Garm Wars: The Last Druid

OK so this film is insane. For two reasons:

1- for being utter nonsensical fantasy gibberish 2- for investing as much time, effort and money into developing such a bonkers story into such an amazingly vivid spectacle of CGI beauty.

Nothing about this film made much of any sense to me. I've just finished watching it and literally have NO idea what a Garm is. Absolutely none. I understood nothing about this film other than some mad old bloke and some woman with a gun were on the run, accompanied by some other bloke with an unreasonably large gun.

Now, I said this film was visually beautiful, and it is. There are some breathtaking scenes in it. Unfortunately, to balance that out and reinforce the rating of a majestic four that I have given it, they have countered these high action scenes with two really, REALLY long scenes of the aforementioned people just sitting on their buttocks discussing the also aforementioned nonsensical drivel.

So the only way I would recommend this film to you is if you were really high, and even then I would suggest fast forwarding through the beach scene and any other time they seem to be too focused on the act of talking. The only strength of this film lies in its aesthetic beauty and I will admit the dog was the only element of bafflement that I found entertaining.

..and if you aren't high, then do yourself a favour and pick any other film in the world.

This production is not for everyone, and I admit to not being particularly interested in the integrated video game / CGI type of fantasy sci-fi production myself, but this was interesting enough to warrant a watch, and I'm not regretting having done so.

Admittedly, the plot is rather clumsily constructed, which detracts somewhat from what this could have been.

Having said that though, the actual artistry committed to this creation is something to behold.

Having been confined to a relatively limited budget, this was an impressively ambitious effort, perhaps overly so, but it is visually a spectacular expression of the artform.

For me at least, Mélanie St-Pierre's character as Khara made the film. Without her, not sure how well this effort would have fared.

To be fair, this production starts out very strong, with Khara and her cadre of clonettes on board their warcraft, the inital scenes with the mysteroius Driud entity and it's wily cohort, prying their way into the AI core, the invasion battle scenes . . . but OK, no spoilers here.

But then, as the story begins to stretch out as a meandering journey through various travails, it just seems to lose steam along the way, with various action scenes tossed in as props to keep the excitement level artificially inflated.

By the ending scene (the film is divided into a series of acts), it just seems that the writing was getting tired, and just had to throw in the proverbial "to be continued" invading hordes of the whatevers as a sort of departing plot prop (no spoiler here, there are numerous other details not included in this description).

It's somewhat unfortunate, as there were several potential story threads and philosophical ponderings which could have been much more richly enabled and elaborated upon, but were left somewhat vacant.

Garm Wars is an interesting template which could be further developed, but definitely could benefit from more finely honed story crafting to match the remarkably rich visual motifs into which this template has been enmeshed.

I want to give its creators credit for a fascinating effort, and wouldn't be against seeing another, more well developed (and funded) effort in this direction.

I'm torn between a 6 and 7 rating . . . but am giving a benefit of a doubt, let's go with a 7.

In line with The Fifth Element and Forbidden Planet - another movie whose plot will bend your mind with something unusual...

Difficult to comment without writing a spoiler, I can say I would love to discuss this movie with someone - it has a lot going on in it... and it does begin and end making you wish there was a lot more 'known'. This movie could have been stretched a lot longer with more added - yet, by the end, I enjoyed the story and the feelings it left me with. More could ruin the 'what's next' feelings - and besides, wanting more leaves me with a really strong desire for both prequels and sequels? This film could be the start of a very successful series... The visual and sound impact of this movie was amazing - some totally different, stunning and fantastic visuals and sounds... I enjoyed it - and hope you do too.

The movie is a great watch for those who like anime such as ghost in the shell or last exile. The cinematics are amazing, and quite frankly some of the best 3d cgi i've seen period. They mix in real people and cgi in such a way that you can't tell them apart. In fact the humans seem like cgi sometimes.

The story takes a bit of patience to get into, but once you get into it, it will unravel really fast gripping you in. You'll pretty much be enjoying it up until it ends. It definitely needs a sequel as it left room for one.

The music soundtrack is quite emotional and epic, which is one of the most memorable parts about this movie. If you like sci-fi, anime, or just want an entertaining flick check it out.

The 2 star review is right, there's no beginning, there's no end, there's barely a story. It's more like a showpiece for the CGI studio than a movie. I finished watching it and really had no idea what just happened.

To be fair the effects, model creation, and scores are fantastic, unfortunately too much time is devoted to them instead of actual character/story development.

Apparently the story universe is created by the director/writer just for this movie, I have to say it has good potential, but this movie did not take advantage of it. Hopefully we will see a sequel to better develop it.

Hey, if you are bored on a Saturday night, why not, certainly not the worst movie out there.