Titan A.E.
    Two good films in a row? Gasp, it can't be!
    Let's get the ratings out of the way first, m'kay?
    Gore: 3
    Schmaltz: 8
    Character Development: 5
    Sturgeon Principle: Falls at the bottom of the 90th percentile.

    This film isn't a great movie. If you're here to see something on the order of 2001: A Space Odyssey, save your money (but at least there isn't a five-minute-long drug-trip mind-fsck at the end!). Heck, this film ain't even quite as good as Legend of Starchaser. However, if you need a fix of some animation that Doesn't Suck, a story line that's almost halfway compelling, and a sound-track that's actually fun to listen to, you might want to plunk down a matinee-fee for this flick.
    T.A.E. is a Quest-film, no doubt about it. Person A is the only man in the galaxy who can find Item B to achieve Objective C, while Enemies D-Z are all buzzing around like flies on a Reform Party Booster, trying to stop them. And of course Person A will meet Female AA and they will engage in b) hostility c) banter and d) concern for one another until d) they finally intimate that soon they will have s) and e) and x). In this case, Kayle -- our protagonist -- must find his father's Magnum Opus, the USS Deux Ex Machina--er The Titan. The Dredge, a race of pure-energy beings, is out to stop them because they're afraid that humanity will... um... will...
    Anyway, Kayle is recruited by a rag-tag group of aliens who are off to Save the Earth... to Saaaave the Human raaaaace... and soon enough they find their way to Iskandar, where they're given the Cosmo DNA and...
    Skip it. You've seen this film before. You've seen the characters before. You've seen the situations all before. I had the plot more or less worked out fifteen minutes into the story. OTOH, while the movie is built out of pre-made parts, it's very nicely glued together. It's watachble. You'll forget that you know what's about to happen because, heck, there's some good character interaction going on up there. And eye-candy, which oddly blends well with the Bluth animation...something that I found surprising. I really hate melding Pretty Pretty CGI with flat drawings. To me it entirely shatters the world's consistency in my mind. I hated how it was done in Lensman and a few dozen recent animations from North America... to see it done right here makes me think that honestly, Bluth has a new trick up his sleeve and I hope to heck that it's used again soon.
    Oh, and if you're like me, there's a Switch-aroo that's supposed to take you by surprise, but really feels utterly unmotivated and like sloppy story-telling. I won't reveal what it is; but if you agree, drop me a line.

I give this film three Yamatos!
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