Lady Death

I must say that I was sort of thrilled when I found this animated movie by sheer luck on Amazon. I had been reading the Lady Death comics back prior to 2004, and then stopped, and gotten out of the loop, so I had no idea that an animated movie was in the works. And by sheer luck I happened to come across it, so of course I bought it to see what it was.

First of all, if you are familiar with the art style found in the Lady Death comic books, be warned that there is an Anime/Manga style influence to the art style in the animated movie. This might not sit well with just anybody, but personally, I found it to be alright. Although the original art style would have been (and is) better. However, I will say that in itself, then this particular art style was alright, and there were some nice details and appearances to some of the damned legion that were seen in Hell.

The story, quickly summarized, is about Hope, the daughter of Matthias, who finds out about her father's dark and unholy secret. Burnt as a witch, Hope calls out to her father and ends up in Hell. Here she sheds her identity and becomes Lady Death, hellbent on taking revenge on Lucifer, the Lord of Lies.

Right, well the storyline itself was simple and easy to follow, and would be a great introduction to those not having read the comic books. Was it impressive? Well, yeah, if you haven't already read the comic books. If you have read them, then this approach to the story of Lady Death is sort of a mediocre one.

If you watch this animated movie, forget what you know from having read the comic books, and just watch this for the entertainment. It have what you need in an animated movie; demons, carnage, Hell, and scantily clad women.

I enjoyed the "Lady Death" comic series. I enjoy anime. Let me rephrase that. I enjoy well done anime. This isn't well done. The script follows the comic series closely, the voice acting is competent, but the animation is every bit as wretched as an episode of Pokemon, and that can't be considered a compliment no matter how you twist it. With better animation, a whole series of direct-to-video films could have been launched. Now I pray that doesn't happen. Films like this have one shot to make it, so one would think that the producers would spend the money to make them beautiful. If they did that, then they could even slack off a bit on the animation quality of subsequent entries into the series. Instead, this one started with crap and has nowhere to go but downhill. I won't deny that some of the backgrounds are gorgeous, but animated film focuses on that which is animated... characters moving about. It is there that "Lady Death:TMP" fails dismally.

First of all, the critics of this movie are really over-exaggerating. Just because everybody isn't an anime geek that drools over animated (i.e. NOT REAL) females that are nothing more than lines drawn on a page doesn't make this a horrible movie. It's funny, I think I even heard Ralph Bakshi mentioned in one review. Yeah, the guy that did Wizards. sigh. Anyway, I didn't mind the story of a "heroine" in hell wanting to take out Lucifer. Gave it a more "casual watcher" appeal than to see a bunch of evil killing machines wanting to outdo each other. It wasn't spectacular by any means, but it's a cartoon for pete's sake. Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to offend the fanboys. I mean "animated feature". Whatever. Cremator was a cool character and they gave as much of a story to the main parts without overdoing it. Not something I would watch over and over but wasn't a waste of the time I spent watching it. I did wonder if things died in hell, did they just come back to hell? That was an anomaly I think you have to suspend disbelief about so you don't get a headache. Another thing was that they could have had a much better ending battle. But it was a basic animated movie with more violence than what you'd want a kid to be watching, so I didn't expect the moon and emmys. And for all of you freakshows that want "nudity" and "realism", here's an idea. Watch a movie with real people in it and quit complaining that you don't get to see "cartoon porn".

First of all, I'd like to tell you that I'm into comics, anime, animation and such stuff. It is true that everyone has his own preferences, but you can trust me on this movie. I'll be objective. To begin with the story - it's OK. Follows the story line of the comic books as far as I'm familiar with them. But the animation... Well, it's not actually terrible, but it's definitely cheap and mediocre. It would be a lot better if they didn't try to imitate the anime style and sticked to the original comic book style drawings. If we pretend not to see the rare sloppy effects like fire and lightnings you could tell that the movie is made about 10 years ago and even more. Looks a little bit like the original Vampire Hunter D from 1985. Take a look at Heavy Metal FAKK 2000 for instance - 4 years ago they made a movie that looks a hell lot better! In addition to this the voice talents do nothing remarkable, the music is nothing special. So all in all - it lacks atmosphere. I watched it, but I cannot tell I really enjoyed it. It just does not capture you. There's plenty of blood and violence, but that does not impress me at all. May be it will be shocking for someone who was never watched more mature oriented animations and sees animated blood for the first time (is there anyone around?), but I don't think this is the audience for this movie. So they could add a little nudity and spice to it. The chicks around Lucifer were quite tasty, and hell, we have Lady Death herself! There are few sexy looks, but that's not enough. Instead of Bill Brown's music I think it would look better on a hard rock / heavy metal soundtrack. All in all - the movie isn't that bad, but if you want something better take the original Heavy Metal, Heavy Metal FAKK 2000, Ralph Bakshi's Fire and Ice or Wizards maybe. And of course - Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust

There's really no way to beat around the bush in saying this, Lady Death: The Motion Picture just plain sucks. Aside from the fact that the main character is a well endowed blonde running around Hell in a leather bikini with occasional spurts of graphic violence, the movie seems to have been made with the mentality of a 1980's cartoon based on a line of action figures. The bad guy himself even talks like a Skeletor wannabe, has the obligatory inept henchman, and lives in a lair that looks to have been patterned after the domain of the villain from the old Saturday morning Blackstar cartoon. Just don't expect any humor other than the sometimes howlingly bad dialogue. At other times it feels like the kind of anime tale better suited to hentai, yet there is no sex, no tentacle rape (Thank goodness!) and very little sex appeal, this despite the physical appearance of the title character. There is simply no adult edge to this material, unless you count the half-naked heroine and bloody deaths. Essentially, what we have here is a feature length episode of She-Ra, Princess of Power, but with skimpier clothes and more gore.