Battle for Skyark

The movie is indeed a movie...that's about it. It kind of seemed from previews it was supposed to be some sort of battle between the city in the sky and the rejects left on or sent back to earth. Yet, 80% of the movie you are trying to figure out about some sort of rebellion or what shadows are and the main character trying to find some guts. The little bit of CGI in the movie is 1 or 2 scenes that are repeated over and over again. The acting is pretty rough and forced with little to no emotion. Action scenes are horrendous. Costumes are somewhat on point but the movie is obviously low budget and you can tell. Oh well, it is worth the watch if you have absolutely nothing else to do and want to cringe a little and try to solve the mystery of Battle for Skyark.

For those who have seen or played Japanese video games, Battle for Skyark would be awfully familiar. It closely follows the aspects of role playing game, from the brooding teenage boy who is destined to save the world, intricate yet impractical costumes, cheesy one-liner and stereotypical one dimensional characters with outlandish hairdo. I was seriously having flashback of childhood memories when watching the movie, unfortunately it does not even remotely create the same fond memory it's inspired from.

If one searches the image of Final Fantasy or any other Japanese RPG, it should show a character similar to Rag, the main protagonist. Rag is destined for greatness as a savior. He must journey to fulfill this prophecy, meeting new allies and defeating monsters along the way. The movie is, in the very sense, a live action inspired by anime or video game. It borrows so heavily till the point of cringe-worthy.

Most fantasy games have excellent visual and incredible CGI, this is not so in this case. Battle for Skyark is frankly a low budget flick. It tries to deliver the style with the same complicated outfits and extraordinary hairdo, but it's trapped with typical tedious scenes with little coherency. The monsters and setting seem very uninspiring as it only shows bits of special effects, these are too few to create any convincing atmosphere.

Sadly, this formulaic "teen saves the world" gimmick was already dull in Japanese fifteen years ago. Using same artificial rigid characters, like the stern companion or silly sidekick, can feel very monotonous. The screenplay doesn't work well either, often glossing over details or stutters slowly in the middle. The dialogues are corny, they might work on games or animations, but given the real life interpretation, they feel bizarre at best. Lastly, narrative doesn't clearly explain nor does it conclude in satisfying manner.

I wanted this movie to work, maybe due to sentiment or nostalgia. However, in all honesty Battle for Skyark might copy the look of characters, but the plot, setting and overall atmosphere merely produce a lackluster movie.

bleh! Stay away!

I hope these kids are given a proper chance at acting with better writing and directing.

• CG was pretty decent in some parts (there was not much CG though), however some CG effects were also a little off.

• Bad writing! The story is fairly rubbish and the dialog while 'ok' in a couple of small parts, was mostly just bad filler.

• Poor characters who flip-flop attitude and decisions between scenes.

• Bad directing. :\

• Bad locations and sets!

• World felt empty despite the dialog trying to imply differently.

• Prosthetics were not too bad.

this film feels like an adaptation of a semi-good young adult novel, a bad adaptation but an adaptation non the less, or a plot bunny for a fan-fiction. the past is fast, backstory:non, and quit frankly the writer would have been better off trying to write a novel rather than a script. I will admit the concept of the story is intriguing and kind of cliff-hanger like but still next time dude, try writing a book.

over all if your looking for inspiration or something so mind numbing dull to sober up with. I'd watch this, however if a book was written and more depth given, I'd read it.

I give it a 4 out of 10 for that alone.

How do films like this get made? I'm sure that I'll never know. But somebody spent a fair amount of cash producing this nonsense.

The good: It's short? The bad: Everything else. There is no discernible plot of any kind. The characters actions make absolutely no sense. There's no exposition, no climax, no goal to achieve, and it ends as a cliffhanger. The acting is unforgivable. No part of the story makes the slightest attempt to follow a thread of logic. Kids are beating up/killing adults at every preposterous turn. The fortified camp of survivors on the planet's surface is essentially a ring of shopping carts pushed together with some cardboard for extra reinforcement. The dialogue is embarrassing for any genre regardless of expected audience. The special effects don't even make sense (is the "skyark" a few hundred feet above the ground hovering or in orbit? You'll never know; you'll never care). As a distraction for sitting through this dreck, I tried to think of a worse film that I've ever watched; all I could come up with was "Ski Patrol" ... maybe, but Ski Patrol at least had a dog that could fart on command which exceeds any of the talents in Battle for SkyArk.

The verdict: This is not worth your time, money, or effort to make sense of. It's simply one of the worst movies that has ever been made. It has absolutely no redeeming virtues. Nothing that could have been done to this film could possibly have made it worse - it is the low marker for judging movies. Imagine the worst anime that you've ever sat through being turned into a live-action film by a group of 5 junior high school students with a handicam... that is better than this by a factor of 100. Run away!