Review of Point Blank (1967) by Reginald R — 29 May 2005

First of all, The Wolf Brigade. A capable anime film. It shows great skill and promise at the beginning, but categorically begins a declining downslide that lasts throughout the film. So if you're going to watch it, you'd really better just see the first half hour or so. The visual style is sort of realistic and such that it aims to look like a regular movie, and it does look good. The films main problem is the constant overdramatic oversentimentality, which ultimately is a symptom of naive storytelling. The wolf metaphors are weak at best, embarrasing at worst. And why does the girl character have to be so useless? And why does the guy with the red glasses have to speak like he's constantly reciting a bad novel? The story is mainly about the main character's personal development, but in the end it is left artificial and flaky. An enjoyable quality film with too much shortcomings.

Ninja Scroll however is awesome. Easily the best anime action film I've seen so far. Everything is so beautifully orchestrated.

[EDIT july 2008]: Now that I've seen a whole lot much more anime than I had when I rated this three years ago, I'm gonna have to drop the rating from 10 to 7. Might drop it to 6, but I haven't seen the film recently so it wouldn't be fair. Still, Ninja Scroll is a good starting point if you're new to anime.

Moving on.

Point Blank, great vengeance story. I love how Lee Marvin is unstoppable.

Secrets & Lies is a...Mike Leigh film. It's great.

Signs is one of those films that aren't all that good, but you want to keep watching just to see what happens next. To be fair, there was some good excitement and thrilling. But the combination of Mel Gibson, mushy-mushy dramatic filling story, unimaginative dialogue, not very smart plot, and...that kind of stuff, it's not all that fruitful. But the director, whatshisname, Shmalayama Night something, he knows his thriller stuff. Extra points for looking occationally like a fifties b-movie. The aliens were laughable in their utter stupidity.