Post by Jen on Aug 25, 2006 12:52:30 GMT -5
Well I'm probably the only one here that has seen it, so there probably won't be much conversation about it, but here goes anyways...
They screened this last night at Dreamworks and I went basically to see the grossness of motion capture and laugh and mock it. The movie starts out, and it just looks plain gross. There's this leaf falling from a tree, and man, its weirdly animated with this erratic camera move. You almost think somehow they motion captured the leaf and the camera. And then this insanely creepy little girl on a tricycle comes wheeling down the street. She's supposed to be adorable, but no, she's just REALLY eerie looking. The leaf is like swirling all around her, and you don't know what the hell is going on. You're pretty much ready to write the movie off when suddenly she comes to THE house. She accidently rides her trike into the grass. You think the house is just going to come to life and eat her or something stupid, but instead this incredibly creepy old man comes out of the house yelling and screaming angrily to get off his lawn. If I was an 8-year-old it would have been terrifying.
I was totally into the movie after that. The writing was really good, and the characters were pretty strong. The story got a little silly by the end, but overall pretty entertaining. They didn't hold back either. Creepy intense stuff happens in this movie. The kids react to things and do things in a believable way. Everything basically made sense. Overall I was pretty impressed. People have been comparing it to The Goonies and other 80s movies, and I totally get the comparision.
Of course none of this excuses the utter terribleness of motion capture. WOW. There was some incredibly awful.....motion(I'm not even going to call in animation) in this movie. Some of it works ok. The main character is alright. The girl character works pretty ok sometimes. The fat kid was TERRIBLE though, and its a shame because the voices had so much personality. It would have been awesome if it was hand animated, or geez...maybe just shot in LIVE ACTION. Some stuff was way to subtle. You have this really super cartoony character having a real motion-captured reaction and it just doesn't work. It comes off weak. And man when the characters moved around a lot things just got weird. There was this basketball scene that was amazing. There was no weight and sometimes it felt like things were missing frames. Overall very eerie, and a part of me actually wants to say, maybe it works for this film because that's what they are going for, eerieness.
Ok so there you have it. I actually liked this movie. I don't know if I would buy it or pay money for it, just because I hate motion capture so much. Man I wish it was in live action, and I'm still trying to figure out why they released this during the summer instead of at Halloween. Idiots. All of them. *shakes head*
They screened this last night at Dreamworks and I went basically to see the grossness of motion capture and laugh and mock it. The movie starts out, and it just looks plain gross. There's this leaf falling from a tree, and man, its weirdly animated with this erratic camera move. You almost think somehow they motion captured the leaf and the camera. And then this insanely creepy little girl on a tricycle comes wheeling down the street. She's supposed to be adorable, but no, she's just REALLY eerie looking. The leaf is like swirling all around her, and you don't know what the hell is going on. You're pretty much ready to write the movie off when suddenly she comes to THE house. She accidently rides her trike into the grass. You think the house is just going to come to life and eat her or something stupid, but instead this incredibly creepy old man comes out of the house yelling and screaming angrily to get off his lawn. If I was an 8-year-old it would have been terrifying.
I was totally into the movie after that. The writing was really good, and the characters were pretty strong. The story got a little silly by the end, but overall pretty entertaining. They didn't hold back either. Creepy intense stuff happens in this movie. The kids react to things and do things in a believable way. Everything basically made sense. Overall I was pretty impressed. People have been comparing it to The Goonies and other 80s movies, and I totally get the comparision.
Of course none of this excuses the utter terribleness of motion capture. WOW. There was some incredibly awful.....motion(I'm not even going to call in animation) in this movie. Some of it works ok. The main character is alright. The girl character works pretty ok sometimes. The fat kid was TERRIBLE though, and its a shame because the voices had so much personality. It would have been awesome if it was hand animated, or geez...maybe just shot in LIVE ACTION. Some stuff was way to subtle. You have this really super cartoony character having a real motion-captured reaction and it just doesn't work. It comes off weak. And man when the characters moved around a lot things just got weird. There was this basketball scene that was amazing. There was no weight and sometimes it felt like things were missing frames. Overall very eerie, and a part of me actually wants to say, maybe it works for this film because that's what they are going for, eerieness.
Ok so there you have it. I actually liked this movie. I don't know if I would buy it or pay money for it, just because I hate motion capture so much. Man I wish it was in live action, and I'm still trying to figure out why they released this during the summer instead of at Halloween. Idiots. All of them. *shakes head*