Ark

To understand why Disney animation became so legendary, you just need to look at a single still frame from this movie. Pause the action at any point and take in what you see. It looks fine, doesn't it? The expressions look realistic, the composition looks good... Then, unpause it, and you'll understand: Animation is about movement. It's about taking the physics of our real world and recreating them to convey emotion: Excitement, sadness, urgency, rage.

Pixar understands this; it's why they hired so many classical animators. And even their best efforts only match the standard of what Disney and Warner Brothers produced in their prime. Movies like Ark, on the other hand, make another fact painfully clear: Good animators are hard to find, and modelers and programmers are a poor substitute. In fact, there may not even be any animators alive right now who can convey what the artists at Disney did with only a desk, a pencil, and a stack of loose-leaf paper, though some of the people at Studio Ghibli come close.

So any still frame looks fine. But the movement, the changes of expressions, even the inanimate objects - stilted. And with Ark in particular, the problems are worse. The plot is derivative and stagebound, and the pacing is thrown off kilter by tedious exposition, hammering the plot into your ears just in case your eyes didn't pick it up. Frankly, the backstory conveyed in the opening narration sounds more interesting than the film that follows.

Some animation never enters US theaters because of bad luck - take Akira, for example. Then, there are films like Ark - missing them, you miss nothing.

The story development was on the weak side with the main characters coming across as somewhat one-dimensional. The problem with the main characters is that they only appear to be present to further the story, obviously that is the purpose of any character in a story, but in this case the actions of all of the characters came across as a bunch of intertwined plot devices in a desperate attempt to make a story out of some computer animations. In particular, the antagonist was lacking a foundation; his "evilness" seemed to have spawned out of nowhere as he didn't appear to have any motivation for his actions. On the whole the CG was decent but it didn't make up for the less than captivating storyline.

I watched this film specifically because I saw that James Woods was in it. I was not aware that it was an animated feature before hand. The art and design of the film is quite good. The animation is reminiscent of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The character design is like watching a cinematic on a really good video game. The problem with this film is the story. The story is silly and doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. There is enough action to keep me engaged while watching, but the story lacks originality and coherence. I also found that I didn't care about the characters. They all seemed thin and lacking humanity. I would have liked to see this film as a live action piece. I think that that might have improved it.

The battle between the Ceveans and Storrions has gone on for centuries, the world on which they live has been scarred and toxified, their only hope is to find a pilot for the Ark, built 800 years ago by Amiel of The Bloodline, custodians of ancient technology delivered by the Gods. When she finished building the Ark, she dies. Even after being dead for centuries her body doesn't decompose and her cellular activity show amazing levels of bio-energy.

The storyline isn't as silly as a previous commenter had made. It is an Us vs Them story with mutual destruction if someone doesn't stop the war. The movie is Korean, and with the N. Korea/S. Korea thing that has been going on for the last 40-50 years, it is a commentary of socio-political of the instability in the region.

First of all I need to say that considering the budget of Ark it looks really fugging ugly, I mean seriously it was made in 2005 there is no excuse. Its like a cross between the childrens tv series Reeboot (1994) and a 90's Resident Evil cut scene.

Despite this the story initially is sound, it tells a convoluted sci-fi trope filled tale that I found myself engaged in. Sadly the further into the movie you go the worse it gets and it builds to a finale that on paper should have been great but in reality was rather underwhelming.

Regardless Ark is a watchable piece and I believe it will really appeal to many especially those into their sci-fi. In many places it reminded me of several Final Fantasy universes and their villians, just not enough.

Starring James Woods this is a harmless sci-fi fluff piece that by all rights should have been better and looked considerably better.

The Good:

James Woods

Interesting concept

The Bad:

Shoddy animation

Trails off a bit the further in it goes