ironhorse_iv Review of Digimon: The Movie

Digimon: The Movie (2000)

Digi See! Digi Hear, Digi Know it was awful! This movie is a digital monster! It's a dreadful Digi mess.

[4/10 · 7 June 2015]

Hoping to replicate, the success of their first two Pokémon films, 20th Century Fox hope to distribute, yet another, of their Japanese anime own TV Series for the big screens. This time, it will be their Digimon: Digital Monster franchise created by Akiyoshi Hongo. First produced by Toei Animation in cooperation with Bandai and Fuji Television in Japan. The show was later pick up by Fox Kids for distribute in the US, when their Pokémon show, became a big hit. While, the show is look upon, as a Pokémon clone or rip-off, the show is more influenced in style by the contemporary Tamagotchi or nano gigapets toys craze of the late 1990s. The TV Series tells the story of a group of pre-teens children who became the caretakers of Digital creatures that came to Earth from their "Digital World"; a parallel universe that was created by Earth's various communication networks. Technically, this movie claims, you don't need to watch the show, to enjoy this film. They say they will explain everything to new viewers. However, this movie did little to no explanations to those unfamiliar with the show. Yes, it did have some exposition dump, but there isn't a lot of time spent, explaining it all, to have the audience absorb what's going on. The movie excels in visual unnecessary action. Most of the film is this. Due to that, it fails to build any kind of emotional involvement with the characters, human or otherwise. The protagonists are given little to do other than explain the latest crisis then cheer on their respective Digimon when they fight. Scenes alternate between kitschy cuteness and spectacular violence, with only a nod toward plot, character development, and motivation. So if you came, across this movie, without seeing the show. You'll be deeply confused. Another fault about this movie is how it was made. Since, Toei Animation had no feature-length films for Digimon, but instead had smaller animation featurettes. The producers of this film, felt that three solo short films of the Digimon franchise could be combine into one film. It didn't work. Digimon: The Movie had a significant degree of bad editing, with more than 40 minutes of scenes from the individual Japanese versions cut out to save time. The three films, used Digimon Adventure (1999), Our War Game! (2000), and Digimon Hurricane Touchdown! / Supreme Evolution! The Golden Digimentals (2000), were respectively 20, 40, and 60 minutes long, footage was condensed to fit 85 minutes. The last film included in the compilation, was heavily cut and reedited, because Saban Entertainment lacked the funding to produce a full two-hour movie. Due to this, the movie lack a cohesive narrative. That's one of the reasons the movie is so terrible. It has no arc, no connection between the three stories. You could pop on the movie at any point and have no idea if you're in the first act, or near the climax, or the resolution. In order to connect the stories of the different movies together, the adapting screenwriters place the film over a span of eight years, in which the movie chronicles the first appearance of the Digimon, the internet meltdown caused by another powerful Digimon, and last the fight between the whole cast of Digimon Monsters against a mysterious Digimon named Kokomon. The first act has nothing to do with the actual plot of the movie and serves nothing more than to introduce those who are not familiar with the Digimon franchise. The second act is possibly the heart and soul of this movie. Truly epic in scale, the movie's second act has both the thrills and deeper emotional. It's also smart. There is a nice subtext satiring society's dependence on technology and the dehumanizing effect of internet communication. It should have been the final act. Sadly, this movie had to end on an extremely weak note with the badly made third act. The animation is alright, but it's very different from the TV series. In fact, it follows more of the western animation conventions than Japanese anime. They seem to be a lack of detail in the artwork, with characters being just simple outlines with flat colors without even simple shadows or clothing folds. The characters' eyes are smaller with less of that "anime shine", and the designs have been simplified somewhat. However, the animation movements is a lot more fluid and expressive. The movie tries a little to less Japanese, and more American. The culturally awkward Japanese elements were removed, and replaced by badly Americans stereotype ones. Due to this, a lot of the jokes fall flat. The movie even add an awkward American sounding pop rock eclectic soundtrack that felt distracting. Many of the pop tunes has little to no relation with the film, itself. Honestly, what does the song, 'All My Best Friends Are Metalheads' by Less than Jake, have to do with this Japanese anime!? The songs are effectively no help for the scenes they are coupled with. Some of the songs are so, overused, like "All Star" by Smash Mouth, "The Rockafeller Skank" by Fatboy Slim and "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies. I'm kinda tired of seeing them, in all these late 1990's/early 2000s flicks. At least the music is catchy. It's better than the ear grating "digi-rap" that opens the film. It's also weird, that the movie opens with another cartoon, introducing it. A four-minute short film featuring animation characters from the Angela Anaconda (1999 to 2003) TV series appeared before the film in the theatrical and home media releases. Don't get me wrong, I love Angela Anaconda, but I found, this self-promoting a bit jarring. I get that Angela Anaconda was owned by Fox as well, but couldn't they just cut this part from the film or add it to the special features. Overall: This movie is disappointing even for Digimon fan. Just stick to watching the show. It's better.