Powerplay Part 1

A tanker in the middle of a harbor. James Bond, played by Patrick, swings along a rope on the deck, clearly intent of getting off the ship as soon as possible. His skirmishes with the guards are intercut with shots of a bomb, slowly ticking down the last few seconds before an inevitable explosion. The suspense builds, the shots are cut faster and framed closer, and he jumps....the camera rotates, the bomb's timer reaches zero, and the tanker explodes in one of the most elaborate explosions with some of the best lighting effects ever done in 3DMM as Bond lands in the water. The words "James Bond will return..." appear on the screen....and suddenly, we hear applause. Curtains drape across what was apparently a theater screen, people get up to leave the complex, and we see two apparently prominent men in a special seating box on the balcony. They're introduced as Jorrit Stuifmeel and Thomas Saville, and after stepping outside and waving to fans and supporters, they call Frederick Arnoy at EP Headquarters to report in the score for Frogman's Unleash the Dragon. The scenery is elaborately decorated with curtains, marquees, velvet rope and red carpets; the dialogue is confident and easy-going; and as the two high-standing EP executives get into a chauferred limo while Tom insists that his diet consists of more than just popcorn, we suddenly realize that we're in a very special universe.

Community-based movies by nature are a double-edged sword; they limit the potential audience to just the people who've been around long enough to understand what all these things mean, but by the same token, make it resonate that much more strongly. Typically, I approach a premise like this with caution, always aware of the fact that if anyone involved ever leaves the community, the audience for such a story would slowly dwindle down to nothing. Not Powerplay. This is a world so slickly designed, so carefully constructed, with characters so instantly likable that people who know nothing about the community wouldn't just enjoy the story and world displayed, they'd wish they were part of it, and want to know more. Put simply, this is a masterpiece, made by people who know exactly what they're doing.

Unlike most efforts to put the community on the screen (including REDUX, my own community-based film), Powerplay isn't concerned with 3DMM as a question of whether or not it will survive, but rather who will control it in the end. Ever since 3dmm.co.uk collapsed, Explode Productions has evolved into the biggest and most frequently visited review and movie archive in the community, holding a monopoly over just about anything else that updates these days. While us old-school DragonFilms alumni can just shrug and go about business as usual, you can't release a movie on the board without wondering what score it will get on EP, and not getting one essentially makes a movie fade from the community's mind quicker than ever. Fred, Jorrit, and Tom know this quite well, and the plot of Powerplay makes it quite clear with the abundance of symbolic statues, propaganda posters (Space Goat throwing darts at Jorrit's communist poster is one of the best jokes in the movie), logos, and building interiors so elaborate they border on making EP look like royalty. The shot of Fred answering the phone with the story-tall portrait of himself behind him says more about the idea behind Powerplay than any of his character's speeches and schemes do.

To be fair, it's mostly tongue-and-cheek. They wouldn't be playing themselves up as such legendary figures in a representation of 3DMM society if they didn't legitimately hold a powerful position in the real community, and they aren't the least bit reluctant to make gags at their own expense. But while the characters are intensely enjoyable to watch and listen to (Tom is the man. Period.), there's a certain smugness about it all. The sequences on the bulletin board and 3dmm.co.uk are practically cameos; there's no doubt who has the spotlight for the majority of the film. But then again, it IS the first episode, and as the story is really about the rise (and possible fall?) of Explode Productions, it's essential to establish these characters and this world before expanding further outward in parts two and three.

The technical aspects of Powerplay haven't been mentioned much in this review because they're so well-done and have such a level of confidence to them that I simply took them as a given. But they're definitely worth mentioning. The environments are so detailed and so well-designed that I seriously felt like I'd always known this world, and these places. By the end of the film, it becomes THE vision of the community, not merely another one. The direction is top-notch, and some of the subtleties and storytelling techniques that exist in only the best 3DMM films are shown off with flair here. The voice acting is brilliant; the top three minds of EP really come to life here, especially Tom, and many of the supporting characters are really well done (does Goat really sound like that?). And the music....best main title theme ever. There are few 3DMM movie franchises that manage to find an opening title piece that viewers immediately associate with it. From now until the end of the community, if you include a soundclip of that over a black screen, EVERYONE will know what series you're referring to.

In the end, Powerplay is one of the most confident, slick, stylish pieces of work ever made with the program. Easily the best literal interpretation of the community ever put to screen, and it concerns itself with one of the toughest things to capture in 3DMM thus far -- political intrigue -- and does it brilliantly. Admittedly, it may be a little biased, but that might be the whole point anyway. I'm very interested in the developments of the second and third episodes!

Critical Score: 94/100.
Personal Score: 88/100.