| Review by Jim |
| Plot: A collection of three short science-fiction themed animes based on works by Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of Akira. Review: As far as I know, Robot Carnival is the only other anime anthology out there, so Memories didn't exactly have much competition in that area. However, Memories in my opinion is a lot tighter and more focused than Robot Carnival, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. Robot Carnival offered tons of different shorts (meaning more variety) while Memories is only three, but I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy Memories' stories. Magnetic Rose: A space salvage crew picks up a distress signal from a gigantic ship and decides to help out, only to find that there's no one inside and the entire ship is recreated after the memories of a long dead opera diva. Two members of the crew, Miguel and Heinz, are sent inside to investigate and soon enough strange things start happening. Miguel starts seeing the diva and she treats him exactly like her former lover Carlos. Heinz is treated to haunting visions of his family from his past memories, and in particular one very dark secret. The ship starts crumbling due to the collapse of the magnetic field, and both characters are left with a choice. They can either stay on the ship and indulge themselves in these artificial memories, or they can accept reality and get the hell outta dodge. Magnetic Rose is the perfect opening for Memories because it gets the audience emotionally involved and gives us some heavy food-for-thought. The eternal question: do we escape to simpler, more enjoyable times in our lives via our memories, denying what's happening to us right now...or do we accept the situation we're in now and reality no matter how harsh they might be? This segment gives us no definite answer to that question, so you'll have to use your noggin for the ending. The ending can be triumphant or depressing depending on your view of its theme. So you'll either like Heinz or Miguel, but not both depending on your point of view. I didn't honestly care about Miguel, to me he was just an idiot, so my full attention was on Heinz. And after all, who can't sympathize with Heinz after the revelation we see? Magnetic Rose is the strongest bit in the three and it's tough not to like this one. Stink Bomb: A bumbling scientist mistakes a highly experimental pill for cold relief, turning him into a walking biological weapon. As he gets help, he's told to take a briefcase with the samples to a base in Tokyo. People quickly drop like flies when they're near him, and before too long the military figures out he's carrying the virus. The military then sends in everything they have at him, but it's just not enough. I'll stop there as to not give away the ending. Stink Bomb is easily the most light-hearted of the three and is the most entertaining. It even features a really jazzy soundtrack, contrasting the somber tone of Magnetic Rose nicely. There's also plenty of laughs to be had. Case in point, a ridiculous amount of tanks and helicopters are sent after him and he still comes out of it without a scratch. But the main meat of the humor comes from the fact that he has absolutely no idea he's the biological weapon even when everyone around him is dying. Stink Bomb is just fun, plain and simple. It doesn't have any themes it wants to convey, just an entertaining story. Cannon Fodder: Somewhere on the globe lies a city in a constant state of war. The population's sole purpose is to fire off gigantic cannons at an unknown and unseen enemy as many times as possible in one day and then start the process again the next day. Cannon Fodder shows us one day in the life of this city. It takes off with one family getting ready for the day at their breakfast table. The father works as part of the crew responsible for firing off a gigantic cannon, the mother is part of a factory of other women that manufacture shells for the cannon, and their son attends a school that only teaches subjects related to cannons and dreams about growing up to become the man that fires the cannon. That's as best as I can sum it up. Cannon Fodder is the shortest film of the three and is going to confuse a lot of people. In my opinion, it was the weak link in the series and not the best note to go out on. Not that it was bad, mind you, but all it really felt like was a slight (but interesting) twist on H.G. Wells' 1984. From the propoganda to the setting, it feels too similar to 1984 with the only main difference being the cannons. Another thing that people aren't going to like about Cannon Fodder is that not much is happening as I found myself nodding off a few times. However, the artwork is worthy of note here since Cannon Fodder's animation is the most unique out of the three. It sports ugly colors and all the characters are distorted like a children's cartoon. I suppose the best way to accurately describe Cannon Fodder's animation is that it's pretty much retro. In the end, I didn't particularly dig Cannon Fodder, but it does take its place within the film. It falls under the category of being "so-so." Taken as a whole, Memories is a pretty good anthology movie no matter how you look at it, animated or otherwise. It doesn't have as much variety and flair as Robot Carnival, but it still manages to entertain you and give you some things to think about at the same time. My final thoughts? It's not the greatest anime to recently come out, but it is definitely worth renting. |
| Rating: *** |
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