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When Alice Hayashi, the youngest person ever to go into space
crashes her shuttle at the North Pole, she is thrown thirty
years into the future. But her trip through time is far from
accidental. The world is now ruled with an iron fist by Nero
and his supercomputer, the SS10X. And because of a common
link between her, Nero and the SS10X, Alice may be the future's
only chance for freedom...
A.LI.CE
is a futuristic Japanese based CGI movie which, at the time,
obviously stretched the existing technology to the limits.
This was also director Kenichi Maejima's first venture into
the world of CGI animation - and what a trip he takes us on.
This
movie has all the hallmarks of a classic Japanese Anime movie.
And while, for the majority of its duration, it never patronises
the audience, there is one instance that stands out as a wonderfully
tongue-in-cheek attack on the whole time travel cliché.
There
is a scene which asks why somebody didn't just go back in
time and destroy Nero before he went on the rampage, one that
gives a credible answer. However, that answer brings up another
question, which is also asked. But, sadly, that answer is
never forthcoming, and the question is neatly swept under
the carpet.
Normally,
where foreign language movies are concerned, when there is
an English language audio track available I always listen
to the films original soundtrack and read the English subtitles.
This is mainly down to the fact that the acting is usually
so poor as to be laughable. However, due to the fact that
some of the subtitles on this release just didn't make any
sense, I was forced to listen to the English language track.
Thankfully the vocal talents on this release are not as bad
as I thought they would be. In fact only the actor voicing
Nero was poor (and I mean really bad - like they'd just dragged
him off the street with no acting ability at all) the other
voice actors were fine.
Another
problem I had with this release was the fact that the disc
swaps layers at the most bizarre point - in the middle of
a moving scene and in the middle of a line of dialogue. What
should have been an invisible change over, instead slaps you
in the face screaming: "The disc has just changed layers!"
Extras
include an interview with Director, Kienichi Maejima and
Final Fantasies - a history Of CGI animation by Jonathan
Clements (which, incidentally has some really appalling lip
synching, but is still fairly informative.
Japanese
animation fans will need to add this to their collection.
The action comes thick and fast, and the plot is so riveting
that you'll want to watch this time and time again.
Pete
Boomer
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$21.71
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NTSC (USA) Edition |
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£18.99
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PAL (UK) Edition |
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£16.99
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