Strait Jacket
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A new feature animation from Manga Entertainment
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Full Article
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 Magitech was probably the coolest part about Final Fantasy 6, which raises a bewildering question for why it doesn't happen more often? It pleases the fantasy nerds as well as the sci-fi geeks, and you know the only reason science and magic come together is to blow stuff up so Dangeresque fans can jump in on this one too. Every once in a while, somebody pulls the sword from the stone and our most recent 'Arthur' candidate is Strait Jacket.
Unfortunately, Magic plus Technology is not some ancient spell that shits gold, otherwise more people would use it. It's very evident in Strait Jacket's action scenes the difficulties therein: how do you animate a giant magical robo-suit? 'Not very well' seems to be the answer.
Almost all the fights are between a giant faerie-enchanted hunk of lead and a jibbly abomination with tiny legs, gigantic arms, and a mouth that won't shut up. From the start, not so great, but they did succeed in making me root for the good guys if only so the whale-like monster would shut up.
But how do you animate these things? Certainly, there must be a good way to do it but Strait Jacket just doesn't seem to have the talent to pull of such a tall order. There is one nice fight scene, but it doesn't last long I'm afraid. Even the final battle comes off as a bit limp.
 Story-wise, Strait Jacket's not much better off. The main character's supposed to be cool because he's too busy hating life to care about anything, but he really ends out just coming off like Neo in the Matrix, only there's no Morpheus to carry the movie along. The entire plot feels a bit rough, and there's even a lengthy period of exposition after the first action scene to not only let you in on why there's magic suits of armor everywhere but also to explain the nonsensical title.
The rest of the movie is two conflicting views on battling unambiguous evil, which honestly doesn't require a whole lot of philosophical debate. In the end the movie doesn't even seem to have all that much to say, and with a nearly complete lack of boobs I can't say I enjoyed it all that much. It's a shame too because the universe seemed pretty interesting, just it didn't go deep enough. This kind of thing needs a little more time to flesh out its world, but stronger writers would be required before it would be worth the money.
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Tectonic
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