Sin: The Movie

This was yet another weak video game based anime like Fatal Fury. The plot had more cliches per minute than almost any other anime I have seen. The animation varied from really quite nice to absolutely terrible. Even the action sequences boring. Only watch this movie if you really have nothing else. I give it a 3.

In one hour you can't see much. It's not at AKIRA's level or close. It's pretty average mostly because is too short. The plot is too simple: mutans going rampage then it stops without a clear ending, something is missing. It's a nice watch if you don't have anything to watch. If they would made SIN: series I would watch.

I played the game back in 1998 or whenever and thought it was pretty good as far as single player first-person shooters went. The world of SiN stayed in my mind so naturally I was interested when I came across a movie version when browsing video store shelves (more of a TV special - got to remember to check the running time when renting anime). On the cover there was a quote from a magazine "sets a new benchmark for game-related anime" which was good enough for me.

What troubled me as I was watching SiN was that the world had been completely dispensed with, Blade's assistant gets killed off in the opening scenes. It became apparent that the SiN character(s) had been grafted on to an independently written story. Blade was something of a detective in the game, in the movie he's just someone holding a gun. Anyone could have taken his place. On its own merits the story is average at best, suitable to be played on TV once and that's it (too boring to warrant being on DVD shelves worldwide in my opinion). Basically a SiN movie has never been made but if you like the look of Blade and want to see his likeness in an average 50 minute anime, then this is your ticket.

Okay, this is a rather bad movie. I'm sorry, it just is. However, it's hilarious in that way! Anyways, on with the plot/summary. The big action hero "John Blade" is a cop, and he's one of those "mean" cops but does it to be nice (you know). And then there's the evil corporation, SiNtech. Which, apparently no one thinks they are evil... Even though they are called SIN and they operate out of a GIANT EVIL looking black TOWER. So it turns out SiN is making crazy monsters to take over the world, and of course Blade is the only one who can stop them. Also, all the other cops are apparently on SiNtechs side, so there. ANYWAYS, this movie is worth watching for the lines "cut him off!" (sounds hilarious) and my all time favorite dialog exchange that goes something like this... "Your hand's cold... Why is it like that" "Well you know what they say." What do they say? They don't tell you, the next line does not allude to it at all. I personally know of no such phrase... Any help is appreciated. One last little observation, all the cars/planes/what-have-you belonging to the cops are all marked 66. Probably making it hard for them to contact each other...

I personally have not played much of the game this is "based" on, but I'm sure it is not as bad as this was. Good for a laugh if you have a few friends and are REALLY tired (seriously). This movie is just over-the-top, but in a ludicrous way, things happen that don't make sense, and not in the "smart" or "scary" or "cool" way, in the "what the f... HAHAHA!" way.

I watched this on DVD and it looked really promising until the end of the opening credits. The prologue before the open credits was really interesting but it seemed to be the only part of the plot in which character was explored. The credits themselves looked vibrantly rendered (CG of course) and very swish indeed... I only wish that the film had come across so well.

From the odd pacing to the strange mix-and-match direction it was a bit of a let down. Though I like storylines that require one to engage brain, I believe this plot was poorly explained. Very little character history was explained and in some places the directorial disregard for chronological order fell short of artful and ended up at annoyingly ambiguous.

The backgrounds are really beautifully painted but in places there are computer graphic effects that fail to be integrated nicely into the cell shading. I cringed physically as I watched the Adobe lens flares fly across the screen and computer effects used where good simple animation would have done just fine.

If you want to enjoy this production I really suggest you check your brain at the door. Contains violence, explosions, mutants and a scantily clad evil bad girl... not really enough to save it, in my opinion. I won't rewatch it in a hurry.