Ark (2005)

First of all I need to say that considering the budget of Ark it looks really fugging ugly, I mean seriously it was made in 2005 there is no excuse. Its like a cross between the childrens tv series Reeboot (1994) and a 90's Resident Evil cut scene.Despite this the story initially is sound, it tells a convoluted sci-fi trope filled tale that I found myself engaged in. Sadly the further into the movie you go the worse it gets and it builds to a finale that on paper should have been great but in reality was rather underwhelming.Regardless Ark is a watchable piece and I believe it will really appeal to many especially those into their sci-fi. In many places it reminded me of several Final Fantasy universes and their villians, just not enough.Starring James Woods this is a harmless sci-fi fluff piece that by all rights should have been better and looked considerably better.The Good:James WoodsInteresting conceptThe Bad:Shoddy animationTrails off a bit the further in it goesThings I Learnt From This Movie:If a girl could be the only hope to mankinds survival............shoot at her with missilesA first kiss is probably less magical if you know its your last

It's not terrible, but it's not great either. The storyline gets confusing as all heck about a third of the way through (Did anyone else miss when they first mention the second Ark?), and the animation is, at times, almost painful, especially the post work explosions. There's also the issue of the mother, who's dead, then alive, then dead (I guess), not to mention a few other plot holes you could drive a truck through. Some of the design is quite wonderful, but it was pretty obvious in places that the makers were really pushing their luck on the texture maps. And sorry, but the Battle of the Giant Robots at the end was, as noted, plain silly. It's something of a staple in Asian movie making, so I wasn't completely surprised to see it happening here... but still, I sat there wondering what was going on *inside* the Giant Robots while they were engaged in their mild little slugfest -- after all, there's millions of people inside them, right? Bet those hospitals were really, really busy afterwards......

The reason I did not rate this though I watched it already, I felt that it is a little strange, I thought I would give me some time to rate it. Erm...there is really nothing to say about this, it looks like an average animation movie with some great scenes in the end. It looks like I can say it is one of the most crap animation, I thought it is a local-made movie but it turns out to be made in Korea with English actors voicing the characters. The animation look a bit robotic, not flexible. Too much on finding the whatever but too little time on robots clashing each other at the end. I will watch it again and decide whether I should like this movie or treat it as one of the most crap animation. I don't understand, now animations are getting a bit weird and strange. You wanna watch it... wait for the DVD price to go down.

This film has a strong cast of voice actors, while mostly unknown(with exception to James Woods) they handle the job of bringing these characters to life quite well. This is no bargain basement film folks, this title puts the more advertised Final Fantasy films(including Advent Children) to absolute shame.The storyline is solid, containing futuristic vehicles, action, and even a giant robot battle near the end of the film. Though some of the vehicle design reminded me greatly of Ghost in the Shell, and GitS: Stand Alone Complex. So if you like either of those anime titles for their vehicles, you will most definitely enjoy this film also.Overall an engaging storyline, strong graphics, and excellent use of technology powers this film upward to a level which is surprising for such a widely unknown film. It deserves attention.