Thru the Moebius Strip

I have been following this one for a while because I knew Michael Dorn is in it and I finally got a chance to catch it during the Hong Kong FilmMart. I have always known that Mark Hamill has done a lot of voices for animation (and his work here is excellent as usual) but after reading the messages here I just have to say this for the record: Michael Dorn's performance in the movie is great! And I don't find the evil king character animated to his voice overacting at all... in fact it's done very well. In general, I like the non-human characters better (same feeling for Shrek2... I find the animation for Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming somewhat odd compared to say Shrek or the Cat). Even if you are not a Trekkie like me there to see (sorry, hear) Mr. Dorn, you will like this one. The story has a timely anti-war theme and the worlds and characters created by Moebius for this movies are just amazing.

In some ways this is a combination between Epic, itself a 3D animation movie about entering a feudal fantasy world that is of a different size than our own, and Star Wars, from where a lot of the ideas were blatantly appropriated. I could criticize a lot of things about the film, but I won't. The bottom line is that I actually enjoyed most of it. What does it harm is actually the animation.

You may have seen other comments of mine where I dismiss the importance of animation style if the artistic vision is good enough. But with such a cliché plot and with a designer such a Moebius, anyone would expect a lot more from this film. As such, it becomes a barely average family movie, an attempt to copy the success of American animation films. You may think "why not? Americans remake everything they see making money in other countries.", but it works for them. Europeans want substance, are used to interesting stories and have no idea what PG-13 means. And you know the story of the copy of the copy of the copy, after all.

Conclusion: for a story about a teen from the future going through a portal to an alien planet to look for his father and falling into a feudal intrigue between two factions of giants, the film was ridiculously mild. I half expected them to burst into song at the end of the film. The 3D animation is caught between interesting world design and really shoddy technical implementation, but it's mostly bad and uninspiring. The result is average at most and truly not a 7, but just a bit more than 6, which for me is a failure.

I caught this movie at a test screening and was surprised by the awesome animation. "Thru the Moebius Strip" has some of the best animation I have ever seen- even better than Finding Nemo and Final Fantasy. I found the whole movie a really enjoyable experience with some killer action sequences. There are some really cool aliens and battles scenes which has great graphics. As a fan of CGI movies like Toy Story and Finding Nemo, I found Thru the Moebius Strip to be really ambitious and fun and with even better animation. Overall I really loved this movie and can't wait to catch it again when it comes out to all cinemas. 9/10

This is a CG film that makes Final Fantasy seem like a brilliant epic by comparison. The direction is sub-par, the story run-of-the-mill, the designs unappealing, and the "animation" (if you could call it "animation") just revolting. Just because things move doesn't mean they're animated. It doesn't appear that anyone involved with this production has any concept of communicating an idea to an audience. But to do that, of course, you'd have to have an idea, which this film has not one.

This film has no audience, nor will it find one. A previous comment comparing it to Ed Wood films is being kind. At least Mr. Wood gave us some laughs, albeit unintentional. This film is just dead on arrival.

Not the most memorable thing that I have ever watched but the first twenty minutes had some powerful accidental jokes that powered me through the rest and makes it hard for me to rate it any lower.