Kaena: The Prophecy (2003)

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I was fascinated by the story, the characters and the CGI was well done, but it lost 2 points from being a 10 because, while very, very good, the CGI was very brown, muted and had an almost sepia quality to it, additionally, a lot of the action is in heavily shaded locations. This made some of the scenes very hard to make out, and when there was quick action on the screen, it turned into a muddy blur. Add to this the liquid quality of a lot of the scenes and a kind of HR Giger look of the sap aliens, and you get some scenes that, because of the difficulty, distract from the over-all enjoyment. You tend to dwell on the previous scene, trying to understand what you just saw and heard, and miss some of the present action. I thought the voice acting was superb. The wonderful Richard Harris, in one of his final roles, was great as usual. Kirsten Dunst was very good also, and added a lot of energy to the role. The worms and other "comedy relief" characters were fine. Over all an intriguing fantasy, with above average voice acting, and very well done graphics, even if sporadic at times. I would have preferred a tad more lighting, and perhaps a splash of colour now and then. Worth watching in any regard.

OK, let's get the bad news out of the way right now. The plot is weak. There are some gaping silly holes in the story, numerous unexplained critter origins, shaky science, and a few threads that don't resolve at all. Automatic scoring deductions, across the board. So what's good about the movie? First, the graphics. This is the natural evolution of French animation, of which there isn't nearly enough. Rene' Laloux's "Fantastic Planet" is one of the all-time animated psychotropic classics, and there is much in this film that pays homage to it: the visuals of the Axis "forest", the xenomorphic life forms, the conflict between master and slave races, etcetera. At the same time, the animation technique is the sort of hyper-real CGI used in Final Fantasy/Spirits Within, where each hair follicle is individually rendered. Like these two sibling films, Kaena abounds with brilliant bong hit graphics and mind-bending action sequences. One common pitfall for animated features, particularly those of foreign origin, is the voice acting. To its immense credit, Kaena has a fairly decent dub, and I felt none of the accustomed grumpiness that comes with de-synced speech for any of the characters. The main characters were all well voiced. The IMDb cast list doesn't appear to mention all the voice actors, and I'm pretty sure the little kid was voiced by the same person who plays Shippo on Inuyasha (Jillian Michaels?). Sounds that way, at least.However, while the voice acting is fine, the same cannot be said for the dialog. Long in exposition and short in character development, I get the feeling that this was an editor's nightmare. The balance between ensuring that people understand events and helping them care about the consequences of those events can be a difficult one to achieve. This has been the bane of science fiction films since the genre's inception. Unfortunately, dialog in Kaena finds a way to fail on both sides of the equation -- albeit at different times. Without revealing any more details, I will say this much. The story tries to operate on a grand scale, but is undercut by the uneven development, jerky scene transitions, mediocre dialog, and the aforementioned plot-holes.This is a film to be enjoyed as a raw sensory experience, not as a total cinematic product. It's not going to end up on any top-20-all-time lists and its pretensions to epic film status are undercut by its many weaknesses.The overall effect, however, is extraordinary; it merits viewing as an exploration of what can now be accomplished with CGI. I enjoyed it immensely from this perspective, to the point where I was quite distracted from the numerous shortcomings.

I had seen (via CN/AS) ads for the DVD and was very curious. I am an avid fan of anime from anywhere and anyone. The delivery and technique that is put into them is just beyond words.Very, very good. The fluid like structure of the movie was about the hardest part for me. I couldn't define what began and what ended at some points. On the overall, it was a solid story with a woman taking the weight of her people's survival on her tiny shoulders. HURRAY!!!!I do hope there is a prequel as well to get more definition of who's who. David Keith has always been a STRONG animation voice for me and he does well with this one. I recognized him voice the instance he spoke. Although I am not a 'gamer' and have no reference to 'copy-cat'/'look-a-like' comments here, I scream for utmost ORIGINALITY. This 90+ min is just that, creatively original. Keep up the most excellent work Chris Delaporte and Crew. Well done, well done!!

comparing this to toy story, ice age, shrek or pretty much any other animated movie is a mistake. they have nothing in common except being animated. complaining that there is no humour in the movie just shows that you didn't understand much (or any) of the tale it tells.this movie is dark, serious and sinister. it tells the viewer of another world, far different from ours. it is falling apart, the gods are angry, monsters are roaming and people are being killed. there is nothing to laugh about and adding humour to it would be like adding humour to braveheart. the story is quite original and doesn't resemble much of whats out there already. some video games spring to mind however. the movie has the same mystic atmosphere as 'another world' and 'the dig'.what makes this a hard movie to watch is that it doesn't make anything obvious. the story isn't easy to understand and you aren't supposed to be able to guess the second part of the movie after having watched the first one. you rarely have the feeling that you know whats going on.if this is a bad or good thing is up to you but i sure don't like movies that almost feel old before i started watching them.the visual design of the movie resembles that of the cgi in the final fantasy games (not the movie). you could complain on the animation of the characters perhaps, but it is a design decision to not make them look and movie like real humans. you might not like it, but that doesn't make it bad. and i can assure you that the characters don't resemble lara craft. other than being a girl.the movie is a 9/10 for me, but then again, i'm a sucker for this kind of story and visual design.