Albator, corsaire de l'espace

There's a strange tendency in Japanese animation , it often uses cryptic and vague script to give the illusion of depth. Those who are familiar with animes or games would recognize this outdated pattern, the quirky storytelling would seem to be meaningful as the characters brood over a crisis, yet it barely tells anything relevant to the audience. In some cases it might even alienate the viewers.

This is the persisting problem with Harlock. It certainly presents good quality visual as it floats across the light show, but the vague narrative hurts the presentation. The dialogues may sound flamboyant, yet it is actually shallow and superficial. Backstory is glossed over while the interactions are deprived of enjoyment. The characters, even though looking attractive, just can't generate enough interest as they banter with foreign jargon.

It even resembles teen drama instead of space voyage at times. Development is often crude, only to give dramatic scenes without substance. The main story follows Yama as he tries to catch the titular Harlock. Both of them are not that audience friendly, they are already in lamentation with barely any introduction. It's hard to relate since they look like generic RPG cast with average mellow issue.

Then it becomes heavily convoluted as the movie tries to mix strange terms, they sound ominously impaction like dark matter or ancient race, but material is too thin. After a hefty amount of scenery changes, cool poses and starship fights, the movie can barely hold interest for characters and with relatively long runtime it turns into a plodding endeavor.

This is Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within all over again, glossy effect and drab boring story. It will be hard to either garner interest for new audience or please old fans with such lackluster narrative, but at least it works for an eye candy.

I do not know much (nothing) about the universe, it was a first. Those with more knowledge might disagree with me, might find plot-holes or flaws in the events, for me as a stand-alone movie:

I find it strange ( due to the difference in culture maybe ) but rather enjoyable. The animation is great and detailed, the story is solid (again, strange for my acquired European taste, the values there are a little different than here), voice acting is rather good as well.

There is intensity, enough action for two movies, a plot-twist or two, some tears here and there, pretty much everything one could ask for. I for one liked it, enough to re-watch it in the future.

This film started well and ended so complicated and, uff, how to say, empty. I just watched in these days the whole Evangelion and I have now this impression that Japanese people make things too complicated. At the end, this is no more an action movie, it is not a thriller, not a psychological movie, not a drama, it is just nothing. Like another reviewer said, there is this dark matter everywhere in this movie, all is dark matter, it is boring, one ship (and one man) can win against thousand powerful enemies just because of this dark matter. No plot, no fun. Then this "let's close the circle" mania of Japanese films, a bit like "luke I am your father", where all must be connected and find a meaning from itself, somehow onanistic cinematography. Just make things simple man! Good animations and good chances, but at the end, a mess.

I see a number of negative reviews from people who 'claim' to have watched the original series and the various movies related to Captain Harlock. I find this difficult to believe, since if they had actually seen the existing material and also watched the interviews with Leiji Matsumoto, they wouldn't have much to complain about. Harlock is about an 'attitude' and an ideal. Leiji Matsumoto isn't concerned about over-all plot consistency. Instead, he's trying to get certain archetypal characters across in an effort to express an idea (to be defended by the character Harlock at all costs). The crew is free to do as they wish and are free to question Harlock's orders (this is directly taken from an interview). So there shouldn't be any real surprise at any of this. As for other elements, the plan of the ship that's shown in the film is consistent with the series and earlier films. The computer is presented in a similar manner. To me, the characters were consistent. Visuals were great, animation was typical of contemporary films, and things felt surprisingly familiar, despite being CGI instead of cell animation.

Yes, the story is difficult to follow in some areas. I don't see this as a big issue, since the general 'point' and attitude comes across just fine. I think some viewers are making a big deal out of minor things. Personally, I really enjoyed this film. If there was to be a change, it would be to break it out into two films. With the current running time, there were a number of things that had to be covered a bit too quickly. As far as explanations of Harlock's history, this is the one that I find most believable and the one that I prefer (they vary from story to story in the Leijiverse and that's something viewers of Harlock series and films just need to accept).

This is one of the few movies that I will repeat-watch, purely for enjoyment. I've seen a lot and I can say that about maybe 5% of the films I've seen so far.

Probably my first 3D CG anime movie from Japan. There's no compromise in quality like they do for Anime movies. In fact, I found it better than American standards. The Japanese were already master in their animation called anime and now 3D anime. The new path has been created, yet to come some great stuffs on this way.

It was based on the manga and television series that I have not seen or read them. Earlier I had seen kind of similar theme movie named 'Space battleship Yamato'. Both were did not stand up to my expectations, but in the other perspective side spectacular action sequences made the movie look better.

The story was set in the year 2977, where 500 billion humans are sailing back to home planet who are waiting on the edge of the galaxy to enter the Earth's atmosphere. When the permission is denied by the inhabitant leaders someone must risk everything and fight for the rights. So our captain Harlock comes into the frame on the pirate flagged spaceship and would he break all the hurdles to make way for immigrants is what the movie describes.

A bit slow presentation, had great stunts, but was infrequent. Should have been little better in character development. Unfortunately, characters and story kind of merely merged. Flashbacks and twists were not striking as it desperately wanted in those parts of the storytelling. Other than those it had everything a space travel theme should have with it. Enjoyable movie, but not completely though opinion differs from a person to another. It may make you view a better, but still won't forget to keep in mind what I said here.