Le Roi cerf

One part Mononoke, one part Maquia, and a third part season 3 of Attack on Titan. This should have been a full season of a show instead of a film, which completely hobbles its coherency. I know nothing of the pedigree of the writers and filmmakers and I wanted to like it more, but its a complete mess.

The opening is lovely the way it tells its story totally visually and practically dialogue-free, but the pacing is horribly rushed from there, plot points and exposition are delivered multiple times, its unclear who is with/against who at any time - especially in the third act - and our main character is passive and hardly developed outside of what happens/happened TO him. It ends up feeling like three movies all competing to be the main story instead of a cohesive, satisfying whole.

Our showing began with a message from Ando, the director, who seems like a very sweet, introverted guy who just wanted to make the best film he could. He's a great visualist, so don't be too hard on him. After working with Miyazaki, Kon & Shinkai, he has impossibly big shoes to fill.