The Clockwork Girl

A feel good family movie that can be enjoyed by old and young, it kept us entertained from beginning to end.

A unique storyline based on an intruquite fantasy world, with interesting characters and unexpecting twists, offering a lot more than special effects.

The bad - Half finished animation. Did they run out of money? Were they teaching themselves how to use the newly purchased software on the job? There was a lot of good world building and character design, but a substantial amount of it look half finished and amateurish.

• The sound mix and the music. The orchestral score was fine, if averagely mixed, but the modern pop songs shoehorned into the film were jarring and really bad. They damaged the world building significantly and were a poor decision.

• Huxley. Wasn't a great character idea or that well played. I can see what they were going for but for the bio part of it he could have been better than a dumb teenager in a misshapen frankestein's monster body.

The Good

• Tesla. She was pretty good, the best looking of the animated characters, and interestingly voice.

-The world building. It was a pretty solid idea for a film, tech verse bio in a steam punk setting. Heavily influenced by iconic characters from history but not in a bad way apart from the clockwork orange droogs who had no reason to be in this world apart from the word clockwork in their source film title.

The plague mask characters were suitably creepy, and the castle in the sky was interesting too. The Hals moving castle flapping flying machines were nicked but some of the other designs were original and interesting.

Although it was half finished the city design and some of the locations were good.

I think the animators over-reached their ability. There were some exciting camera angles attempted, but failed at. Just because you can move in a 3d way doesn't mean it looks cinematic. A more experienced team would know how to pull off the moves without it looking cheap.

Obviously a lot of work went into making this film once you look past the lackluster parts. There's a lot of detail in there amongst the poorly rendered and badly moved animation. The next one will be better I'm sure.

They wisely got some decent voice talent on board and they mostly delivered.

I can see why people are jarringly shocked by the movie, but it isn't a one star effort, but it's not a 10 either. It's a generous 6-7. Please do better next time as the material deserves it.

To be fair, while not "good" compared to others of today, it is a good start for an indie group to get a foot in the door with their own story instead of playing along with the common rehashing played out "popular" stories

while the animation wasnt 100%, neither was the older show 'Reboot' in its original season yet that blossomed as the creators got into the swing of things so its possible the creators of clockwork girl can also grow from this for their next venture and in the current times where society seems intent in drawing divisions between people, clockwork girl stands out with the message of stop focussing on differences and think about what we can achieve together.

The story didn't seem too bad and I sort of got into the first 20 or so minutes of the movie, but as it progressed I just got more and more annoyed with the animation. I understand that this is a low budget movie and I guess one has to use what animation tools and staff are in their budget.

The Clockwork Girl is a sweet family film. Would recommend!