(1999)
Review by David Zuzelo Directed by Kenichi Maejima Written by Masahiro Yoshimoto Artsmagic DVD Region 0 NTSC (2004)
Japanese anime when presented at it’s best can provide a one of a kind experience for viewers by melding high concept stories to once thought to be unfilmable imagery. Be it recognized classics such as Otomo’s Akira, Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell or even the original Urotsukidoji series-the mixture of epic and/or outrageous stories with lush visuals can create something unforgettable. A.LI.CE delivers in the story department, but falls so incredibly flat visually that it proves out the idea that sometimes storytelling can be hampered by the animated medium as much as helped.
The script for A.LI.CE from Masahiro Yoshimoto is promising enough… a young girl wakes up to find that she is 30 years into her future--and all signs point to her being the mother of a new dictator named Nero. However, she is also a J-Pop Idol who just so happened to win a trip to the moon, but has now crashed in Lapland, which as she points out is where Santa lives!
A little Santa appears.
After escaping some thuggish soldiers with the assistance of a young man named Yuan and his lovable scrapheap companion (a "sexy" waitress/ cyberdroid killing machine), Alice must unravel the mystery and use what looks to be an Xbox controller to shoot down some bad guys. Yes, it sounds hokey, but director Kenichi Maejima wisely uses his feature length running time to create a good deal of mystery and interest in the story. Certainly, as an anime-all of the storytelling tools are in the toolbox and on display in a brilliant way. However, the visuals are rendered in a less than stunning fashion to say the least.
Using a rendering process, which was shared by Star Wars Episode 1, the filmmakers have created a story with lots of shade and substance and plopped it on top of visuals with absolutely no depth at all. The backgrounds are stale and minimal in most instances, the characters expressions are limited and the whole affair reminded me of Todd Hayne’s Barbie Doll/Karen Carpenter opus Superstar more than Ninja Scroll. While it does have an appeal, mostly out of curiosity at how the digital artists have created this film, after the first 10 minutes have elapsed the glossy veneer wears very thin.
While CGI certainly has a place in animation with such works as Final Fantasy or even the recent release (also from Artsmagic on DVD) Malice@doll --this looks like off branded cut sequences from an RPG for the Playstation 1 console that you never saw. If that sounds harsh, it can only be tempered by the fact that the story is so intriguing. But these visuals didn’t merely undermine the story, they distract from it in such a great way that the effort falls very short of it’s potential. Made in 1999, it looks years older than that-and without a controller to pick up every few minutes to interact with the story it certainly taxed this viewers patience.
A nice effort and a good tale gone wrong, you can file A.LI.CE under the header: "experiments that fail despite a strong premise." I would love to see another animation house take a swipe at the script however, as there is quite a bit to recommend, especially in its use of the uncommon setting and trippy ending.
The DVD of A.LI.CE from Artsmagic is very nice and the transfer appears sharper and less plagued by artifacting than Malice@doll. This is most likely due to the digital nature of the source and it’s focusing on the resolution of the characters over the backgrounds. The sharp and clear image is matched by a strong Japanese 5.1 audio track as well as an English language dub that certainly doesn’t impress. The voice acting is a bit flat, though it almost seems to fit the images just fine that way. Hollow and synthetic all the way around, this dub makes the flat look of the movie even worse. The score by Akira Murata attempts to give the feel of the epic Squaresoft games, but never comes close-and also brings the experience down a notch.
Extras are the usual fine bunch, including an interview with Maejima, trailers and filmographies as well as the repeating of "Final Fantasies-A History of CGI Animation" which appears on Malice@doll.
A film that loses the message under it’s medium, A.LI.CE has the promise of a great film that sadly gets unplugged by it’s computerized makers.
Film: 2.0 Synthi-Slaps Picture 3.5 Synthi-Slaps Sound 3.0 Synthi-Slaps Extras 2.5 Synthi-Slaps Overall 2.5 Synthi-Slaps
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