Escaflowne the Movie is a stand alone feature-length film based on/inspired by the 26 episode anime TV series. These and other facts about the film were learned
after watching the film, while skimming over the generally-dissatisfied
Amazon.com reader reviews.
I knew nothing about Escaflowne before I saw the film, but even from this one viewing, it was pretty clear to me that it was based on a TV series that had a great deal more depth than the film. Lots of characters pop up for a scene or two, then vanish, many characters clearly have relationships and back stories that are not shown or even hinted at in the film, and rather than a complete film, this one seems like a sort of rapid fire introduction to the world of Escaflowne, with an epic plot awkwardly shoehorned in. I think the film was designed primarily to appeal to fans of the series, since it tries to throw in a little of everything, but never includes enough of it to satisfy a new viewer.
To the scores, which are
explained here.
Escaflowne the Movie
Script/Story: 3
Characters: 4
Combat Realism: 6
Humor: NA
Horror: NA
Eye Candy: 8
Fun Factor: 5
Replayability: 3
Overall: 4.5
Going into this film, I'd long heard of Escaflowne as one of the more popular Anime series, but had never seen it and knew nothing about it. Literally nothing; it might have been futuristic cops in Tokyo, Sci-Fi robots battling alien invaders, samurai fantasy from the 1200s, or damn near any of the other common anime world settings. So I was completely new to everything, and found myself liking the overall world and concept far more than the particulars of this story. The world and fiction and setting and magic and everything in the story were great. How they were used was very far from living up to their potential, unfortunately.
In an odd way, it reminded me of the other DVD I grabbed at the library when I got
Escaflowne the Movie;
The Chronicles of Riddick. In my initial review of Riddick
I gave it a 3.5/10, and said it looked gorgeous and had some good action set pieces, but that it was ruined by a completely worthless plot, an excess of unimportant sub-characters, and a generally wandering, plotless story line. A description that can be applied to
Escaflowne the Movie, unfortunately.
I love the world concept of the story, even though it's pretty cheesy. The story takes place largely on a mythical fantasy steampunk sort of world. They've got gunpowder and cannons and lots of dirigibles and steam machinery here and there, but no one has a firearm or rifle, and everyone fights with swords and magic, while riding horses. And there are giant combat robots like in every anime, except these are somehow ancient living suits of dragonarmor, or something like that, and they fight with swords, except when one uses a flamethrower sort of thing.
Basically the series creators threw together everything cool they could think of. They wanted huge flying machines, sword fights, cannons, air pirates, magic, gunpowder, half-human animal things, and mech battles. Rifles and guns aren't any fun in fiction since they're so impersonal and hit from a distance, so Escaflowne doesn't include those; just swords, since they're hella cool and close range.
Most of those elements are used pretty well, too. The film's weakness is from the characters, all of whom are painfully stupid in at least one way, and the story, which is weak and superficial and very unfocused.
Script/Story: 3Nice concept, lame execution. The film opens with a nice action piece as a little guy falls from the sky, lands on a gigantic dirigible, and cuts down most of the crew in vicious sword combat, before running down into the hold (not that a blimp that size could have one) and finding a gigantic suit of armor which looks exactly like a humanoid robot mech as seen in every futuristic anime ever. He begins chanting about reawakening it and saying his dragon blood calls to it, etc.
The film then cuts to modern day Japan, where Hitomi, a schoolgirl with legs as improbably long as her skirt is impossible short, is lying napping in the sun. Another schoolgirl wakes her and conversation ensues. Turns out Hitomi is super bored, mildly-suicidal, wants the world to just fade away, is cutting all of her classes, quit the track team, etc. She drives the other girl away after a bit, and then in a series of shots that are either dreams or weirdness happening, sees herself standing in a stadium as it fills with water, washing her away. Next thing she knows she's trapped inside a small space as the water drains, and as the viewer soon realizes, she's actually in the driver's seat in the giant robot the guy on the blimp was trying to awaken earlier in the film.
The blimp gets shot down, it crashes, the guy (who we eventually learn is named Van) survives, the robot walks out, and when he faces it the robot stops, the cockpit opens, and the very confused Hitomi is dumped out, after which the robot/suit of armor vanishes in a pretty show of lights. We soon learn that Hitomi is apparently a person of prophecy, the Goddess of the Moon, who will bring about the destruction of their entire world. (Which has both the moon and the earth visible in orbit around it, as if it's something like a sister planet to our Earth.)
From there many battles ensue, we learn that Van's the younger brother and was destined to be king until his older brother took power and drove him out, and that the older brother has built a huge army and destroyed most of their world. The older brother wants the suit of magical armor, which is called Escaflowne, to destroy the whole world, and that he and Van are both bored and lonely and that they hate the world, just like Hatori did before she got pulled into their world. The older brother just wants to awaken the suit of dragon armor so he can use it to destroy the world, like the prophecy says, and he knows he needs the Goddess of the Moon to do it. Van just wants to kill his older brother, and doesn't really care about the world one way or the other.
Characters: 4Mostly archetypes, and a weird bunch. Basically, all of the minor characters are much more interesting than the main ones. Hatori and Van are the two most-seen characters, and while Van is just the supremely talented 15 y/o impetuous good-hearted hero you see in every anime, Hatori is actively horrible. She does nothing during her opening scenes in Japan but whine about being bored, and then when she finds herself in another world she says little more than, "Where am I? I don't understand. I'm sorry." over and over again. She is so passive and so worthless it's impossible to root for her. I just wanted to shake her, and I think most modern females watching this film would hate Hatori with a passion. I know Malaya would, so it's just as well that I watched this film while she was not home, since she'd never have sat through it.
Eventually Hatori changes, shaking off her boredom and wanting to make other lonely people feel that they've got someone with them. Sadly, there's no real reason given for this change, other than that the plot requires it. And she's not much less-annoying once she's no longer morose, either.
The lesser characters in the film are all much more interesting than the main ones, though that might be simply because they're not seen enough to get boring. The older brother, Folken, is quiet and brooding and just flies around in his magical castle, speaking to some sort of prophetic elf woman. He's enslaved or conscripted lots of native species, including the last survivors of various half-human clans. Lion-headed guys, jackal-human things who are mad bombers, and more. None of whom ever get more than a few seconds of screen time.
The rebels, a group that Van hangs with and that Hitori falls into, are all quite colorful too. There's a knife-throwing guy, a screwy catgirl who loves animals, a confident and well-armed woman they all call the princess, a rebel leader who seems to be the best fighter in the film, an old fortune teller no one much cares for, and so on. None of these people get more than minute or two of screen time either, and none of them ever amount to anything in the larger scheme of the plot.
Combat Realism: 6Not really an appropriate rating for this anime, since all the combat is very stylized. Bit slashes with swords, robots fighting and knocking over cities, etc. There are some very cool flying scenes, and some magical battles that are nicely-done though, with fast "burn a trench through the earth on the way to the target" type spells thrown.
Humor: NAHorror: NAEye Candy: 8It's a very good-looking and well-drawn film. Much better than most anime, though they did overdo the fader tool a bit. There must be a dozen sunset scenes in the film, all with one end of the screen bathed in a glorious red/orange/yellow, and the other a deep purple/blue. The machines look nice though, the blimps are fun, the cities have nice architecture, the wildernesses are appropriately wild and untamed, and so on.
Fun Factor: 5A generous rating. I would be much more bored the second time though, and I didn't enjoy this one enough to make an effort to watch the original series.
Replayability: 3Not likely. It had good moments, but too few and far between, and most of them were very quick. It's not action porn along the lines of Ninja Scroll either, where you can count on a big action/fight scene every five or ten minutes. So I can't see watching it all again for the story, and the best scenes aren't really good enough to fast forward just to see, either.
Overall: 4.5It's not bad, but it's not good. A lot of this score is on potential, since you can see it's got a lot of good ideas and could have been a really cool film. They just needed to spend a lot more time on the epic struggle of the plot, and far less on the whiny teenagers, who never even do anything. They never even fall in love; just friends who walk along scenic paths together while muttering platitudes about always being there for each other.
A great script could have worked in enough of the minor characters to make them interesting, and could have given them some part to play in the grand finale. A grand finale that didn't suck would have been nice, too. As it is no one but Hatori and Van really matter over the last 30 minutes, and the Escaflowne vs. Escaflowne mech battle, and the big brother vs. brother showdown the movie seems to be building towards, are both total let downs. The brother vs. brother one especially, and the epilogue isn't even any good, with things just sort of ending, and Hatori apparently returning to Earth, though we never even get the seemingly-requisite scene of her making up with her girlfriend and living life with newfound purpose and desire.
Pretty disappointing, on the whole.
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