A Ragtag Group of Rebelz

Jimmy Pozin, a legend in organised chaos animation. Although i saw this movie at least 2 years after it's release, i must have been just as excited and amazed as the guys who got to see the pre-release versions.

Plot
We are presented with what we assume to be the rebel leader, briefing his comrades on what they're gonna do. This is the first and only time really that we get any idea of the plot. The plot is thin, so movie is more like its made about the mission, rather than the people involved and their own stories etc. I wouldnt have minded this so much if the plot had of stayed constant throughout, and the ending well, i have mixed feelings. Although it wraps up the story pretty well, you're a bit let down by the although dramatic, anti-climax. On first watch, the plot is sufficient and effective. But afterwards, you ask a lot of questions to yourself which are simply cannot answered.

Direction
Jimmy is obviously a fan of war movies, and it reflects in his 3dmm work. Everything, from the intro sequece, to the leaders death, to the ending is perfectly done. Pozin successfully conveys the emotion and action across to the viewer. The leaders dying scene made me "" , the initial assult had me pumped and the escaping scene had me on the edge of my seat.

The animation is amazing, even in this modern day and age of 3dmm, its still fucking beatiful and something to be proud of. The animation is smooth and realistic. Espacially explosions. And gore. Pozin does not cut corners on either of these too, and you can only really appriacte the level of detail that goes into it when you play back the movie, going through the frames. Most of the time there is simply too much detail to take in D:

The choice of camera angles and movements is not random. I have always strongly agreed with what Andres said a while ago, about camera movement should be for a REASON, not just to look like you're a great animator. The movement Jimmy uses is fast, and smooth. It amplifies the chaos and confusion that is going on. It adds brilliant tension, and crams so much detail into every scene. There is always a hundred different things going on at one time, and the camera angles and movement allow you to see it all. Sometimes you get a soldier's view of the battle, sometimes you can see all of it, its wonderful.

The scenery is also very good. However, it is not constant throughout the movie. Even though the animation is constantly high standard, the scery changes, and is often the after thought of Jimmy. For example, some of the scenes are just a squashed cube for the sand. Thats it. I know it's hard to make a desert interesting, but come on. There is even one scene where he used an F for weapons. It's laziness like this that brings the move down. This lack of scenery detail is easily covered by the animation, so it's not that bad. Don't get be wrong, half way through the scenry changes to brilliant, and is perefectly suitable.

Sound
If there is one thing about this movie that is perfect throughout, it's the sound. With a soundtrack from Broken Arrow, and The Rock, it's all perfectly used to make firefights exciting as fuck and on the opposite end of the scale, the emotional scenes more dramtic.

Although, having said that, it would proberbly be more effective if we could actually hear it. The amount of gunfire, explosion and debris noises are insane. This is a good thing. Combined with the visual chaos, the sound adds another dimension and you cant get much closer to the real thing.

The voice acting though... lets down the seriousness of the action. Although his voices are full of emotion, they sound kinda... lame. He purposely tries to add a element of humour, which quite frankly, ruins the movie.

Babble
As i said before, Jimmy Pozin, is a legend in organised chaos animation. But for scenes that do not require this, he struggles. There is a scene about halfway through, where they have to climb over the perimeter fence to get in. This scene is increadebly cheesy and almost embarrasing. Once over the other side however, Jimmy gets back to doing what he does best . If he used the same camera movement and animation he uses for his action scenes, he could have made this a shit-load better.

The plot also let's down this movie. Okay, we have the solution to some kind of problem these guys are having. Why couldn't Jimmy spent a few more scenes explaining why the US were in the area? Why were the rebels pissed off? And most of all, where the fuck was this supposed to be set, and who they fuck are they? What are they fighting for? With just a little bit more information we could have felt a lot more emotionally involved to the characters, which would result in everything mentioned above, being more interesting. The simple mention of a location and date could explain a lot about the people, and situation instantly. For example, if it had of been menitoned that this was Iraq 2006, we'd have a good idea straight away of why these guys are pissed off, who they are, what they want, and what the US Army are doing there.

With a little more time and effort, it could have been the perfect 3dmm war movie. It's basically just laziness that stops this from being one of the greatest 3dmm films of all time.

Jibberish
You know how you go see a movie, and you enjoy getting emotionally involved, whether it be "fuck yeah!" or "oh no "? Well watch this.

Psychoscore:

Realistic score:
80%