Paprika

Satoshi Kon's final film, based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel, is a hallucinatory journey through dreams filled with unsettling images, bizarre music and odd characters. One of the most beautifully animated films of all time and certainly the best adult anime of recent years.

Dr Tokita, a hugely overweight and childlike scientific genius, and Atsuko, a psychiatrist, have developed a device which lets them observe patients and allows Atsuko to enter their dreams as a character called Paprika. The device is stolen and is being used in order to enter peoples dreams and control them. Atsuko's and Tokita's boss goes insane and dives out a window, staff at the research facility destroy the lab. It is up to Atsuko and Tokita to find the thief and stop him. There is also a subplot about a cop who is undergoing therapy using the dreaming device. His dreams looking like a greatest hits compilation of different genres from Film Noir to Tarzan movies. Over the course of the movie peoples dream gain power and start to infringe on reality, leading to an absolutely insane climax which contains some of the most bizarre imagery put on screen for a long time.

The visuals are stunning, the dream setting gives Satoshi Kon free reign to create amazing imagery. Strange images abound in the movie. animated mainly using traditional cell animation melded almost invisibly with 3D animation. The movie is very bright, primary colours dominate the screen almost all the time. Paprika jumps into adverts on the street, through a TV and out of the camera on the other side. As the movie progresses and peoples dreams gain power a huge parade of dreams is shown travelling through Tokyo. A man with two heads and tree roots attacks people, a whale with a human face leaps from the ocean and swallows the main character. The main antagonist for the majority of the movie appears as a small doll, a small doll with a old mans face, sitting atop a throne surrounded by other dolls. There is too much bizarre imagery in the movie to describe it all, but it gives the movie a odd sometimes unsettling, sometimes joyous atmosphere.

The music, by Susumu Hirasawa, is just as integral to creating the atmosphere as the images. Atonal vocals, bizarre orchestration and percussion mix with traditional electronica, its the most probably the most memorable anime score since Akira.

The story is very well constructed and though it is often difficult to follow it never descends into incomprehensibility, a problem which many anime's with plots far less complex often suffer. The plot and sub-plots intertwine and build to the surreal climax brilliantly. Much like Kon's previous film Perfect Blue the story takes turns that are illogical, melding with the imagery to create tension. Unease about the changing relationship between our physical selves and machines pervades the movie, Kon tackles the subject with at least as much sophistication as writers such as William Gibson and Phillip K Dick. As the film progresses and dreams and reality begin to bleed into each other the narrative becomes increasingly insane but never loses its coherence. The relationship between the main characters is beautifully developed, particularly between Atsuko ,who starts the movie seemingly cold and uncaring and throughout the movie takes on the characteristics of Paprika, and Dr Tokita. Turning into a odd and quite affecting love story.

Paprika is a fantastic movie. It is easily the culmination of Satoshi Kons career. Visually, musically and in terms of story it is the most mature and well made of all of Kon's work. Kon made a film which both celebrates the human imagination and explores its dark side, a strange mix of melancholy and joy. Filled with unforgettable images the Paprika is a masterpiece and watching it again underlines quite how much the film world has lost since Satoshi Kons tragically early death last year.

Enslaved

Ninja Theory's latest game Enslaved, following 2007s PS3 killer app Heavenly Sword, updates Journey to the West moving the action from ancient China and India to post-apocalyptic America.

You play as Monkey, who after being captured by slave traders escapes with a girl called Trip. After the ship you are on crashes she places a headband on you're head so you have to obey her, meaning you'll be escorting Trip back to her village, fighting through a ruined New York filled with dangerous mechs and you better keep Trip alive because if she dies the headband will kill you too.

The presentation is phenomenal. Huge colourful vistas fill the screen and the characters are beautifully rendered, their movement looks smooth and natural and the use of motion capture for facial and body movement give the characters a realistic look but never falls into the uncanny valley. The unique setting makes the game stand out from the crowd. Most post-apocalyptic games have a muted brown colour palette and Enslaved is the complete opposite. Going through the ruined city with its bright sunshine, vines, foliage and blue rivers makes playing the game refreshing. On the PS3 the graphics occasionally glitch, but this never gets in the way of the game play and takes nothing away from the overall look of the game.

The story in the game is also one of its strong points. Scripted by Alex Garland with Andy Serkis playing Monkey, doing both the voice acting and the motion capture. The script and the acting justify the updating of the story, which lets face it is completely unnecessary. The main characters have depth and make surprising choices that you do not expect from a video game. The relationship between Trip and Monkey develops slowly and many actions throughout the story are ambiguous, you are never really sure of the characters motivation. At the end of the game the there are many loose ends, it has no happy ending and raises some interesting, if clichéd, ideas. Though the story is not groundbreaking or original, for a video game it offers depth and complexity that few other games do. The graphics, especially the facial animations, means that story is not simply delivered through speech, more subtle emotions can be shown through facial expressions and movements. The game was originally envisioned as a movie using the graphics engine and this is obvious from the story and characterisation.

Enslaved is riddled with flaws however. The biggest problem with the game is the game play. The basic game play is platforming with combat sequences, the majority of the game plays like Uncharted. You'll run and platform until you reach am arena where you fight some mechs, and the only enemies in this game are mechs. There are also some levels where Monkey uses his cloud, think the hover board from Back to the Future 2 only this works on water, and some shooting levels. The most distinct aspect of the game is that its basically one long escort mission. As Monkey you have to make sure that Trip is kept safe, if she dies you die. You have to distract enemies so they don't attack Trip, take her up to areas she can't reach. Though she can help you by healing you or distracting enemies she is never involved in combat. Though this is an interesting game mechanic it does get tired after a few hours. Go too far from Trip and you start to lose health or just die immediately. This gets really annoying in the sections where the game offers you an chance to explore rather than just follow a linear path.

The game play is repetitive and gets dull towards the end of the game. In the platforming sequences you cannot fall off platforms and all the handholds are highlighted. This makes them incredibly easy to play, you'll never fall off and die when climbing and its not until the later levels, where fire is involved, that you'll even lose health while climbing. The combat is easy, hand to hand combat never develops into anything much more than button mashing and there are no combos to learn and perform and your attacks will always look the same. The ranged combat is unwieldy and can be difficult to control and you have two types of ammo that'll be used over and over again for the entire game. Every enemy and danger in the game is highlighted, you will always know where every danger in the game is. The sections on the cloud are fun but it is often impossible to steer accurately and there are sections where you if you make any mistakes you will die. The sections of the game based around the cloud offer the most challenge in the game, but they are few and far between.

The game is also very short. I managed to complete this game on hard in 5 hours. The story is well told and doesn't need to be longer and the game play could not sustain a longer game. However Enslaved would be a better game if it was longer and introduced new game play elements to break up the more repetitive sections. If you're paying £45 for a game it should last much longer than 5 hours.

It might not sound like it but I really enjoyed Enslaved. The game has its flaws but the storyline is engrossing and the graphics look beautiful The game play is fun if repetitive and I played through the more frustrating sections of the game because I wanted to see what happened to the characters and what environments you'll experience next. For all its problems Enslaved is one of the more unique and enjoyable games I've played recently.

20^th Century Boys, an adaptation of one of the most popular manga series in recent Japanese history, is a bizarre bland of genres. A long strange journey which goes places you would never expect and manages to make its labyrinthian plot compelling, exciting and just really entertaining.

The main theme of the movies are the mistakes you make in childhood and the consequences they can have on you later in life. The basic story line is, a mysterious cult is growing in Japan and is starting to achieve a great deal of power. The cult is lead by a masked man known only as Friend. The main character is Kenji, a failed rock star now running his families convenience store and looking after his baby niece. After a school friend dies he starts investigating the Friend cult and it becomes more and more clear that the cult is closely connected to Kenji and his school friends and that they have a terrible plan to take over Japan and later the world. Friend's plan is based on a book Kenji and his friends wrote when they were school children called the “Book of Prophecy”. Cult leader Friends face is covered with the symbol Kenji and his friends designed and only they knew about. Is Friend someone they know and why is he trying to make the “Book of Prophecy” come true? The 2^nd and 3^rd films are set 15 years after the events in the first and deal with Japan under the rule of Friend and the resistance against him.

The first thing to know about these films is that they are long between two and two and a half hours each and there is a huge amount of plot. However these long running times add a great deal to the film. The movies are plot heavy with a huge amount of twists and red herrings. The characters have time to slowly develop over the course of the 3 films, even the most incidental characters have well defined arcs. The length of the films also means that the enourmous amount of exposition that has to be delivered to keep the plot moving can be done in interesting ways and leaves time for character moments that may not move the plot forward but add to their development.

The movie has a huge cast of characters and unusually they are almost all given a great deal of depth. From the core cast of characters who we see as both children and adults to the members of the Friend cult they're are incredibly well drawn. You feel that you get to know them throughout the movies, you learn about them and even those that seem to be stereotypes will surprise you. The main villain Friend is particularly well developed. Though we never see his face and rarely hear him speak you never hate the character and want to find out who he is and what caused him to try and make the “Book of Prophecy” reality, in fact by the end of the series “Friend” one of the more sympathetic characters.

Unlike almost every other blockbuster made today the spectacle is second to the characters. You actually care about the characters meaning you are invested in their fate. Though there are a lot of special effects in the movies, particularly parts two and three, they are used to serve the story and characters rather than the other way round. At the climax of the films there is not a huge action sequence, no great battle between good and evil but rather a small and given what's happened in the films rather civil confrontation and then a rock concert (you really have to see the movie to understand).

One of the great joys of the movie is the constantly shifting tone. Though an inconsistent tone is usually a negative for a movie in 20^th Century Boys it works very well. One moment the film may be comedic, then suddenly dramatic and then horrific (and there are some great gory scenes). This is done masterfully and the changes are never jarring. A comedic chase scene ends with the discovery of a dying man, a tender dance (between a policeman and a transvestite prostitute) ends when someone is shot in the head. The plot is complex and you are never sure what is going to happen next, the changes in tone amplify this. Anything could happen next and there is no way of knowing what it could be.

The shift between the first film and the second and third adds to the uncertainty about what is going to happen. The first film in the series is mainly set in the late 1990s and the late 1960s, while the bulk of the second and third film happen in 2015. The films have a unique take on the dystopian future. Rather than high mega skyscrapers and crowded cities of most films set in the near future 20^th Century Boys future is an odd mix of the old fashioned and the futuristic. Friend now rules Japan and is slowly turning Tokyo, now surrounded by a huge wall, into the city it was when he was young while the rest of Japan is left to decay. This setting adds a unique feeling to the proceedings. Futuristic appliances and buildings are there and the juxtaposition between them and the old Tokyo creates a strange atmosphere, which suits the movies perfectly given the events that unfold in the last two movies.

The films aren't perfect by any means. Though the running helps the films in a lot of ways it also leads to a great deal of unnecessary scenes. The filmmakers are slavishly loyal to the manga and include sub plots which could be exercised from the films without hurting the main story. Even though the characters are well written and acted and the scenes themselves are entertaining the fact most of the time you will find yourself wishing you were back at the main story. The special effects can also on occasion be a little weak. On the whole they range from fine to great but when a bad special effect comes on screen it does threaten to take you out of the movie. I would argue that the direction and acting is more than good enough for this not to matter but on such an expensive movie you would expect every special effect to be at least competent.

20^th Century Boys is one of my favourite film series of recent years. It is quite uncommon for a film series that is so unconventional (the heroes are all middle aged, there are very few big action scenes etc.) to be made. I would of assumed that with a budget so large all the interesting elements of the story would have been removed in order to make the films more palatable to audiences. But they didn't and the films are great because of it. In a world where most blockbuster movies lack any kind of characterisation or story development and are content to simply deliver empty special effects to people these movies really stand out a mile.