The Handsome Man in Australia

Ok, confession time: I didn't like Handsome Man in Japan all that much. The animation and scenery were excellent (a given in Dan's movies at this point), but the humor didn't really appeal to me and much of it seemed tedious.

Well, this one was better.

Aaron is very correct in his review when he says that this is entirely unlike the movies Dan is known for. The story isn't anything amazing, but there's a logical progression from scene to scene, with nothing seeming thrown in or tacked on. And perhaps most impressively, with just one exception (the conversation when Handsome Man is in the cage), the pacing is great. It's not a slow buildup to a frenzied action-packed climax, nor is it a nonstop PAM - the movie flows from scene to scene really well, and save the one exception I was completely absorbed in it.

I don't know what I can say about the animation that hasn't already been said. It's unbelievable that the bar continues to be raised in a 15-year-old program, but this movie definitely knocks it up a notch or two. The more surreal scenes were the ones that especially stood out, particularly the underwater sequence and the drug-induced hallucinations. It would be interesting to see Dan try some sort of Richard Bevis-esque atmosphere-focused movie concentrating on this sort of surrealism - he's already proven that he can work outside his usual style.

The voice acting deserves special mention here. I think it's probably the most marked improvement here from Handsome Man in Japan. In that movie I thought Dan took a lot of the voices too far, to the point where even within his absurd humor they seemed exaggerated and forced. Here, though, the voice acting is a definite strength. The quality was quite bad, but the delivery was well done and the voices showed impressive variation - I didn't realize until the end that Dan had done them all himself. Really nice work there.

As I mentioned before, the scene with the cages really fell flat for me. It was a very jarring interruption in the movie's pace, and really just wasn't that funny. However, I'd be hard pressed to name another significant weakness in this film. I'm not usually a fan of self-insertion, but here it didn't bother me.

With elements like the Bongo Bong, Dan's creativity would be enough to carry this movie on its own even without its stellar animation. When you combine it with his technical skill and, y'know, tendency to actually finish movies, it's no surprise to see him producing material like this. Keep up the good work, and let's all hope the Bored with 3DMM Demon spares you a while longer.

[Dominator Dan]

ah thanks a ton man, and yeah, I had a feeling the cage scene wasn't gonna be that popular, but I left it in cause i couldn't think of another way to have everything flowing, i guess i coulda made the conversation shorter, but then that would leave questions unanswered. OH LORDY.

oh yeah what voices didn't you like in HMIJ? cause i always thought jess' voice was the best voice i've ever conjured up haha, i'm not quite sure about the whole 'toning down' of voices in this movie, i mean, take the dolphin and the plane captain for examples . THANKS AGAIN DUDE

[Phil Williamson]

yeah I didn't care for Jess too much, just kind of found her voice irritating to be honest haha. and I thought you did a better job with Handsome Man's voice in this one (not that it was bad in Japan, but the delivery of the lines and all that seemed noticeably improved).

[Aaron Haynes]

Dan as a "character" really came to life in this one. It didn't feel like a self-insertion movie at all. He's done versions of himself in almost every movie he's made, but here it just felt completely natural.

When people do sniper movies, the community-members-as-characters are pretty single-minded, but this was more like one of Jaymond's audio files, featuring a few personalities bouncing off each other. I could watch stuff like this all day.