The Clockwork Girl

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.

(2010) The Clockwork Girl COMPUTER ANIMATION/ SCIENCE-FICTION

Based on the comic book series created by Sean O'Reilly and Kevin Hanna, containing a very simplistic set up, surrounded with many complicated nuances young children would be incapable to understand unless you had 1) seen many movies, and 2) open to strange unusual things even though they're not so nice to look at. The movie is called "The Clockwork Girl" but upon watching it, it's almost looks just as complicated as watching any adult Japan animation movie since the entire environment is totally different than what viewers are accustomed into seeing. At the opening, the movie introduces us to two characters competing for the coveted prize of bragging rights. One's an expert biologist who happened to install two hearts into a Frankenstein -like baby who looks like a demon, and was using it to win since it had astronomical physical abilities, while his opponent is a mechanical person who builds things by using machines. He was using a mechanical robot that he had built for the contest until it was unable to do specific things. So because it lost him the contest, he let the "Ancients" take the robot away since it disappointed him. But what he did get instead is a relationship with one of the 3 judges and then he was happy again. A strange deadly plague were to happen later called "Blight" which eventually divided the city into two different groups since on one side, they wanted to be healed or fixed up by using biology and they were called "Biotists", while the other side wanted to be fixed up by using machines- they're called "Technocrats". And then by the time the plague took away his only love interest, he then became motivated to build another robot again, but this time one with a heart and much advanced abilities naming it 'Tesla' or "The Clockwork Girl", who's other purpose was to act as his daughter since he was alone and needed companionship. "The Clockwork Girl" and the demon baby viewers saw earlier are eventually going to meet since he's no longer a baby anymore who grew up to be a teenager named Huxley. Anyways, this entire set up almost seemed like it came from a L. Ron Hubbard novel, the founder of "Scientology" except that he was originally known as a novelist who writes science-fiction. Other homages I had noticed also includes "A Clockwork Orange", "The Phantom Menace" and "Star Trek" since the movie's approach into solving the "blight" plague almost looked like one. The only downfall is that is that it's too complicated for children to understand unless they understand biology and machines including viewers who're opened to other possible unexplainable possibilities but are possible to be shown on this movie.

Tesla and Huxley OTP!

The production values look like a video game, but once you get past that, the world, story and cast is fantastic. I do wish this had a decent budget for the visuals, but this was an indie film made with love and it shows.

I was a big fan of the comic series, so it's nice to see it come to life! I hope they make a sequel or into a tv series.

A constant among other reviews has been to point out the dated animation. There's a very good reason why the movie looks the way it does: it is a low budget indie CG film produced by first timers nearly a decade ago. Labeling The Clockwork Girl as a 2021 release is somewhat misleading. The film was finished in 2013 and aired on Canadian premium television shortly after. It just took until 2021 for the movie to gain widespread distribution. It is a shame, because the visual style is appealing (well, outside of Huxley, but that's the point), it's just let down by technical aspects.

The movie does a good job of keeping things going. Everything feels brisk and the plot progression happens smoothly in ways that make sense. I did come in expecting star-crossed lovers and thankfully, the movie does subvert that a bit. However, the runtime leaves a few things underdeveloped, including the villain. There's a twist at the end that really changes how prior actions are viewed, yet the movie has no time to acknowledge that before the credits roll. We needed more of an epilogue to wrap the story up.

Acting wise, I felt the main cast did well. Alexa Vega was great as Tesla. Huxley is kind of a brat and I guess Jesse McCartney was okay. Carrie Anne Moss was also a highlight.

Soundtrack-wise, the pop song inserts were very out of place. They did not fit the action scenes in a movie that's largely somber in tone. Thankfully, there are only a few, but the rest of the score was forgettable.

It's a mixed bag at best. The CGI characters had the look of those on cheap TV kids' shows. The world and characters are interesting, I wouldn't mind seeing this movie remade with an actual budget.

This was a weird, creative, and sometimes fun movie with a whole lot more heart than it did animation production values.