The Handsome Man in Australia

The surest sign that Handsome Man in Australia is Dan's best movie isn't how brilliantly animated the action sequences are, but how it doesn't really have any. For the first time in Dan's long 3dmm career, he's made a long-form movie that has no clear separation between story and set pieces. You aren't waiting through slow-down periods in the plot for someone to get into a car and start mowing people down. He's dropped the KICK IT INTO OVERDRIVE mentality entirely for this outing. At long last, Dominator Dan has a film that knows what it is from frame one and never gets lost or makes excuses. At long last, he's made a film that's worth its length.

Dan travels to Mexico to hunt down Michael Sandford, the closest thing he has to an action animation rival, only to discover he's returned to Australia. There's a roughly $1m peso reward for killing him, which eventually leads to an amusing revelation about currencies. When Michael eludes capture shortly after arriving in Australia, Dan takes to the jungle to look for his secret base, where other players in this game are encountered, alliances are made and broken, and the logistics of any given scenario are awkwardly questioned aloud by any and all characters involved.

There's a temptation to think of this as a sniper movie, but that's really only the outer layer. The Handsome Man movies are taking on a sort of "road trip" theme, with Dan travelling to a new country to chase down an enemy, meeting wacky characters, and getting into adventures along the way. In this way I think it sidesteps the narrow focus of sniper movies by populating them with other points of interest. It has a linear path without being singleminded. With Handsome Man in Japan, the sniper theme was followed much more closely due to the film's length, but Australia is leisurely paced with plenty of time taken to wonder what else is happening along the way. The journey, in effect, is the destination.

It's hard to stress this enough: Dan has not made an action movie. He's made a road comedy with a sniper movie shell and an ensemble cast (all voiced by him). This is the movie I didn't realize I was waiting for him to make, because it fully breaks him out of his mold as a "wacky action director". This movie is still wacky and has action in it, of course. But missing is the lurching stop-and-start of Jim McGraff. Or the first floundering half-hour of JDR Revival as it searches for a purpose of some kind. Or even the aimless wandering of Sniper @ 3DMM BB. This series, should it have a third entry, is something I didn't realize Dan had the range to do. It's genuinely entertaining and great fun.

It's also hilarious in a variety of ways, some of which are probably unique in 3DMM's pedigree. I've never seen anything like the screaming bong in 3DMM. Or the talking dolphin as a character. Or the cannonballs with faces on them (though that might be a reference to something). The movie's humor is also tied directly to its visuals in a startling way. The jungle is beautiful and a great piece of practical scene-building, but it's also funny as a setting. A stoned Dan wandering through the underbrush, singing to himself, is very funny to watch. Seeing him in camo for the first time got a laugh from me. Just seeing Dan and Cubert standing in a clearing, making awkward conversation, is an amusing sight, entirely apart from the scene's dialogue.

To continue this point, Dan also uses animation and shot staging as a form of humor. The scene where he and Michael yell at each other from across a large room, trying to have a conversation amidst the bad acoustics, is hilarious, but look at the physical animation of what's involved. The cages lightly swaying in the far background of the shot. The way Cubert's cage bounces as its chain runs out of slack, smacking him into the top of it. Later, the way the water splashes over the side of the dolphin's retractable pool in the wall. Earlier, the way Dan is animated as he cycles through a variety of actions while excitedly talking. The way he and the dolphin seem to orbit each other as if attached by an elastic band while passing through the tunnel.

The movie crackles with this kind of life and energy. It's a skill Dan has always had, evidenced earliest with Boundless Ben rigging the airship with bombs in JDR Revolutions; but he's begun to learn how to control it and use it in the service of characterization, plot, and humor. I've been a big fan of his movies for a long time because of these moments, but HMIA marks a new mastery of them. They're now amazing moments of animation coupled with good ideas. Millions of bullets weighing down one side of a plane and waterfalling out of the open window. Dan's eyes going spiraly as the smoke from the Bongo Bong hits his brain. Sandford slamming down one arm, and then another, then turning his head as he holds onto the side of a ledge. The visual majesty of the underwater scenes. I've peppered the last three paragraphs with examples and I still haven't named half of what I thought was visually and comedically compelling about this movie.

The last big surprise was the finale. Dan has almost always finished up his movies on the biggest note he can manage, but this time around there was humor to be found in a near-anti-climax. Particularly the fate of Sandford, which may have been better than any minute-long animation fest with giant robot transformations could been. The movie is so well-balanced that the ending feels completely natural, heavier on plot and tying up loose ends than on spectacle. The spectacle is evenly distributed throughout everything that has gone before.

I'm not sure what else to say. Back in 2004, I had thought that Dan was never going to top JDR Revival, which spends most of its second half in hyper-caffeinated overdrive, going off the rails in plot and doubling back on itself into some kind of meta-movie (aided, in a large part, by several of the ideas which were suggested by myself, but that he brought to life). But he's outgrown the need for countering bad and boring story with brilliant animation. He's learned how to balance it all into one experience. Apart from the horrible mic and subsequent scratchy voices, there's nothing to rationalize in HMIA, nothing to have to apologize for, no reason to adjust expectations before going in. It lives or dies on its worth as entertainment, without having to pick through the bones. It's a solid, balanced, bewilderingly good movie.

Critical Score: 99/100.
Personal Score: 100/100.

[Jesterfoot]

great review

[Dominator Dan]

ahhh man, THANKS SO MUCH, that was worth the wait definitely, but yeah the whole 'never been done before things' like the whole bong screaming and shit, it made me so unsure what people would think of it, i was worried it would ALIENATE everyone, and my overall rating for the movie would be ????% or something. BUT NOW I REALISE doing odd stuff is very much welcomed, so with any luck i'll do that shit in the next one, probably won't be as long though, and not as EXOTICALLY ADVENTUROUS, cause you can't top australia as a country for starters, the accents, THE JUNGLES, THE SANDFORDS.

and it's great people see the movie how i wanted them to see it, i mean yeah it started off as a series that's a sniper movie, instead i changed the name to HANDSOME MAN IN cause i said int he last sniper movie it would be my last sniper movie BUT IT EVOLVED and yeah, FANTASTIC

but yeah, awesome review, i'm really glad you're still doing this shit, it's like a key highlight of the movie releasing aftermath.


I'm tempted to make a handsome man in scotland cause of how hilariously bad but recognisable my scottish accent imitation is, and trainspotting was a fantastic movie

[Aaron Haynes]

You could always alternate short and long Handsome Man movies. I definitely wouldn't go shorter than HMIJ, though.

Also, when you run out of countries with 3dmmers in them, there's nothing keeping you from going on a road trip to Russia or Africa or the Caribbean or something and finding a previously-unused 3dmmer or two there. Thinking well ahead, but if you're interested in continuing it after Canada (and possibly America and England).

Edit: HANDSOME MAN IN ANTARCTICA

[Dominator Dan]

haha i was gonna put some seal hunt protesting in canada now that you mention antarctica. BUT YEAH, I HAVE AN AMAZING PLAN AFTER CANADA which doesn't even exist in the real world so omg, although that would definitely be the last one, we'll see how it goes if i feel like doing anymore they will come after canada

thanks so much ilink