie of the genre.

Definitely recommended!

Allegro non troppo (1976)

The Italian "Fantasia"

[10/10 · 3 December 1998]

"Allegro non troppo" is the Italian answer to Disney's Fantasia. The movie is a parody of the well-known American counterpart, featuring a lousy orchestra (filmed in black and white), a slave animator (the Italian comedian Maurizio Nichetti) and an angry director. The live action part is filled with humor in the tradition of silent-movie comedy, relying mostly on visual gags and on the exceptional mimic of Nichetti. It is in stark contrast with Disney's pedantic and boring intermissions. But it's the animation that makes this movie a masterpiece. Every piece is animated with a different style, showing the best work of Italian animators.

Guido Manuli interprets Debussy's Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun, presenting us the sad story of an ageing satyr that desperately tries to attract some nymphs. The tragi-comic character is a perfect match for the music's mood.

Ravel's Bolero is used for a piece on the origin of life on earth. In this stunning and imaginative sequence, life is born from a Coke bottle! Strange creatures crawl, swim, fly and metamorphose in dinosaurs, finally succumbing to the meanest creature of them all: man. The story of evolution from lowest forms to complex ones is seen as a violent tale of survival, as obsessive as Ravel music. The visuals are superb, with expressionistic colors and weird creature design reminiscent of Bosch.

Another powerful metaphor is the Slavonic dance by Dvorak, a satire of the sheep mentality of modern masses. The cartoony style is appropriate for the fast paced and goofy music.

One of the best pieces is probably the incredibly sad Valtzer Triste, about a kitty remembering his better days. This is technically the most impressive piece, with a mix of techniques used at the best to tell this tale through the cat's wide and moving eyes. Again, the music is powerfully brought to life, with such a precise timing and great emotional impact that you won't be able to hear this Vatzer without recalling the image of the poor animal.

On a brighter note is the Concerto in C Minor by Vivaldi, starring a cute bee that has to survive two lovers rolling over her lawn. There is a subtle message here, when we see the supposedly romantic love play of the couple transformed in a deadly menace... is love not so innocent after all?

Finally, Stravinsky's Firebird is the soundtrack for another satirical piece about an ideal world where Adam and Eve resist the snake temptation, and the snake himself has to suffer all the consequences of the original sin.

Allegro non troppo is to Fantasia what Van Gogh is to Wyland. Ten times more imaginative and mature, it manages to be technically as impressive as Disney's masterpiece. There is more "fantasia" in each of the single pieces of this movie than in all Fantasia. Bozzetto shows how imagination can achieve results that no amount of money can buy. This is animation at its best.

If you liked Fantasia, you'll love this movie.