Recent reviews

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  Review by Gabriel ★★★½

  Better than average take on the Is it Virtual or is it Reality? type movie

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  Review by Panos Spiliadis ½

  ...sheesh!

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  Review by Nikolai Efimov ★★★

  I knew I had to see this when I realized it was the only live-action film directed by Mamoru Oshii, acclaimed director of 'Ghost in the Shell,' among other things. I was expecting a few interesting ideas and images that would finally collapse under the weight of their own ambition, and in a way that's exactly what I received, but it's such an incomparably odd experience that I feel my time was very well spent.

  The first thing you should know is that this film is orange. You have never seen color correction this extreme. For 90% of the film's running time, there is no color on screen that does not start with the letter 'O'. The second thing is…

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  Review by Mongrel ★★★½

  Some really cool imagery and ideas that were hurt a little bit by a low budget. If you don't mind the occasional cheesy effect (and a whole lot of bloom) and enjoy offbeat sci-fi then this one is worth a watch.

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  Review by Unklerupert ★★½

  One of those "wanted to like it so much, but..." films. As someone with an interest in gaming and perceptions of reality, along with being eager to see what Mamoru Oshii would do with live action, I had high expectations that unfortunately were not met.

  Poor dialogue and stilted performances removed any chance of empathy or emotional engagement with the central character (Ash), the use of a sepia palette in & out of game removed any separation between possible reality & virtual reality. I just didn't care what happened to Ash, or anybody else, and saw no motivation for any of their actions.

  On the plus side, there was a lovely Bassett Hound :)

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  Review by Bjorns ★★½

  something about games, nice to watch but did not get the story

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  Review by craigasaurus ½

  Boredom is a curious thing. It is a passive experience that is not actually caused by a specific entity. If you go to a dull lecture for example, you are not bored instantly per se, but you become bored. It is a gradual accumulation of disinterest until you become at worst, quite sleepy and a little depressed. Even the dull lecture you attend maybe exciting to someone else, and as a result boredom is not a universally uniform phenomena.

  Until now. Avalon manages to take a passive, relatively harmless emotion (if you will) and turn it to something active, maybe aggressive even. It somehow pins you to your seat and makes you bored. So bored it becomes painful, not sleepy,…

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  Review by Corin Edwards ½

  This is from the guy that made Ghost in the Shell. I always thought Ghost in the Shell was a bit dull and slow. There are practical advantages in making a slow animated film, slower frame rates, less drawings etc. so I figured maybe the medium was the reason...

  Nope. Turns out this guy just makes incredibly boring movies...

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  Review by Matthew Allen ★★★★★

  This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  A personal like for me this film. Very biased toward the minimalist tech genre and then a great Mamoru Oshii fan also. He always has heroines, check, always a basset hound, check, always a bible quote, check, in all his films. Love that, and the length he goes to in making cinema. This film is Polish, that is because Oshii had access to the Polish military arsenal, including large calibre guns, tanks and helicopter gun ships. Put simly, he was like 'can I use them' they were like 'sure thing' and the film was made in Poland. The story is about virtual gamers who fight in teams to earn points and money. The mystery of this is that they may not even be in reality, and that they search and desire for utopian bliss in 'Class A', normal life as we know it today.