Mind Game

This was a 'solid' effort. Fair. Decent. Average. 6 out of 10. There isn't a modest and balanced review for this movie on this site yet, and I feel its fair to those who are interested in it to realize its not the '10 OUT OF 10 FIVE STARS 1000%!!!!' bonanza its been made out to be. However, if you're convinced this movie is just that, don't read on. Despite the title, this isn't a movie that will mess with your head or challenge you to think. It has a very simple message, one that was clearly stated: Live Life. The characters go ona journey that, while being fantastic, ended up feeling like a hollow victory come the climax. You can either blame that on the "reset button" ending or on the fact they chose to send us on acid trips over fleshing out the story. The characters themselves were very much the same as the story. Decent, with some depth, but you could feel as though there was a wealth more to be explored that simply wasn't for one reason or another. Again, more time was given to the exploration of the art. But what about the art? This movie is probably best known for its atypical style and beautifully executed animation. The problem though is its not a matter of execution, its a matter of content. Yes, the animation was expertly done, but the animation itself was a Wal-Mart bargain bin of good, bad, and indistinguishable. In this department, it really relies on the person watching and their preferences. Personally, I found it to be distracting and in some cases, absurd. Basically it should come to this. If you've seen the movie or if you're thinking of watching it, ask yourself this one question..."Did I enjoy it?" . No, don't ask yourself if you 'understood everything' or if you 'appreciated the art'...ask yourself if you truly and honestly 'enjoyed' it. Personally, its not a movie I'll watch again nor a movie I'll forget. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't that one amazing movie that its hyped to be either. It falls in the middle of the road. It was fair. Decent. Average. 6 out of 10.

Mind Game is easily one of my favourite anime movies....all the way through. At first I was a little offput by the art, some scenes work REALLY well...some scenes don't. But seriously, this anime is the best thing I've seen in a LONG time of watching anime. Story: It's a story that you cannot take seriously. There are essentially 3 different scenes in it. All three of them are beautifully executed. The pacing in this movie is also very nice, the few slow scenes are beautifully shown, there's never a single moment of tediousness. Art: " I think that Japanese animation fanstoday don’t necessarily demand something that’s so polished. You can throw different styles at them and they can still usually enjoy it." -Masaaki Yuasa (director) The art in this is so spaced out, to call it anime would be to really push the border of what anime is and can be. This free, wild form is both beautiful and also sometimes detrimental. There are some scenes that are not beautifully executed, they seem dull and boring, almost lifeless. Whereas others are beautiful, and some are quite hilarious. One of the best scenes involves God. However the best scene, is a love scene. It is worth it to watch the entire anime JUST for this one 3-4 minute scene. I cannot describe to you how beautiful this one scene was to me, you really need to see it for yourself. Sound: The voice actors are magnificent, Niishi is especially great, he's energetic and sounds absolutely crazy half the time. The sound effects are also amazing and the background music incredible as well. Character: To fully get the characters, to fully understand all the relations and dreams of each character this anime needs to be watched at least twice. Almost every character has a detailed story and aspirations. Niishi's dream of being a Manga artist leads to a cute little story. The characters at all time seem human, they seem pliable and three-dimensional. This aspect is so beautifully shown, it's one of the many highlights of this series. I was never let-down during this entire movie. However I would not recommend it to everyone. If you don't have an open mind about what you believe anime is, then don't watch this. This anime is incredibly unique. To use the word "weird" would be an insult to this. I have never seen anything like this, it's an anime that really does a magnificent job at being a beautiful piece of art.

I like arty and pretentious anime as much as the anyone. I think Neon Genesis Evangelion, whose seemingly innocuous mecha beginnings give way to stream-of-consciousness psychoanalyzing, is a high-water mark. Confusing or confused, it's worth it. And I'm a huge fan of Satoshi Kon's work, all of which pushes the limits of anime. I enjoy the challenging stuff. So when I read several fairly glowing reviews of Mind Game, I was curious. But I'm not sure if we were all watching the same film. Yes, the art and animation are spectacular, shifting between contrasting styles with grace and ease. It's certainly a visual showcase. Yet noneof the reviews mention the aspects I'm going to talk about below; and I'm inclined to think that beyond the artwork, Mind Game is really just art-house by numbers. Fill in the dots between seemingly edgy elements, and you'll have a great piece of cinema. Or not. Take the characters. Nishi is a wannabe Manga-artist. Fine. Myon wanted to be a swimmer until her breasts got in the way. Um, fine. The old man prepares gourmet dinners and talks to his friends, the dinosaurs. Whatever. And Yan wants to be a performance artist and likes nothing more that taping balloons to her chest, covering herself with paint, and throwing herself at canvas. While trapped inside a whale. Er… what? This is all meant to be psychedelic and avant-garde, I suppose. Subtle it isn't. For example: Nishi tells Myon a story about space explorers for whom the only source of food on the planet they were stranded on was alien excrement. But then it turns out that the space explorers were actually on a cell in Myon's body, and they grew larger until being flushed out of her system. You can imagine the details, I'm sure. This charming tale has the inexplicable effect of seducing Myon; I can only suppose that her eyes were so clouded with love that saw in it the unrestrained imagination of her beau, and that the story was meant to have the same effect on the viewer. Personally, I just thought it was tasteless. Duly seduced, Myon and Nishi have sex. Fortunately, there isn't any nudity, as their bodies dissolve into a kaleidoscope of lines, colours and images. Unfortunately, this sequence resembles nothing so much as a 1969 sketch by Monty Python: trains entering tunnels and then crashing, waves lashing against the shore, that sort of thing. Only in the sketch, we ultimately pan away to reveal an inept guy playing the film to his increasingly frustrated girlfriend. See, the Python sketch is a parody. Which says a lot for the sequence in Mind Game. It's as if the whole thing is trying too hard to be different, to be absurd, to be psychedelic. Towards the end all four of the main cast pool their resources to escape, rowing as hard as they can through the water-filled stomach of the whale—until their boat is broken. With only the momentum to carry them forward, they use whatever comes their way as leverage to propel them forwards: bits of wood... fish... a fly... Onwards they run, as the whale swallows successively large objects: a ship, an airplane (which explodes behind them), an office block, which Nishi has to navigate his way through, leaping over tables and through windows… Then finally we see a almost identical stream of images to those which opened the movie, only with slight differences; so whereas at the start Myon caught her foot in the door of an underground train, now she doesn't. This is art-house by numbers again: repeat the same four minutes of footage with minor changes and in so doing give 'meaning' to the changes. What it actually means is not actually the issue; the fact that it's meaningful is all that's important. In the end, Mind Game is a hodgepodge of highbrow and lowbrow; of comments about breast size and toilet jokes combined with literary references and pseudo-symbolism. Perhaps it wants to exploit the contrast in a kind of cinematic magical realism; but in my view it fails completely. Nothing represents the film better than Yan's paint dancing: it wants to be art, but it's mired in vulgarity. Bought, watched, and offered for sale on amazon marketplace before I'd even finished it. __________ Poor; I wish I'd done something better with my time. Its merits are few and far between.

Drizzling rain being seen through the windscreen of a car; A guy running around with wearing a football shirt and a... is that a diaper? A girl gets her leg trapped in the door of a train and flounders around like a fish out of water. From the first random images of "Mind Game" that looks like it was drawn by a 6 year old, I can already tell that it's one of those titles that is no doubt hailed in the spirit of modern art as a mind blowing work of genius by some, and dismissed as more worthless than a pile of steaming dogturd on the pavement by others. If you're one of those people who will eagerly lap up anything that's different just because it's different, then this is one for you to watch. But if, like me, you only like originality when the resulting product is actually good, then I'd recommend you to steer well clear of "Mind Game". No one can deny that the style of "Mind Game" is quite unique, but I for one found it to be obnoxiously pretentious. If I wanted to admire some diabolical scrawl such as this, I can go and ogle at the "masterpieces" that my younger brother drew in school when he was about 10. Or maybe not, since those are probably better drawn than "Mind Game". Underneath the crazy presentation lies a crazy adventure story. Just like the "FLCL" and "Dead Leaves", the crazy bits made me switch off totally, but brushing those issues aside, the rest of the movie (the little there is left) is strangely compelling, and I sometimes found myself totally drawn towards its powerful message of taking risks and living life to the full. The story itself has its moments of worth, and there is a surprising amount of character development. And undeniably, there are some moments of comedy genius (like the bit where the main guy tries to drive the car like James Bond) that had me helpless with laughter, but overall there's just too much crap mixed into this movie for my liking. The ending also sucks bad - if I understood it correctly, then it makes the rest of the movie even less worthwhile. In conclusion, "Mind Game" is certainly an interesting anime in parts, but I don't think those few parts of interest are enough to salvage this wreck of a movie.