Space Battleship Yamato

Listen up, Nerd Nation: Space Battleship Yamato was designed specifically and precisely for you.  It is absolutely, positively, 100% nerd bait: filled with stuff that’ll push your buttons.

Naturally, I loved it.

First, it’s from Toho Studios.  As every nerd worth his GPA knows,  that’s the home of Godzilla and The Seven Samurai, Steamboy and Ikiru.  Second, it owes its production design to the ‘Battlestar Galactica’ reboot, which was the nerd television event of the last decade.  Third, and most importantly, it rips off Star Wars with more style than Lucas did.  This movie has it all: hotshot fighter pilots who must learn the meaning of responsibility, inscrutable aliens out to destroy the planet, and even a beautiful but straight-laced love interest who’s just one kiss away from melting into a soft-focus fantasy woman.

Space Battleship Yamato delivers all of this on a good-enough production budget.  It showcases performers such as The Hidden Blade’s Reiko Takashima, Sukiyaki Western Django’s Toshiyuki Nishida, and 2046’s Takuya Kimura.  And it does it all in a tone that makes it of a piece with any good space adventure movie you can recall.  It’s light, it’s fun, and it knows exactly what it’s about.  It’s nerd bait, sure, but consider me hooked.  

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is a horrible slog.

The film, set in the lower-middle-class world of a family of Australian bank robbers, tells the story of a 17 year old boy.  The boy finds himself immersed in this world, and he must learn to negotiate it.  The character, played by James Frecheville as a large, awkward kid just a few protein shakes away from hulking, is as dour and confused and scared a protagonist as you’re likely to find in a major crime film.  Oh, and he hides all this dourness, confusion, and fright behind a mask of emotionless indifference.

Listen, if I want to spend an hour and a half with dour, confused, and emotionless adolescents, I’ll volunteer to help out at my local high school.  I’m watching a movie, here: entertain me.

So anyway, Animal Kingdom’s got this kid and he’s frightened and withdrawn and all that.  Not much fun, right?  Well, at least the movie makes up for with a grainy look, an ugly color scheme, and absolutely zero comic relief.  I mean, come on – this thing’s a homework assignment, not a night at the pictures. 

Is Animal Kingdom well played?  Sure.  Does it do all the things it tries to do?  Yes.  Is it a grind?  Absolutely.  Animal Kingdom is the longest, most painful grind at the movies that I’ve experienced in quite some time.  Pass this one by.