Flatland: The Film (2007)

Just perfect...

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Flatland won't get any flattery from me.It looked like it was going to address some interesting political matters, but I had to give up after 20 minutes despite my passion for animated films. I have no problems with visual minimalism but,first of all, this piece seriously overuses text insertions, half of which we don't even have time to read entirely. If one is incapable of telling his story through drawings, one should seriously consider using a narrator.Secondly, what I found really, really upsetting was the sound. The acting is uniformly terrible, and some of the voices are painful, plain and simple. Unbearable. I'll never know if a good story was told here, for it was unwatchable due to the poorness of its delivery.On an irrelevant side-note, I couldn't help but think there's a simple mistake in the design: women are lines while men are shapely. I would have imagined the opposite. And I wonder why everyone had to be so straight. As if 2D wouldn't accommodate curves...

I've been looking forward to this movie for quite some time. A movie about the basics of multiple dimensions targeted at a somewhat broader audience could be quite intriguing, even more since the general public at least has heard about something named string theory.Ignoring some basic inconsistencies within the displayed universe(s), of which most can be seen as elements of style or expression, the focus is lost between a pseudo plot and some 'funny' takes on differently-dimensioned lifestyles. While probably most people interested in the movie in the first place will get a few laughs or at least smiles out of it, nobody familiar with the generic topic will be challenged in any way, nor will anyone watching it for more than fifteen minutes.In addition to the not to well written and acted to plot, the three dimensional visuals are somewhat pathetic. First day animation students are capable of producing more pleasant work, since most stuff looks like somebody wanted to prove one can make a movie using povray.So, even while the possibly intended final 'point' of the whole thing is lost within the final minutes, and in contrast to everything else not really directly present and repeated about half a dozen times, I'm surprisingly disappointed. I got _much_ more out of a few minutes long, even more simply animated introductory film about 'imagining the 10th dimension'.The interested viewer having children, or those who will be teaching a class about the subject, especially for younger ages, this film will quite do the trick. Just keep in mind to show/watch it before learning/teaching anything about anything, or simply don't expect to much. Everybody else, well, the two and one dimensional stuff combined with the silent narrator implementation is entertaining.. for about forty minutes (when the third dimension enters). Oh, and somebody please write an accompanying game, the 2d graphics and world is _perfect_ for an actionscript something.

This is, undoubtedly, one of the most innovative and bizarre films I've seen lately, and I can tell you I see a few every week! The graphics are just wonderful - probably not so high-tech as you can see in some stupidly expensive Hollywood productions, but who needs those when the beauty is in what those flat characters say and show us! Well, maybe those who don't have anything to say...The use of the different dimensions and the explanations that the characters use to make us understand are of the highest level -- lucid and intelligent, it's a really thought-provoking film, one of those few left out there! ...And what's more, it's even funny at times!

For the Limited Edition DVD-R. This film was leagues more interesting that I expected it to be--my girlfriend REALLY wanted to see it, though.Lay back, sort of sleepy, watch the film. Some early on-screen direction annoyed me but it didn't last far into the film.I'm not familiar with the book, but this film is a helluva lot of fun and it brings about some great self-questioning about the perception of consensus reality.The creativity expressed in the various worlds was quite amusing. And it's mostly a family film but there's some language kids might repeat the next day at school (and get in trouble) and there's some very strange violence :)Well worth a shot, though.