Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Visually, I love Atlantis: The Lost Empire. It’s gorgeous.

I love Mike Mignola’s style, which permeates everything in this movie. I’m very fond of his Hellboy comics, and had no trouble with this movie’s resulting un-Disney-like animation. Admittedly, some of the animation choices felt a little weird, like the animators struggled at times to convert the character designs into moving figures in ways that felt good. Yet at other points (especially in the movie’s climactic fight scenes) those same characters moved fluidly and naturally through a variety of perspectives, surpassing my expectations beautifully. My love of Mignola’s designs smoothed over the awkward bits for me, and I was very happy overall. If you don’t like Mignola’s art style, or you don’t like the movie’s character designs, you might not enjoy this as much as I did.

Narrative-wise, this movie is… fine? It’s both good and bad.

I love adventure stories, which Atlantis is. I love them so much that I’ll put up with a lot. That said…

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Star Trek: Prodigy follow-up

I finished the first season.

Wow.

I know I just wrote about Prodigy last week, but I have to weigh in again.

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The Only* Live Action Avatar: TLA (Netflix 2024)

*Let’s not talk about the movie

This adaptation can’t exist independently of the animated version for me. My familiarity with and love for the animated show clouds my judgment. I don’t think I can just call this show bad, because I’ve really appreciated parts of it, but I also can’t say it’s good.

I don’t like this live action Avatar: The Last Airbender as much as the animated version, for a number of reasons. The two shows feel like two different interpretations of the same starting material, and while I can see why the live action version made at least some of the choices it did, I think some of those choices will rob the show of its dramatic potential down the line. If you’re still on the fence about watching this version of Avatar, let me temper your expectations and tell you what I’ve enjoyed… as well as what I haven’t.

Oh yeah. I’m going to spoil this show. If you haven’t seen the animated version already, do yourself a favor and watch it.

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Blue Eye Samurai, s1 (Netflix 2023)

Blue Eye Samurai is a damn good show.

A damn good show that comes with a couple of warnings.

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Skull Island (Netflix, 2023)

I grew up loving Johnny Quest’s zany pulp adventures. Skull Island feels like an updated version. Unfortunately, two episodes in it feels like the writers only updated some of the original concept and didn’t go far enough. It gets enough right that I’m still hoping that’ll change, but…

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