Back to Gaya (2005)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Lack of good storyline.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This movie is so cute! It has all the stuff the rest of the CGI animated stuff has except for the humor displayed. But, we must keep in mind this is the first German CGI animated flick ever. So, maybe some of their humor is different from ours in the USA. Still, it makes it to nice, fun level.I loved all the characters, and the facial characteristics of them were wonderful and a delight to see. I will admit the rats in the chase sequence would be a bit scary for the wee ones, but I saw Bambi and cried my eyes out at their age. So, I think maybe the kiddies will be tough enough for this.I give it an 8 out of 10. Keep the kids under about eight from watching it. The rest? You've said worse around your kids by that time. Let them have a romp through Gaya, why not?

This is a children's cartoon film, but a very peculiar one. Like another recent film it features a female, English-speaking girl with a nice bum - all the other characters are yanks. It also, very strangely, considers, in some detail, the differences between reality and fiction as well as the matter of free will. It also makes reference to Descartes 'Cogito ergo sum'. I'm not really sure what these are doing in a children's film. Maybe, like the excellent 'Sophie's World' they really are trying to introduce philosophy to very young children. If they are, then there are some peculiar ways of going about it. The villain has a plan to incinerate all plebvision viewers, particularly those with inclinations to watch a particular cartoon, by diverting a stream of volcanic lava through their plebvision sets. A brilliant scheme and a possible object lesson for the children. Sadly, though, the villain is thwarted and plebvision remains. Actually, plebvision is a constant theme throughout the film, which isn't very nice. Technically the film is superb compared to the old days, but poor compared to something like Shrek - the character's lips don't fit the voices that well, for one thing, and the three eye'd frog is not very convincing. The other odd thing about the film, that I meant to mention, is the name. The place is called 'gaya', but they all pronounce it 'guya'. If they wanted it to rhyme with Gaia, the goddess, then why on earth didn't they just call it 'guya'? Is it that they didn't want to say 'gaya' properly because of the homosexual meaning of 'gay'? If so, that would be even odder, because the place seemed quite a gay place, in the standard meaning of the world and it would be good to introduce children to the happy and fun meaning of the word.

This may contain a slight spoiler or two."Back to Gaya" was rechristened "Boo, Zino and the Snurks" for its UK release, making it sound less like a bold fantasy movie and more like a bad animated series on Children's ITV or Fox Kids or whatever. In fairness, the movie does unfortunately play like a very long episode of a bad animated series on Children's ITV or Fox Kids or whatever, not the result the producers of Germany's first computer animated movie were hoping for (even if it hadn't opened here the same week as "Shark Tale" it would probably have bombed).The movie's premise - the stars of the hugely successful TV show "The Adventures of Boo and Zino" (which is so successful that they apparently have their own channel called Gaya TV) are brought into the real world by a mad scientist - isn't hugely original (as Rocky and Bullwinkle can attest; the upcoming Fat Albert movie is also based around that idea), but something could still have been done with it. One or two interesting ideas do come up, notably the notion of TV characters whose entire lives have been patterned out for them by other hands suddenly realising that they can function on their own, but they don't ultimately come to anything and the movie just lies there; the characters are all one-note clichés despite the attempts to graft some kind of emotions onto them, and the voicework isn't anything to write home about either.The animation itself isn't actually too bad, and the design is okay (though all the voices are English or American, the unnamed city the movie's set in has some European stylings) but the producers failed to get a point that Pixar fully understands; if there's nothing in the script for the animation to be based on, it won't work. Everything from the cheating in the race at the beginning to the climactic showdown is heartless, derivative and humourless, and the writing's unforgivably slack (not to mention refusing to make sense on its own terms; the villain who brought them from TV to the real world took them by mistake while getting Gaya's power source which will give him the power to take things from TV and bring them into the real world... but how did he manage to pull things from TV into the real world in the first place? Can you say "paradox"? I knew you could). The posters claim this uses writers from "A Bug's Life" and "Hercules," but they must have been on an off day.Is there anything to like about this movie? Well, this was one of two movies Michael Kamen was working on before his untimely death (the other being "First Daughter"), and his score does try to give the movie an epic touch that it doesn't deserve. Plus it's amusing to see that two characters look like a hollowed-out Kim Wilde and the guy with the mustache from Hale and Pace. And Alanta, the female Gayan on the trip - who's a tough lady, surprised? - is pretty fanciable; I think the producers must have thought so too, since the end credits finish with "Any resemblance to actual human beings is purely coincidental. Which is a pity, in the case of Alanta." But if you aren't a film music devotee or attracted to cartoon characters, skip this.And besides, in what universe could "The Adventures of Boo and Zino" really be a smash hit? I refuse to believe German TV can be THAT bad.

Back To Gaya, otherwise known as Boo, Zino and The Snurks, is a perfectly respectable effort at producing a computer animated movie outside the confines of Hollywood. I saw this the day after I watched Shark Tale, and found this to have far more sympathetic characters and.. dare I say it.. better animation? There is so much detail on in each scene, like paper blowing down the street or moths buzzing around a lantern, it puts previous effort's static backgrounds to shame. This is even more amazing when you consider this was probably was made on a tenth of the budget as it's aforementioned Dreamworks brother. Sadly, the script lacks humour and memorable lines.. unless you think quotes like "This place is so scary it would give a ghost goose-pimples" are ones for the ages. There is a lot of action, and a few tense moments that will have the sprogs biting their nails, but there were also some parts which went on for too long, and others which could have been cut altogether. This is what separates Pixar from the pretenders.. when they do a motion picture, they make sure the quality of the screenplay is just as good as the technology, something the producers of Back To Gaya seem to have forgot. Still, there is a refreshing lack of sentimentality usually associated with this genre, and Patrick Stewart and Emily Watson do well as the only recognisable voiceovers in the English dub. Overall, this probably not worth paying to watch in the cinema (A sentiment a lot of people agree with me on apparently.. It's flopping in the UK) but it is well worth a rental, particularly if your kids have worn out everything else you have on tape. A sound-as-a-pound 6 outta 10 from me..