Casshern

A tsunami of originality and an audiovisual feast. But there is so much originality that even Doggy and Kitty’s cake (in the short story by Josef Čapek, brother of Karel Čapek - inventor of the word "robot") has minimal ingredients by comparison. The imaginative visuals fill you up faster than chocolate-covered cherries, so even the most interesting partial ideas (or whole passages) cannot hold the viewer’s attention throughout this over-long movie. For a while, I wasn’t sure if the whole concept was meant to be taken seriously or not. I wasn't sure until after the main bad guy's monolog about hate. You can't possibly conceive of something so terrible, let alone bring it to realization. But here the filmmakers did it, and created perhaps the worst thing I've ever heard in a movie. All the worse because it's meant to be deadly serious. Moreover, Kiriya must absolutely love Čapek's work, because this is full of fragments from “The White Disease", “The Mother", “RUR", “War with The Newts", “Krakatit" and “The Absolute At Large". And nothing comes out of it. Just confusion upon confusion. Less is sometimes more. This is true of Casshern as many times as its style changes. (09/23/2008)