An animated film from Korean director Joe Beom-jin about a futuristic world powered entirely by human feces. With the government anxious to control this sole, important source of energy, they install special sensors on its citizens’ anuses (!) to monitor production, while controlling the populace by distributing addictive popsicles which also act as laxative. Our loser heroes Aachi & Ssipak just want to have fun and get the popsicles without doing the, um, hard work. So they cause a ruckus, get the cyborg police on their trail, fight a mutant smurf-like blue army addicted to the popsicles, meet a strangely appealing woman with the most annoying of voices, and stir up more and more trouble.

Cross-dressing, break-dancing, repeated rectal surgery and abuse, decapitations, mind-altering popsicles, mutant smurf-like drone armies, hardcore shooting action, sexual deviation of every variety and lots and lots of poo.

Not a movie for the overly sensitive or faint of heart, the rest of us should enjoy this colorful on-screen riot.

...meh.

QUIT IT WITH THE LENS FLARE! #$^&*

What to say? If you expected any sort of plot or deep thought, then I must point out that this is made by Michael Bay and based on a cartoon featuring giant robots, created to sell plastic replicas of said robots.

That said, if you go in expecting giant robots and explosions, you’re all set for a decent night’s entertainment. More and bigger giant robot fights, at times the action is so dense it is hard to keep track of what is happening. I don’t know why Bay felt the need to two annoying “comic relief” robots, but I tried to ignore them as best I could. For the rest, mindless entertainment based on youth sentiment. I enjoyed it.

This movie caused a lot of kerfluff, from the rabid fans (oh no they changed X! Heresy!) to the shocked and appalled “first-timers” who didn’t read the comic before seeing the movie (WTF is going on, why is it so slow and depressing?) to the morality crowd objecting to a blue penis (ooooh no, a penis! my kids are now scarred forever!).

I’ve read Watchmen a long time ago, and loved it. I reread it before going to the movies. I waited for the DVD release, and watched it again.

I thought it was great. It was dark, gritty, and there was no real redemption, just compromise and a horrible lie; I thought the ending worked well for the movie; overall I greatly enjoyed it. To be fair the people I watched it with hadn’t read the comic and despite my prep work they got bored and didn’t finish it. So (and this is really no surprise) this movie isn’t for everyone.

This is a very strong debut novel, a thrilling ride, and an interesting concept called Thalience – I found it very hard to put down.

Imagine trying to define “punk” to a machine. That’s the problem we’ll have in ten or twenty years. Now imagine a machine trying to explain a semantic concept as culturally dependent to machines as “punk” is to humans. That’s Thalience.

Oh, and cc-licensed – free ebook version here which is how I found it. But when next I go on an SF-paperback binge and I happen to see this guy’s name I will certainly grab a copy.

I really enjoyed this. When I totally expected not to. Wanted not to, even. Ultra-cheesy, over the top, cartoonish and just plain fun.

So bad it is funny. From the badmovies.org list.

Like it couldn’t decide whether it was horror or SF in the second half of the movie and the plot sort of meanders all over the place. Final verdict: very forgettable.

but in any other time period, this is a huge steaming turd. And yet, the complete WTFness of it all – the storyline which in no way resembles the game, Bob Hoskins looking profoundly uncomfortable, the meandering plot (or lack thereof, really); it was somehow entertaining. Like how I imagine a full frontal lobotomy must be entertaining because the patients are always smiling afterward.

I watched this because I am chewing my way through the badmovies.org list.

I can’t believe this was directed by the same people who wrote/directed the UK version of Max Headroom.