Harlock: Space Pirate

Fans of the late 1970s Japanimation series Star Blazers will welcome Harlock: Space Pirate, an animated action feature rebooting yet another Japanese series of the same era, Space Pirate Harlock (see what they did there?).

In less than two hours of viewing, the audience receives thrilling depictions of steampunk-imagined spacecraft, visually arresting animated characters, and plenty of the action, turnabouts, and potboiling that anime is reputed to consistently supply.

This Harlock is rendered in 3D CG motion capture animation, leaving it occasionally astounding visually, occasionally off-putting in the way The Polar Express left us feeling, and occasionally looking like a coming attraction for PlayStation 5.

The backstory is interesting, but not much running time is given to fleshing it out.

After a brief expository sequence to open, followed by an election scene that puts the young leading man, Yama, onto the (badass) ship of the dread "space" "pirate" "Harlock," we're off and running into action sequences and (non) relationships as simple as a Chow Yun Fat crime film (the ones where Chow carries not one but two guns).

And it all works, because everything looks cool. Well, maybe not the bird resting on the pirate captain's shoulder, which to my tastes looks a little too Seussy to be acquainted with pirates.

The dialogue, more or less pedestrian, is the film's weak point. Perhaps after spending a reported $30 million on the 3D CG animation, the studio decided there weren't any doubloons left for rewrites or line polishing.

The film was released yesterday, Oct 12h at Sitges Film Festival, here in Barcelona. This is a brief summary of my impressions:

The first half hour of film announces an awesome movie: with a great intro the movie is presented visually stunning with a wonderful soundtrack, interesting characters, great action, but soon deflated by the poor script.

Note that this is a Harlock film where Harlock is not the main character!

The resources and ideas in some of the action scenes are weary of repeated over and over again...

The cinematography is great until after the first 45 minutes aprox. , then the film becomes very explanatory , with many dialogues and voice- overs. It's from there when the script becomes poor.

The changes in the character of Harlock are very large and they even betray the original spirit. In addition, i was tired with that "dark matter", an element of the movie used as a deus-ex-machina over and over again throughout the film.

A great opportunity is lost because the movies is visually stunning and the artistic design work is very good. If they had wrote a simple script , elaborated but not so complicated and keeping the essence of the character, the result would have been much better.

It's a shame, but i had an entertaining audiovisual 3D experience and i could discovered a beautiful soundtrack that i want to listen again and again imagining my ideal Harlock film.

This film started well and ended so complicated and, uff, how to say, empty. I just watched in these days the whole Evangelion and I have now this impression that Japanese people make things too complicated. At the end, this is no more an action movie, it is not a thriller, not a psychological movie, not a drama, it is just nothing. Like another reviewer said, there is this dark matter everywhere in this movie, all is dark matter, it is boring, one ship (and one man) can win against thousand powerful enemies just because of this dark matter. No plot, no fun. Then this "let's close the circle" mania of Japanese films, a bit like "luke I am your father", where all must be connected and find a meaning from itself, somehow onanistic cinematography. Just make things simple man! Good animations and good chances, but at the end, a mess.

Loved the ship and the battles but the story and the dialogues were cringe worthy.

Also Harlock here is a twisted individual not the awesome hero it is in the anime.

:/

I really like Japanese anime and I have come to expect good animation and deeply interesting stories, mixed with some Asian quirks. Harlock has almost none of that. The animation is 3D and even if pretty well done, in the end it is kind of repetitive and lazy. The story is a complete mess, combining classic pirate ideas with space opera kind of battles, only in - again - such a lazy way that it totally annoyed me.

Let me give you a taste: there is a space ship that is kind of indestructible and has an immortal captain. It battles the horrible manipulators of the human race which hold the Earth hostage as a possible reward for the faithful, who would be allowed to return. And they have a zillion ships and planet buster weapons, but this pirate captain faces them head on and wins, because... he has an indestructible ship. Every character in there is a bumbling idiot, switching allegiances and going 180 on every decision they made, until you don't get anymore what the movie is about and what the characters are fighting for.

Bottom line: a waste of time with nothing to teach except... flowers are pretty, I guess.