The Big Whatsit

I think it was Watership Down’s appearance on a Channel 4 Top 100 show that made me dig out my copy, the ‘Deluxe Edition’ - bought for a couple of quid when I was feeling flush - and experience it all over again. Certainly, there aren’t many ‘U’ rated animated features like it, and on a personal note it’s one of the first movies I remember watching in full. As a treat one Christmas, my school (I can’t have been any older than seven) stopped classes one afternoon and screened it on some dinosaur projection system. I can imagine the teachers’ train of thought - nice film about rabbits… good family fare… nothing harmful or corrupting there, and then what must have gone through their minds as the horror-strewn odyssey unfolded on the screen. I bet there were a few nervous Number Six smoked in the staff room that afternoon.

For my part, I loved it. Seeing it as an adult, I fully appreciate the argument that it isn’t really a film for young kids, and clearly by any family-rated movie’s standards, it contains a lot of blood and more than its fair share of haunting imagery. On the flip side, I would also maintain that Watership to some extent delivers precisely what children want from their films, and very rarely get i.e. an unblinking, warts and all, visceral experience. Added to that are enough allegories and lessons to be found within the action to stun your young darlings out of their typical sanitised viewing fare and watch something that contains a genuine degree of heart. If Watership has an overall message, it is that life is always precious, and very often fragile. Behind all the liberalist moaning about how children could have nightmares from seeing it, isn’t that what really matters?

Not that I am suggesting for a second that you ought to strap your kids down, prise open their eyelids Clockwork Orange style and force them to watch, just that there are good reasons for them doing so.

The film is of course based on Richard Adams’s bestselling novel, which just like the former is allegedly for the younger end of the market, though it was some time before I could actually plough through it, neither have I read it in years. I do however recall the movie adaptation closely following much of the text, and crucially getting it right in terms of the spirit and themes Adams attempted to introduce. What really impresses me about the story is the mythology Adams has created for his rabbit characters. These aren’t Disney bunnies, humans in animal form. They have their own stories, their own names for things (e.g. ‘Hrududu,’ the rabbit word for moving motor vehicles, which is presumably - not to mention ingeniously - based on the noise they make) and, critically in terms of the plot, their own ideas about death and the afterlife. The rabbits’ story about how they are all descended from El-ahrairah, the original prince of all rabbits, is told in the film’s prologue, a sublimely nasty piece of film that is shown as a kind of animated series of woodcuts. What it does is firmly establish the rabbits’ own sense of their place in the world - perils are all around. They have a thousand enemies, a fact reinforced by the sequence of dangers experienced by our heroes. Yet they aren’t helpless. Frith, the rabbits’ God represented by the sun, gifts them with cunning and speed.

‘All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies,’ Frith advises. ‘And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you - digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.’

In the world of Bambi and Thumper we are not. Watership presents an altogether harsher reality for the rabbits, and tragically enough ‘reality’ is the key word. Who would want to come back as a bunny after watching it? The story proper opens with frail ’seer’ rabbit, Fiver (Richard Briers) begging his leaders to leave the warren and search for a new home. A human sign erected nearby has given him a vague yet horribly strong premonition of danger, illustrated as he sees their field covered in the dying oranges of the setting sun, which turns into blood. Unfortunately, the chief rabbit is unmoved when Fiver and his brother Hazel (John Hurt) present their case. Fat and complacent, the head of the owsla (rabbit soldiers) doesn’t want to know, and our heroes are compelled to steal away in the night with several others who believe their story. Sure enough, as the rabbits leave, they pass a board they obviously wouldn’t be able to read that tells us the land is scheduled for development. Later in the film, a captain from the owsla catches up with the runaways, and tells them the warren was blocked up by humans. In probably the movie’s most horrific scene, we see red-eyed rabbits clamber over each other, asphyxiating in their desperate struggle to escape.

What follows is the rabbits’ journey through an eternity of (mostly) perilous encounters, on their way to Watership Down, which Fiver describes as ’high, lonely hills, where the wind and the sound carry, and the ground’s as dry as straw in a barn.’ By all accounts, Watership Down really exists somewhere in Hampshire. In the film, it looks for all the world like Pendle Hill, one of the landmarks of Lancashire. Some of the dangers they come across are mild - a badger (or ‘lendri‘) leering at them with blood-soaked teeth from the bushes. Others are less so. One rabbit is randomly picked off by a swooping hawk when she ventures from the safety of a cornfield. Hazel’s attempts to ‘rescue’ some tame doe rabbits from a farmhouse hutch are ever undermined by the presence of an ill-minded and predatory cat.

Creepier still is the heroes’ encounter with Cowslip, a seemingly friendly rabbit who offers to share his warren with them. Things seem too good to be true, and of course they are. The warren is riddled with snares and traps, its occupants ‘kept’ so that they can be killed and eaten by humans. Fiver, for all his moaning, is the one who sees it first, and who later helps to rescue the macho Bigwig (Michael Graham Cox) from just such a snare.

The story culminates as the rabbits discover Watership Down, and find it’s every bit the perfect warren for them. Unfortunately they’ve arrived without any females, and the only place they can find any willing to join them is ruled by the sadistic General Woundwort (Harry Andrews) and his ‘claw first, speak later’ owsla. The survival of the warren depends on whether they can extricate any of the does, some of whom are willing to come, but aren’t allowed to leave…

The fear of meeting the Black Rabbit of Death is all around. ‘When he comes for you, you have no choice but to go,’ Fiver warns, and in one of the film’s more dreamlike sequences, he indeed follows the black rabbit, which he believes is leading him towards the wounded Hazel. This is the bit with ‘Bright Eyes,’ the slightly mawkish theme tune composed by Mike Batt and featuring the vocal stylings of Art Garfunkel. It’s a scene that actually works incredibly well, Garfunkel’s voice taking on an ethereal quality as the black rabbit leaps elusively out of reach. We’re supposed to think of the black rabbit as a sinister character, just like death implies, but by the film’s end, we realise he’s in fact nothing of the sort.

All of which takes place before an animation style that, though primitively crude by twenty first century standards, has a rather beautiful watercolour look to it. The English countryside scenery is detailed and gorgeous, and the animators’ attempt to create a very different ‘look’ for the appearance of rabbit myths and legends is bold indeed. If anything lets it down, it’s the sometimes unnatural way the animals move, no doubt a result of the technologies available at the time. It’s never terrible, and there’s something quite charming about it compared with modern, clinical attempts to naturalise movement in this most artificial of art forms. However, considering it’s around the same time that Miyazaki was putting the finishing touches to The Castle of Cagliostro, the limitations are visibly clear.

But this is nitpicking. The voice cast more than makes up for shortcomings in the animation. My pick of the bunch is Richard ‘Treacle’ Briers, who lends Fiver exactly the nervous quality you would expect from a rabbit who, pre-dating M Night Shyamalan by twenty one years, can see dead people. John Hurt is also on fine form as Hazel, and clearly has the kind of vocal range that makes him ideal for heroic characters (he also made for a memorable Aragorn in the Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings). A roll call of British luminaries - Ralph Richardson, Simon Cadell, Roy Kinnear, Michael Hordern, Denholm Elliott, etc - make up the rest of the cast, and there’s a winning turn from Zero Mostel, who in his last ever part provided the voice of Kehaar, the gull who helps the rabbits when not being the film’s much needed comic relief. His angry ‘Piss off!’ at Bigwig somehow slipped under the censors’ noses, which kind of sums up the movie in general.

In between seeing Watership Down for the first time, not very long after its original 1978 release, and buying the DVD earlier this year, I hadn’t viewed it often, though I’m sure it’s on steady rotation and seems to be a staple of the early afternoon Christmas films circuit. I would certainly recommend giving it a chance. The blood, nastiness and some genuinely unsettling scenes of surrealist horror add to the goals of the rabbits, the prince with a thousand enemies, and it helps to be forewarned that this has no place beside Disney levels of cuteness. In terms of British animation, it’s a real triumph, a movie with heart and soul, and for an art form that contemporaries would have dismissed as ‘cartoons’ it still holds up surprisingly well.

Yeah all right, so the ‘week’ bit is totally out of the window. For no reason I can think of, I have been returning recently to the Ghibli titles I own, and after being wowed by a first viewing of the romp that is The Castle of Cagliostro (a review coming up soon enough, because it really deserves it) I found myself sitting down to the far more childlike My Neighbour Totoro.

A little like Kiki’s Delivery Service, this is a story without a baddie, and carrying very little plot to speak of. What it does cover is one summer in the life of two little girls, moving to their new home in the country and exploring their world. Their dad is the perfect father, an indulgent good egg who works hard yet has time to lavish on his daughters. He needs to. Mum is in hospital, presumably recovering from tuberculosis, though this is never made clear. Other characters include ‘Granny,’ an elderly neighbour who works the fields and looks after the girls, and her nephew, Kanta. Then there’s Totoro himself, the head of a family of spirits that reside in the neighbouring forest. Totoro’s hobbies include sleeping, roaring, helping the trees grow, riding on the cat bus and using the umbrella given to him by the older girl, Satsuki.

And that’s more or less it. 88 minutes of nothing more than the girls running around, exploring and making friends with the spirits surrounding them. Hayao Mayazaki fills his world with characters that will appear again, more specifically the soot sprites, who scutter around the house and watch its new inhabitants from a discrete distance. The younger sister, Mei, gets lost when she resolves to go to her mother, and Satsuki has to find her, but that’s the one note of real tension in the movie. Otherwise, it’s about playful innocence, exploration and a slightly sad note concerning the wonders of retreating nature.

Told entirely from the perspective of the girls, My Neighbour Totoro is blissful, and ever so slightly wonderful. In the hands of an American director, it would have been mawkish and helplessly sentimental. The soundtrack would feature tunes from the 1950s and the story couldn’t have been left without some elements of danger. That isn’t the case with this redoubtably ‘U’ picture. Vibrant, colourful and smooth, the animation in a film nearly 20 years old is luscious. The forest has an organic quality that no amount of CGI would improve, and the pace is allowed to crawl by lazily in time with Totoro’s endless sleep patterns.

The sisters are imbued with a degree of personality that develops on the screen quite naturally. Satsuki is a little bossy, filling in the void left by the family’s mother but entirely a child when faced with Totoro for the first time. It should be harder to make Mei seem real, yet the three year old is just as fleshed, all wonder and afternoon naps. If there is a weak character, it’s dad, who seems a bit too perfect, but then we see him through the eyes of his daughters. As such, he’s bound to be seen cavorting with his kids, giving them the time and attention they can’t get from their mother.

Giving this film any sense of weight is hard. Put it next to Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Porco Rosso, and it’s a featherweight, puny when compared with plot-heavy movies that have something substantial to say. And yet I think that’s partly the point. My Neighbour Totoro is supposed to be light, elemental and partly forgettable. It’s meant to be like the era it captures - a summer where nothing much happens - and it does so perfectly. Not many movies would even attempt to capture its sense of lightness. Fewer would dare to give it such a lack of plot, a vacuum in terms of tension, and yet get away with it. The film is nothing more or less than just under ninety minutes of joy, of showing what it’s like to be a kid, with all the marvel, awe and easy morals that childhood covers. It made me miss that time.

This review contains spoilers.

Oh dear. It hasn’t been a good summer for the threequels. Spider-Man 3 was a massive letdown. The critics slammed their cutlass into the third instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean, though oddly enough I quite enjoyed it, possibly because I wasn’t expecting much. And then there’s Shrek the Third, surely as safe a franchise as they come. How do you possibly get something like this wrong? A minimal plot, funny characters, a peppering of pop culture references and slices of comedy that can appeal to both kids and adults. It’s positively foolproof, right?

I went to see it with mine family, largely through boredom. The English weather has been like one long expulsion of snot recently, and even worse if you live in the north west. The alternative was to watch the men’s final at Wimbledon, and quite honestly the prospect of seeing SW19 bathed in blazing sunshine - well, dryness, at any rate - whilst we Lancastrians have to put up with endless rain did not appeal. So Shrek it was, and we took our seats in the Rochdale Odeon with numerous other family units who clearly arrived with exactly the same ‘must go outside somewhere… anywhere’ stir crazy mentality as ourselves.

Though tales of horrific, disturbance-filled trips to the pictures are commonplace, I’ve not had it too bad recently. This was different. My time was spent getting up to let other people out who needed the toilet, listening to patrons talking and shouting throughout the feature, and finding the floor to be coated in someone else’s chewing gum. And that was the entertaining part. The film itself was awful, terribly dull, with few flashes of the humour that punctuated its prequels, and containing little crossover material so that sections of the action alienated grown ups, whilst large swathes left the children twiddling their thumbs.

As I mentioned somewhere above, it should be hard to mess up the sheer wealth of entertainment potential that comes with the Shrek package. The producers have thousands of years of fairy tales and folk legends from which to cull material, blended in with countless modern day references. They can even leave the plot to one side, favouring gags over narrative development, and it still works. As it happens, I saw the original Shrek movie the other evening, and found myself once more chuckling over the Du Loc information point scene, the nods to Lord Farquaad’s compensating, and the banter between Shrek and Donkey. Not all of it worked, but mostly it sizzled with good fun and a sense it wasn’t taking itself seriously for a second.

Clearly, the Third is a Shrek too far. To begin with, there’s an overriding feeling that nobody is trying very hard. Mike Myers doesn’t sound especially Scottish in the eponymous lead role. The scene stealer from Shrek 2, Antonio Banderas, sounds bored, and Eddie Murphy is criminally underused as Donkey. With so many characters occupying the stage by this point, there’s less time to enjoy the Shrek-Donkey interchanges, which were utterly delightful previously. Even worse, a plot development sees the ass switch bodies with Puss in Boots, and so little is made of this beyond a few cheap gags that there appears to be very little point to it all.

The story concerns Prince Charming’s attempt to regain the throne of Far, Far Away, whilst Shrek goes on a voyage to find the true heir, Artie (or Arthur Pendragon, in yet another reference to mythology that is barely tapped beyond the obvious name recognition). Along the way, our hero finds out he’s going to be a father, which leads him to question his ability to fulfil the paternal role. This includes an admittedly humourous dream sequence that owes more than a little to Rosemary’s Baby, but otherwise who cares? What are younger viewers going to make of the ‘doubting’ scenes, apart from bored requests to use to cinema’s WC? Also, it’s never made clear why Shrek wouldn’t see himself as anything other than a wonderful dad. Presumably, these bits are inserted to provide a framework of familiarity for fathers in the audience to empathise with, yet they don’t make a lot of sense. The ogre is still crazy about Fiona, and has maintained a paternal role with Donkey since the first movie, so why wouldn’t he be overjoyed?

Rupert Everett, always sound casting, voices Prince Charming with reliable oiliness, yet he can’t save his character’s narrative arc. In an early scene, PC goes off to recruit some classic fairy tale villains - Captain Hook, Rumpelstiltskin, etc - in his quest to storm Far Far Away. Cornered by a resentful gang of pantomime baddies, in less than two minutes he’s gone from having his throat nearly slit to leading them to rebellion - how? As a leader, he’s the worst example of puff pastry, yet sure enough he takes the castle and installs himself as king, all in what looks like a feeble attempt to improve his lot on stage. The character is so shabbily drawn that it’s a relief his end comes fairly quickly, cueing the time honoured musical finale.

With Charming on the throne, Fiona and her fairy tale ladies of the court - Snow White, Cinderella, et al - lead an underground resistance movement. Again, how they manage this doesn’t make a lot of sense. For instance, Snow White can sing a number of woodland animals into overcoming the castle guards. Cinderella takes to scrubbing the prison floor once she’s captured. Rapunzel, er, falls asleep a lot.

I don’t want to make out that a pastiche like Shrek the Third needs to be logical, but too often it undermines its own rules by introducing entirely new elements that clash with what we know, simply in an attempt to provoke easy laughs, or shuffle the plot along. Queen Lillian can headbutt through walls - why? Merlin has turned away from magic to promote alternative therapies - again why, and how will this entertain children? On top of everything, there’s not a lot of point to Artie. He goes from being the school dropkick (incidentally, the school’s called Worcestershire - is this some incredibly subliminal joke, or was it chosen just because it sounds English?) to delivering an inspirational speech that seals his place as king, without it ever being explained why he is capable of doing such a thing. Not funny, and not terribly interesting either, he’s a terrible new character for the franchise. Justin Timberlake provides the vocal ‘talents’ - I enjoyed him in Black Snake Moan, but the anti-pretty boy critics will have their brickbats ready following this moribund turn.

There are some funny moments in the movie - John Cleese’s dying speech works well, as does the diehard gag where a foghorn masks bad language - but these are too few and far between. I haven’t been as flatly disappointed by an animated feature since the execrable Shark Tale, which just like this played like a cynical attempt to part cinemagoers from their cash. Amazingly in a ‘U’ feature, the majority of jokes are aimed at adults, leaving the knockabout slapstick and musical montages to its alleged intended audience.

Not that any of these comments matter. Shrek the Third took over $121m in its opening weekend, which makes a fourth instalment - slated for 2010 - inevitable. Judging from the way this one ended, the next episode will be all about Shrek’s experiences as a daddy. If I’m lucky, by then my son won’t want to go to the cinema with his parents anymore.

No sooner was Revenge of the Sith on general release that George Lucas proudly announced the future of the franchise. There were to be no more movies (yeah, course; I expect to be sitting down to Episode VII in 2021 - let’s see if I’m right), but the Wars were never going to be far away. A television series covering the Clone Wars was in the pipelines, alongside the usual slew of video games, and very recently fans could view the trailer for themselves - click here.

As promising as it looks, the question of how necessary it is should be asked. After all, cast your minds back to 2003, when the long, long build-up to Episode III was just starting. With Lucasfilm making us wait three years for each slice of movie midichlorian magic, a series of animated shorts was released as a promotional tool, and also no doubt to ensure that none of this was ever going to be out of our minds entirely. Cue the frustration of fiddling around with video timers and Sky + as the three-minute episodelets blinked on to our screens each evening. I couldn’t keep up with it, missing whole swathes of the plot (not that there was a lot of ‘plot’ to speak of, more a series of brief action sequences) and scrabbling around for online versions. It was, of course, the Genndy Tartakovsky directed…

Star Wars: Clone Wars

I admit I got excited when I read Tartakovsky was the man to realise the Clone Wars. Like any Dad who has to spend time watching telly with his child, I found the lousy early days of enduring Teletubbies, Tweenies, Dora the Explorer and the dread evil that is Barney, gave way to the sort of stuff I actually quite liked. The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory and especially Samurai Jack were all brilliant series, and I live in hope to this day that he’ll at least complete the latter’s odyssey. Mako may be dead, but that’s no reason for ending Jack’s adventures in mid-air. We need to see him vanquish Aku and get reunited with his family, damn it!

In any case, Tartakovsky’s animation impressed me greatly with its signature bold lines, colourful images and endless homages scattered within the stories. Jack referenced Star Wars no end, so it wasn’t a great surprise to find him slated to direct two series of mini-shows depicting scenes from the Clone Wars, events that bridged Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Intended as extended adverts for the upcoming movie, the shows were aired on Toonami (Cartoon Network in America) at the start of the peak viewing period. A third and final series consisted of five twelve-minute episodes, allowing for more narrative development, and leading to the very start of Sith. Miss the show, and you could find it on the official Star Wars site - if you were really lucky, you didn’t even have to subscribe to bleed-you-white Hyperspace for the privilege of watching an episode because Video Plus had failed to pick it up in the first instance.

Of course, with all three series being released on two DVDs, you can see the show in its glorious entirety. ‘Volume One’ covers the entire run of three-minute mini-epics, making for 67 minutes of top drawer animation. With access to John Williams’s score, and the various Wars sound effects (voices were supplied by suitable soundalikes, apart from Anthony Daniels, who is obviously proud/skint/sad enough to appear in person to provide the ‘Terry Scott’ tones of C-3PO), Tartakovsky was able to come up with something that sounded authentic. His animation style suited the action also, which focused on extended action sequences at the expense of plot development, a good thing considering the virtual impossibility of watching the series in its linear form when it aired on television.

The story focuses loosely on Obi-Wan and Anakin, who are sent to a world under the control of the Separatists. Kenobi commands the ground troops, whilst his Padawan looks after things in space. With them go an army of clones, and we get to see the effectiveness of the Republic’s forces as they beat back rank after rank of droids. In the meantime, a Sith wannabe named Assajj Ventress is recruited by Sidious and Dooku to kill Anakin. No slouch with a lightsabre herself, the albino warrior is a stooge. Either she’ll complete her mission, which will suit the Sith fine, or she’ll die trying, because in slaying her young Skywalker will need to tap into the darker side of his powers.

But this is only part of the show. One of its greatest strengths is its willingness to move away from the traditional main characters, and focus on those the films have chosen to ignore, or underdevelop. Green-skinned Jedi, Kit Fisto, is involved in an excellent sea-based adventure. Two Jedi priestesses fight destructive droids in the cave where the crystals placed inside lightsabres are found. Best of all is Mace Windu’s battle on Dantooine. We see exactly why Samuel L Jackson was fully justified in etching ‘BMF’ into his sabre, as the Master uses the force to deal with hundreds of battle droids and a craft that pummels the ground, sending everyone flying. Fast-paced and epic, the action scenes are scintillating, and at times put the movies to shame. It’s not often we see the Jedis at their most potent. Here, they really are super beings, capable of reducing entire armies with their abilities.

Haters of the slower moving moments in Star wars will love this. Given the lack of plot development, expositional scenes and those lambasted Anakin-Padme wooings are notable by their absence. It doesn’t mean that Skywalker is any less difficult to deal with. Saving his men with daring stunts in one moment, acting up to Obi-Wan the next, the show gets him about right without having to labour the point. His duel with Ventress is genuinely riveting, a battle that starts in the trees and moves to a Yavin temple. As the opponents regard each other, Leone style, it starts raining, water causing little bursts of steam to sizzle into life on the lightsabres.

A series highlight occurs towards the end of the volume with the sudden arrival of General Grievous. This is our first glimpse of Episode III’s main baddie, and an impressive sight he is. The General doesn’t have his bad cough until the movie (we find out how he gets it during a gripping finale on Volume Two), and here he’s one dangerous mother, turning the fight against the Republic almost single-handedly. For the first time, the Jedi have an enemy they can’t beat easily; indeed his hobby is collecting the sabres of warriors he has vanquished, and he seems to genuinely relish dealing out death to the beleaguered good guys.

The final five episodes, collected in ‘Volume Two,’ are no less thrilling, and manage to tell something of a story. Whilst Anakin and Obi Wan are fobbed off into visiting a world believed to be Grievous’s location, the Separatists invade Coruscant. Their aim is Chancellor Palpatine, who is protected by several Jedi as the General and his bodyguards pursue. This plot involves orange-skinned Jedi knight Shaak Ti, a character dealt with so shabbily in ROTS that her scene was deleted, but here she’s a star. Their breathless chase through the streets of Coruscant is easily the more entertaining half of the yarn. As for the other, our heroes come across a tribe of natives that has been losing its menfolk. Anakin goes off to investigate, and sure enough finds they are being used for nefarious purposes by the Separatists, who for good measure are tampering with the environment. The plot seems to be a set-up, however, for the ‘vision’ Skywalker has in a cave that provides him with a nightmarish look into what the future holds. It also gives us a glimpse into the young Jedi’s uneasy maturity, a point marked with him becoming a Knight.

In total, the running time for Clone Wars extends to over two hours, or the length of an average Star Wars movie. The extent to which you believe it can be compared with the films is entirely to the viewer’s discretion; personally I would no longer be able to contemplate sitting through a Wars marathon without including it, and in its right place. Clearly, Lucas believes the story is worth retelling. The trailer to the upcoming series suggests it tracks the same events as depicted here, which implies the people who matter at Lucasfilm think little of Tartakovsky’s offering. They’re wrong. It’s solid entertainment that often raises the standard to a similar level as the films themselves, and occasionally higher still.

This is more like it. I’m now watching Monster at a steady rate, flicking through its 23-minute long episodes briskly and loving nearly every moment. For the time being, I’m not yet up to the point where I got bored and stopped following it a couple of years ago. Besides which, I can’t see myself losing interest this time around. Thanks to the number of instalments and its dense layers of plotting, Monster is good stuff. True, some chapters have been less exciting than others, forsaking the main thrust of the story for a slower character study, but there’s a long, long way to go, and anime series are renowned for spinning themselves out for as long as possible.

For all that, even the less essential episodes contain elements that stick in the mind. One reveals how Kenzou Tenma learns to be proficient with a firearm, a detail we don’t really need to know about, yet shows the character at his finest. Training under a tough former soldier, his charisma and overall niceness finally unites the gun commander with a little girl he has taken in. In another, he helps out a country doctor even as the local polizei close in. Again, this has little to do with the narrative arc, but reveals elements of Tenma as a person that make audiences warm to him.

Elsewhere, the yarn gathers pace. By this stage, Tenma has left his post in a hospital. Accused all but officially by Inspector Lunge of killing a number of middle-aged families and on the run, our hero is hot on the heels of the real killer, Johann. In this, he’s helped by the eponymous monster’s sister, Anna, and a young boy named Dieter who he ‘picks up’ along the way. Whilst in Frankfurt, he runs into - or rather, they run into him with a car - the Baby and his neo-fascist thugs, who aim to recruit Johann as their figurehead and new Hitler. It turns out that the Baby (a well dressed dwarf who lists The Ronettes amongst his favourite artistes) plans to burn down the Turkish district of the city, in an attempt to impress upon Johann the motives of his organisation. Tenma and Anna have to stop him, leading to a fantastically suspenseful plot that rarely lets up.

When not getting caught up in such affairs, Tenma spends his time picking up clues about his prey. Johann remains an elusive figure, someone who’s hard to pin down. We still don’t know much about where he’s coming from, though it’s made explicit he’s no one’s idea of a nice piece of work. During his youth, Johann was sent to Kinderheim 511, a childrens home in pre-unification East Germany that doubled as a testing facility. Even then, those who met him either fell in love with him, drawn like moths to a flame, or were repulsed instantly. Johann’s stay ends with him leading a revolt, almost everyone dying in the effort of fighting each other as he just watches. There’s still much to learn about Tenma’s foe, only added to by Anna’s presence. The sister of the piece is out to kill Johann also, but what she actually knows about him after years of being apart is revealed vaguely, and via a slow drip feed of information.

There’s stacks yet to be revealed, as Monster torturously peels back layers of twists and turns in the destinations of its characters. I find it very hard to imagine what a movie of this series is going to be like; how it can possibly do more than scrape the surface of Monster’s full scope. 18 episodes in, which equates to roughly six hours’ television (taking out the titles), and we’re still at the ‘more questions than answers’ stage. How can a film, even one running to the mainstream maximum of three hours, fit everything in? Unless New Line are willing to take a gamble and underwrite a trilogy, the simple answer is it can’t. It wouldn’t be the first time the studio did this, of course, but then The Lord of the Rings is a slightly better known source.

A television show would be more the answer, but this begs the question of necessity when there’s a perfectly fine anime edition already doing the rounds. I can’t help thinking there’s a fear of subtitles at play here, the concern that audiences just won’t be happy with having to read whilst watching people talk endless Japanese on the screen. Whether this is justified or not is another matter. One big headache for Josh Olsson and his writing team is where to set the action. Monster is based in Germany, and only now can we see why it’s essential for it to be so. The Cold War split is crucial to the development of the plot, yet I cannot see a major feature permitting it to be based in Germany. Otherwise, in one of those endless searches for credibility and authenticity, the movie would have to include a wealth of subtitles to cover the liberal use of German. How does the anime series get around this? Easily - it doesn’t. Place names and characters retain their German legends. The beautiful drawings are of a central European country, albeit a picture postcard one. But everyone speaks Japanese, and that’s all there is to it. No messing around, and perhaps that’s the only way a Hollywood production could hope to keep its identity.

The Monster bonanza hasn’t gone as I would have liked so far. Unfortunately, I’ve been made to work this weekend, setting up Ikea furniture in The Boy’s bedroom, and then taking him to Minis Rugby this morning, which actually turned out to be better fun - not to mention better weather - than I could have hoped for.

Still, I have seen the first five episodes, all of which were very good fare. The action has barely let up, and suggests I might be in for something of a treat if the other 69 can meet the series’s high potential.

Monster starts as a medical drama, set in the mid-1980s. I’m impressed with its terminology, the way it hasn’t even attempted to patronise me by simplifying the neurological procedures it depicts. Dr Tenma looks to be even better than Michael Hfuhruhurr at complicated brain surgery, and doesn’t have to deploy a cranial screwtop procedure to get the job done. Basically, if you’re operated on by Tenma, you’re going to be okay. Otherwise, you’d better hope you have that will written and your peace made. We get some perfunctory background on Kenzou - that he came to Dusseldorf’s Eisler Memorial from Japan on recommendation, and has made his way up the ranks to Chief Surgeon via a combination of merit and favour from Director Heinemann - and learn he’s a surgeon with morals. Ultimately, all he wants is to be a good doctor, to heal people, but in an environment that becomes more politically charged it’s clear he will either have to play ball (i.e. tend to more illustrious, attention-grabbing patients over those who might enter the hospital first) or forget his dazzling future.

Eventually, Tenma chooses the latter path, which sets up Monster’s over-arching plot. Having decided to save a small boy’s life over that of the city’s mayor, he is shunned, stripped of his chief’s role and has his engagement to the Director’s daughter, Eva, cancelled. It all seems to be going horribly wrong, and we find a bewildered, distraught Kenzou spill his heart out to the unconscious boy, Johann, the child whose surgery sparked off all his troubles. At least, he thinks Johann is sleeping. Tenma confesses that he believes Heinemann and his managers don’t deserve to live, and then goes out to do what we all might in his situation - get steaming drunk.

The following day, he learns to his hungover shock that all his enemies within the institution have been poisoned. As the one who stands to gain the most from their demise, he’s instantly singled out as a suspect by Inspector Lunge, an almost robotically clinical detective who moves his fingers like a typist’s as he hears people tell him their accounts. To add to Tenma’s worries, Johann has gone missing, as has his twin sister.

The tale of hospital politics soon recedes, replaced by a crime story when more of Kenzou’s opponents are wiped out, the noose ever tightening around his neck as Lunge begins to close in. Nine years on, and the fall of the Berlin wall has occurred. Tenma is now a successful Chief Surgeon. The events that opened the show are well in the past, or so he thinks, as a series of mysterious murders occur. One man at the centre of them all, Junkers, is brought into the hospital, who eventually leads our hero to the protagonist - none other than Johann, now grown up and a cold killer. Junkers describes him as a monster, and it’s apparent there’s more to Johann than mere psychotic tendencies. But what can Tenma do about it? And where’s Johann’s sister, Anna? What part does she have to play in it all?

At the moment, Monster is asking far more questions than it answers, which is a good thing. A labyrinthine plot surrounds Johann, his motives and just what he is, and Tenma is the unfortunate one who will have to discover them all for himself. There’s definite mileage for a wealth of chapters to follow, and it’s all wonderfully drawn also. Though viewers spoiled by Miyazaki might see something simple in Monster’s animation, it’s highly effective, featuring characters who don’t all follow the traditional anime style. Anna might have the trademark huge eyes, but elsewhere the show goes for a realistic look, and does especially well in showing the weight on Tenma’s shoulders. Already, after just five episodes you can see a young and impressionable man develop into someone altogether wearier and more cynical.

Thanks to the good people of Soldats for their efforts in making this show available, not to mention adding some excellent work with subtitles into the bargain.

Several years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to anime. I’d watched Akira and Spirited Away, and was a regular viewer on Toonami when they showed Samurai Jack (I know - not anime, but the inspirations are obvious) at family friendly times, but I didn’t know there was this entire world of Japanese animation waiting out there. Via Naruto, my schooling took me on to Monster, an adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s legendary manga that hit hard because of its adult themes. The Boy would happily watch Naruto with me, but this long series was a different matter. Slow burning, low key and very, very dark, the first few episodes were gritty and tough going, focusing on a gamut of human issues and soul-crushing incidents.

Monster is known as seinen anime, a show targeted at older audiences. It’s no surprise. The violence isn’t overly graphic; there’s little sex or nudity on display. However, the subject matter is wholly adult in nature. Whether you’re watching a Doctor struggling to stay in control of his ethics whilst being instructed from above to ignore them, the slow moral decay of a shunned woman, or a gifted homicide detective who’s so good at his job that everything else in his life suffers, it’s clear the themes in Monster require some degree of maturity to understand and follow them.

The story is set in Germany, and focuses on Kenzo Tenma, a young, brilliant Japanese neurosurgeon who practises in Dusseldorf’s Eisler Memorial Hospital. A favourite of the Director, Tenma is engaged to Eva Heinemann, his daughter, and all seems to be going well. His future prospects are nothing but excellent. That is, until one night when a pair of orphaned twin children are brought in to the hospital. Their adoptive parents have been killed; the boy, Johann, is suffering extreme brain trauma after being shot in the head, whilst his sister, Anna, is traumatised psychologically. Tenma prepares to operate on Johann, knowing he will die otherwise. At the same time, the city’s mayor requires urgent attention, and the Director orders Tenma to concentrate on this task instead. Our hero is faced with an agonising choice - save the boy, or the politician. The hospital’s prestige will be enhanced greatly if the latter survives; Tenma knows he’s being manipulated. Too often, he’s been pulled out of crucial surgery to operate on ‘prestige cases,’ and he is growing ever more dissatisfied with the way lives are governed by politics. So he disobeys the Director, saves the child, and faces the consequences. Unfortunately, not only does he destroy his favour within the hospital, his decision to spare Johann sets in motion a chain of cataclysmic events that will change his life - and those of others - forever…

Initially, I watched something like ten episodes of the series, and then, as is often the case, moved on to other things. However, the tone and depth of Monster has always stuck me, and I now have access to all 74(!) instalments. My aim over the next few days is to watch it all, to see how it works out and then start reading the plethora of fansites and discussion topics it has provoked in the English language alone. Needless to say, this is a series with bags of potential. I can’t imagine any producer worth their money not viewing it and already mentally working out the western adaptation, and as chance would have it, New Line have bought the rights, with Josh Olsson (A History of Violence) signed up to knock out a screenplay. Whatever Olsson comes up with, and bearing in mind I thought the Viggo Mortsensen thriller was a classic, I can’t see him producing anything that has the power of the original series. Unlike in Japan, western audiences seem to perceive animation as a medium for kids, which suggests a live action version that brush strokes over the main points whilst being set in dark lit locations and featuring moody music will be the order of the day. I might be wrong, but I can already see Clive Owen putting in a cynical, weary performance as some alternative Tenma that entirely misses the point of the character. We’ll see.

In the meantime, check back here as I provide updates on my viewing progress at random intervals over the weekend and into the days beyond. This is no Empire viewing marathon. I’m not going to subject myself to 24 hours of Monster, describing my growing tiredness, but I do intend to consume it in large dollops of top drawer eastern animation. Spoilers will no doubt ensue, and I’ll try to throw in warnings where applicable.

Thus it’s armed with Lucky Strike and glass of gin and slimline that I approach episode one. Cue the opening excerpts from Revelations…

A Pig’s got to Fly

At Christmas, I was lucky enough to receive several Studio Ghibli DVDs from mine ever-perceptive wife. These were added to the volumes I already own, a collection that is shy a few volumes, but is beginning to build up nicely. Some of these movies I’ve seen before - the obvious ones, really. The others are first time viewings. Each week, I aim to take a peek at one film (in completely random order) and report on my findings here. This time, it’s the turn of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1992 potboiler, Kurenai no buta, or as we know it, Porco Rosso.

You can tell you’re in Miyazaki territory - as opposed to one of his ‘acolytes’ - via a number of neat little animation touches, ‘pushing the envelope’ (I hate that cliche) moments that other directors just don’t seem to get. It’s in the sudden depth and texture of a Mediterranean shot, or the way a plane’s tailfin riddled with bullet holes disintegrates, bits of wood and frame flying off into the sky. Even fifteen years ago, he could produce an effect we rarely got to see in Disney movies of the era. It’s worth noting that around the same time as this was released, we were being made to worship at the altar of Beauty and the Beast, a clear sign that the late Walt’s animation department was firing on all cylinders once more. That’s as may be, but for all the jaw-dropping technique that went into producing the layered ballroom scene, Disney were in reality experimenting to ever more competent degrees with computer animation, whilst the likes of Porco is hand drawn. Check both movies out now, and I would imagine it’s Miyazaki’s effort that comes out on top.

Then again, that may be because it’s adult-themed, nor does it contain a raft of bloody, bloody, bloody songs because it’s presumed audiences want nothing more than a good, old-fashioned singalong to plug the gaps between a wafer-thin plot. Another Miyazaki giveaway is the quirky plot, the setting that few other movie makers would care to bother with. We’re in Italy between the wars. The Fascists are in power, but that doesn’t stop the skies from being at the mercy of pirate pilots. Only one man can foil them, and he isn’t a man at all. Marco ‘Porco’ Rosso is a top pilot, a World War One flying ace, and at some point wound up with the features of a pig. He’s still good at what he does. Even his appearance at a pirate raid can turn proceedings into a panicked rout, so fearsome is his reputation. But he isn’t happy. The authorities are after him, wanting ultimately to recruit him back into the state air force - it’s made pretty explicit that in Mussolini’s Italy, you didn’t say no. There’s a complex relationship going on with the aristocratic Gina that looks in no danger of being resolved. The pirates, led by Manma Aiutto, are getting sick of being shot down and generally made fools of, and look for payback. Donald Curtis is an opportunistic American pilot, modelling himself on Errol Flynn, who feels he can gain fame and fortune by claiming the plane, if not the life, of Porco. And finally, he’s a pig! Though he’s come to terms with his existence, and happily mingles in public places, there’s no doubt that being a man-pig hybrid wears heavily on his soul.

By the time we join the action, it’s clear our hero cuts a weary, cynical figure. He doesnt shoot down pirates out of any sense of moral duty. It’s his job, a bounty hunter’s lot, and Porco is bad-tempered and irascible about his porcine prospects. He’s a more complicated character than you’d expect, and the entanglements keep on coming when he needs to take a trip to Milan. Curtis has shot him down after his plane suffered an engine failure, and Porco risks his snout in visiting Grandpa Piccolo’s workshop, the only one who can get him back in the sky in the style to which he has become accustomed. Whilst there, he meets teenage engineer Fio, a gifted plane designer, who persuades him to let her get the job done. She does, and after a frantic chase out of the city with the authorities closing in, Porco jets off, Fio in the gunseat, to take on the pirates, Curtis, Gina, and whatever else fate throws in his direction.

On one level, Porco Rosso is a straightforward action adventure, and as such it works. There are daring aerial dogfights, car chases, fisticuffs, and its 94 minutes fly by. But there’s an awful lot more to it than that. It’s hinted at, yet never explained with Disney directness, why Marco has become Porco. He’s very obviously disgusted with humanity, and himself to a degree - a pre-transformation photo of him has been mutilated, we learn by none other than Porco himself. The one ’spiritual’ scene in the movie, where he witnesses what happens to WWI pilots who have died in the skies, offers more clues, yet no answers, and we’re left with another visually ravishing but elusive moment to consider. Even at the end, there are no easy conclusions. What happens to Porco and his mates is left dangling, despite Fio’s narrative epilogue. Does he find redemption, love, etc? Who really knows? It’s a daring finish, the unwillingness to wrap things up neatly that you just wouldn’t get from a Disney animation, or indeed most western films, where a proper climax is considered mandatory.

Though the idea of a central character being transformed into something/someone else is nothing new in Miyazaki’s world, there’s a lot about Porco Rosso that veers away from the usual fare. Magic is notable by its absence. Apart from the idea behind Marco Rosso’s change, which is obviously allegorical, spirits, wizards and witches never appear, the narrative running along altogether earthier lines. Unlike Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away, this isn’t really a movie for or about kids. Adult themes are covered, and Porco lives very much in a grown up world. The complexities of his character, the fact he’s a grouch yet charms the ladies into submission, is something children might not understand, yet is all too familiar to adults. This isn’t to say younger viewers won’t enjoy it. There’s plenty for everyone - dazzling visuals (which aren’t diminished by age and advancing techniques), a rollicking storyline, and credible characters.

Normally, any Ghibli movie - or at least, those I’ve seen so far - would never score below 7/10, so I’m having to be tough on myself when rating them against each other. All the same, Porco Rosso gets a solid 8/10. I was entertained, moved and left wanting more, which is about as high a recommendation as I can make.

I spent much of yesterday evening installing software on The Boy’s new computer, and to entertain us he slipped on his DVD of The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. It turned out to be a very good choice.

I’m by no means averse to kids films, but saw little in the denizens of Bikini Bottom over which to wave my happy stick. It was just a bit too ‘Rugrats,’ a cartoon with some limited charm, yet perpetually recycled for the Nickelodeon generation and well capable of outstaying its welcome. How would I cope during a 90-minute epic? Brilliantly, is how. TSSM surfs on such an effortless wave of fun that it’s impossible to be bored. Crackling with daft gags and refusing to let the comedy slide into sloppy morals, I found myself laughing at it more than at many so-called superior cartoon movies.

The story (which is really dressing for a succession of wacky jokes and good-humoured silliness) opens with Spongebob thinking he’s in line for the manager’s job at the new Krusty Krab fast food restaurant. However, when his boss, Mr Krab (an, er, crab) offers the position to Squidworth Tentacles, our hero’s song turns from ‘I’m ready, promotion,’ to ‘I’m ready… depression.’ In the meantime, Krab’s rival in the race to sell Krabby Patties, Plankton (sort of a tiny, green, one-eyed turd with throbbing veins), hatches a dastardly plan to steal King Neptune’s crown and frame his nemesis for the crime. It works, Krab’s turned to ice, and Spongebob sets off for Shell City with his best friend, Patrick Star (an, um, starfish) to recover the lost symbol of regal power that also happens to cover Neptune’s bald spot.

And that’s about it. Yet it’s much, more more, with craziness to the fore as Spongebob embarks on his doom-laden quest. If there is a lesson for the younger viewers, it is that there’s nothing wrong in being a child. The eponymous hero is looked over for the manager’s role because he’s a kid (’otherwise, you’d be a kidager’), and at one point wears a moustache made from seaweed to turn him into a man, because men can get the job done, not to mention change their underwear. Yet it’s through being a kid that he prevails, and this is in every way a movie for children. The jokes are levelled squarely at them. We’re spared the adult crossover elements that most animated movies seem to believe are necessary. There are no famous actors voicing characters that are thinly veiled cartoon versions of themselves (e.g. Robert De Niro in the lamentable Shark Tale). None of the humour is aimed specifically at grown ups, such as the tax-related gags that don’t stop The Incredibles from being a great achievement. What it does have is bags of charm. It never takes itself seriously; indeed the nonsense on display is so random that it can only appeal directly to children, and older viewers who are willing to become children for the duration of the running time. For instance, it’s never made clear why Plankton’s wife, Karen, is a computer. I asked The Boy about this. He replied it was because ‘She just is!’ and that had to be good enough for me.

By current standards, TSSM’s animation seems decidedly amateurish. It’s way behind the work of mighty Pixar and the computer revolution generally. Studio Ghibli’s output leaves it standing. Even Prince of Egypt, Dreamworks’ luscious hand drawn Bibletoon that’s nearly ten years old, looks a thing of beauty in comparison. The Polar Express and Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within dazzled us with effects, and pushed the latest technology pretty close to its limits. However, both films proved that the closer to realism you aim for, the worse the end result looks because nothing is better than the real thing.

In TSSM, they don’t even try. Bikini Bottom and its environs look like they’ve stepped out of some ancient Hanna Barbera dreamscape. And when the animators need to make people look real, they simply use real people, most notably David Hasselhoff in a bizarre, riotous cameo appearance. Besides which, the interaction between cartoon characters and reality is seamless - check out the scene where the sea creatures tussle with the evil diver. At all times the clean, colourful drawings of TSSM are a blessing.

The only jarring aspect is the sell-out to moviedom by employing the ’skills’ of an occasional celebrity vocalist. Alec Baldwin isn’t too bad as nasty assassin, Dennis, but Neptune’s daughter, Mindy, is voiced rather anonymously by Scarlett Johansson. Apart from anything else, Mindy looks like a slightly hotter version of frumpy Velma from Scooby Doo - maybe it’s the tail that does it for me. There’s a lost opportunity to drag Nicole Jaffe into the studio for some retro-inspired voice work, for the satisfaction of the nerdier end of Mystery Mobile fans everywhere.