RATING: *****
Creator: John Huang A.K.A counter656 (http://www.youtube.com/user/counter656)
Distributed by: Machinima.com (http://www.machinima.com/)
Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH4sHqDEjSg
In late April, a trailer appeared on the Machinima channel which caused considerable excitement. Simply called Megaman and Final Fantasy Preview (you can watch it again here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mKAr06HLmU) it was a delightfully retro stop-motion bonanza which left the subscribers hungry for more. Now they have the first film from talented Taiwanese filmmaker John Huang for Machinima.com, the aptly titled Final Fantasy Stop motion: Sephiroth The World's Enemy.
In terms of narrative the film combines elements of both the original Final Fantasy VII and the CGI animated sequel Advent Children, a straight-up fight between Cloud and Sephiroth punctuated by quieter moments, a new arrival to the fight and a melancholy ending. The detail and articulation on show from the readily available action figures is stunning and Huang's intense and stylish choreography is awe inspiring when consider the man-hours involved in filming it. The production is further flavoured by some impressive special effects and flourishes, a 360 panning shot blossoms into a field of flowers, Sephiroth unleashes a blistering array of spells and polystyrene pillars are sliced in two with satisfying weight. A truely superlative production given the recently flagging quality in Machinima.com's output, the exciting prospect of a follow-up featuring Halo: Reach figures indicates this suprise hit will continue to thrill. Until then, you can sample some of Huang's other work on his YouTube channel above, and follow his progress via Blogger (http://counter656-productions.blogspot.com/).
"If the critics were always right, we should be in deep trouble" - Robert Morely
No comments:
Post a Comment