Lily C.A.T.

Lily C.A.T.'s characters aren't the most original, nor is the plot. But if you like anime, you should get some enjoyment out of this film. There are some good scenes in it, and it may have been better had the script been cleaned up a little.

To me, and presumably a number of others, there was something special about Robotech. For all it's many convolutions it was lightning in a bottle. The energy, the complex sci-fi packaged in a youth demo-graph, the richly drawn characters struggling against real darkness and danger, the music and everything else. There has been a lot of similar anime that has fallen far short, not least the turgid, corporate 'Shadow Chronicles'. So the fact that lily C.A.T. was brought to us by the same people that constructed Robotech potentially promised something special, or at least something in that familiar style. Pleasingly, the animation is pretty much the same, and several familiar voice actors crop up, but ultimately the question would be whether it stacks up on it's own.

The story is disappointingly derivative, in equal part to 'Alien' and 'The Thing'. There are a few interesting ideas, mainly concerning suspended animation over long periods in deep space travel, and time and effort has gone into the ship design and the future technology, but it is essentially nothing new. The story concerns a deep space expedition that travels to a distant planet to investigate the possibility of habitation but along the way is contaminated with some form of alien life which eventually starts picking the passengers and crew off one by one. Add to this an A.I. that has it's own agenda and two passengers that are not who they claim to be and we are ready to go down a pretty familiar path. Telling an old tale is always forgivable if it is done inventively and with energy and I would say, in this regard, that lily C.A.T. gets a pass mark. It is more problematic, I feel, in it's indecision over whether it is more for adults or for kids. There is some horror and some of the concepts are quite adult yet it fails at creating an adult internal reality. Mostly in regards to the characters reactions to some pretty horrific events. It might well work for more adventurous younger viewers but it is hard for me to say. The characters are mostly interesting and well realized but their interaction falls way short of the mark for adult sensibilities which is generally not the case with Macross, Mospeada and Southern Cross, or Robotech.

I refer to these other anime mainly because it would be hard to recommend Lily C.A.T. on it's own. A fan of the aforementioned franchises would have a much better chance with this than a random viewer. This, like Robotech is storytelling on the cusp between adolescence and the adult, and that would be a problem for some, who had no prior fondness for the work of Carl Macek and his ilk. Ultimately, for lovers of Robotech I would recommend Lily C.A.T. as worth the effort. It may not be a masterpiece but it definitely has that same mood and feel. It has that sense of energy and fun for the most part and it's flaws are there, but it can still be enjoyed if you are in the mood to be generous with it.

Lily C. A. T. (1987) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime and tells the tale of a space expedition that includes people who don't know each other from all over the world. Shortly after their expedition starts they discover there's some people on the ship that weren't intended for the trip. When people start dying the people will need to work together to try and figure out who the stowaways are, even if they know they may be working with the people they're trying to find.

This movie was directed by Hisayuki Toriumi (Gatchaman) and contains the voices of Masako Katsuki (Ninja Scroll), Eiko Yamada (Metal Gear Solid), Chikao Ôtsuka (Lupin the 3rd), Yoshiko Sakakibara (Ghost in the Shell 2.0) and Tesshô Genda (Akira).

The animation for this was classic 80s and reminded me of a not as good G. I. Joe. The ghost/monster elements in this were pretty good and entertaining. There were also some good kill scenes and gore. The storyline was just okay and felt like an Alien knockoff a little. My favorite part of the movie was the cat.

Overall this is an above average addition the genre that is worth seeing once. I would score this a 6/10.

Inspired by Alien, The Thing and the novel Forever War.

This movie caught my attention because the plot sounded similar to Alien and The Thing. It was very heavily inspired by those two movies, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The movie took elements from those two and created its own story. The story itself was very interesting at times, but unfortunately the short run time made the pacing way too fast, plot wise. There were several scenes of the crew members bickering amongst themselves, and the interesting reveals were very short. For the story it was trying to tell, it would have been better to be 2 hours long, rather than 70 minutes. I would have liked to see more about the plot lines that gave more character development, rather than the action scenes. It was also unfortunate that you never even got to see what the planet they were trying to get to looked like.

The animation and music were very typical of the 80s, something you can't really knock points off of for. The voice acting was pretty good, I liked all the different accents each character had, depending on where they came from. The design for the cat, Lily, was also very cute and realistic.

If you are a cat/animal lover, be warned: Lily the cat does die. She dies in a horribly gory and disturbing fashion. She's sucked into a wall and her body explodes into a mess of blood and gore. Once you see her owner crying and freaking out while facing a door, it's going to happen.