usualday Reviews

The Tick (1994–1997)

Poetry in motion.

[5 July 2004]

The Tick, the cartoon adaptation of the comic book that didn't see nearly enough comic stores. From an Australian perspective, the Tick cartoon series was the first tier of the Tick empire (spanning comic books to live action TV shows) that we experienced, and I must say that the cartoon series 'made it' for me.

With the addition of animation, a comic series has a whole new layer added to it, and in the case of the Tick, the layer only improved what was a solid comic performance. The voices are perfectly cast and the animation (while repetitive or slow at times) captures the illogical (and often insane) nature of the Tick's world.

I would say (after reading the comics and seeing the live action attempts) that the cartoon series stands at the top of the heap, bringing motion of intercharacter relationships to the mix, while still remaining true to the original ideas of the author (without becoming too corny). There is nothing like hearing one of the Tick's rants going on and on and making little to no sense and just laughing it off at the end. This sort of comedy ran into trouble in the comic form, having page upon page of text without action and in the live action form by having static actors on screen who could just not sustain the melodrama needed for this kind of satire.

In all, if you want to see heroic satire through the Tick, then the cartoon is the best medium to obtain it.

Escaflowne: The Movie (2000)

Standard movie for an excellent series

[15 June 2004]

I've just finished watching the entire series of Escaflowne and then the movie, and I must say that it was a let down (though not unexpected).

On the one hand you have a quality movie - great animation, more violence and adult themes than the series would allow and already complex characters (as they were taken from the series' in their totality, rather than their presentation at the beginning). On its own this movie had every potential to be great - decent story world and concept, the problem is that it fell into the limbo of relying on the series too much and too little.

The first half of the movie is truly a great watch - you see old faces and nods to secondary characters (the cats in the nightclub are a nice touch). The problem is that in the second half it sort of falls apart - it seems to lose focus and rely on clichés and poor on screen chemistry for the lovers.

The reason for this is that the first hour or so pretty much relies on the first few episodes of the series - girl meets boy but is afraid, the world itself is introduced and so forth, but in the last hour they try to cram the remaining 24 episodes of plot into the movie. While they negate a large amount of the less relevant details in the series, the fact that they try to throw a love that only develops at the end of 24 episodes of questioning (Between Hitomi and Van) into about 30 minutes, and it just seems forced.

So in the end the movie would've been better had it not relied on the overreaching plot of the series and made its own way in the world. (or maybe do the opposite and be set at the end of the series like the Evangelin movies).

At any rate, I did feel a little cheated by the apparent lack of mech fights and 'brother battle' at the end. 3/5