Yar, you be here: Avalon > Customer Reviews

Avalon Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 28 Reviews)

Avalon Booting...Message: Yes, It's Time to Choose
Avalon is directed by Mamoru Oshii, who also made the 'Ghost in the Shell' movies. He sticks with his trademark theme: a lot of action takes place in a "borderline" (his phrase) realm, i.e. in a virtual 'reality'. This time, however, the virtual reality is instantiated into a video game world and not an external memory system (an internet) or a person's memory system as in the 'Ghost in the Shell' movies. 'Avalon', though, seems very original. This is the first time I have ever really loved a movie based on a video game (here, of course, I think the video game is make-believe). Another video game based movie is 'eXistenZ', a movie rich in similar philosophical puzzles, but I found it boring and slightly silly. 'Avalon', however, soars above 'eXistenZ' in just about every way.

The dialogue in 'Avalon' is actually fully compatible with what westerners would normally expect, a surprise since Oshii is a eastern minded thinker and his films give off a vibe that sometimes seem foreign to us western minded people (this is no reason to miss out on his great films, for even 'The Matrix' is eastern minded in parts). Much of Oshii's past work was with mature anime and CG films. 'Avalon' has a lot of anime and CG in it, but only in the same way that a typical Star Wars movie does. 'Avalon' breaks with the director's tradition and goes with actual human actors, real tanks, real city locations (filmed on location in Poland, but some scenes are done with actors against a blue screen and computers filling in the set later). And some of the other elements, such as the helicopters, are later done by special effects people.

The film was first shot in full color, but by purpose it was digitized and redone so that each shot was edited into mostly black and white in various degrees and shades, but with some color mixed in here and there, e.g. the computer text is in sepia (orange looking to me), a ghost has blue streaks, a hologram is rainbow colored, and the end of the film is in full color. In one scene all the green was edited out from an outside hospital set to represent its lifelessness.

The film, then, is an artistic film with great beauty and care taken to get the director's vision on screen (at least until the American version changed it, as other reviewers noted). Another typical trait of art films is long pauses for effect (as in 2001 and Solaris), and 'Avalon' does have parts that dwell on the action and situation, but for good effect and good reasons (for the most part, that is, except I could have done without even an extra second of a certain scene watching someone eat in a disgusting way!). For example, we hear a classical opera piece twice, and we hear it almost all the way through both times. The first time the piece is translated for us and we are given information about the city environment, but the second time the song is not translated and the information is a little less; I felt it could have been trimmed a little the second time or used as background with some more scenes added to tell us more about the secret level. However, I thought the movie moved along at a solid pace and never went long without giving important information. But if you don't love intricate video games, then you might discount the information!

The story follows a heroine, Ash (her player name), in her love and addiction to playing a video game, called 'Avalon'. Game portals are stationed at a decaying, back alley building in game rooms. She gets plugged into the game by sitting in a dentist-like chair and pulling on a metal helmet (with wires dangling everywhere). She looks lifeless as she sits in the chair, and she seems exhausted when she awakes from playing -- sometimes players never awake and run the risk of becoming brain dead vegetables. Ash is not afraid of the risk; she is very courageous and driven. She is one of the top players on the game. It is a virtual reality game with multiple players. It shares the same feature with 'The Matrix' in that some programs she meets in the game will be other players and some will be purely digital programs, however; one doesn't die when one dies in the game (but one does run the risk of becoming brain dead, but actually by the end of the movie this risk is lower and more secretive than what is initially said about it -- one must get into a secret level to become brain dead and it's a difficult task to get there).

The actual video game is revealed to us in very small bits of information. At first it just looks like a first person war game (which would be dreadfully boring for me) in which one walks around shooting tanks, helicopters, and other players. But the more you watch, the more the game gets more interesting. The game players can have different types of classes: warrior (like Ash), thief, mage, and bishop. The addition of classes of players makes it more like a game in the tradition of Diablo or Baldur's Gate, except in a war setting and with missions to complete. One can also form teams with other players. Ash plays alone, for the most part, and she seems to make some money playing the game. Players get paid depending on how well they play. They also have to pay-to-play, and this restricts them in certain ways: we hear that Ash cannot switch to bishop class without playing so much that she would probably run out of money (which is odd given that she seems to make a good amount of money in the process of playing).

The plot gets a lot deeper into some philosophical questions, which I'll mostly pass over here. But some plot points to remember: the game seems to be never-ending, and Ash hears about a secret level in which one can either beat the game or get a heck of a lot of skill points. To get to the secret level, Ash has to find a ghost and shoot it, so she teams up with a bishop and gets help to try to enter the secret level.

The secret level is a simulated real world, just like 'The Matrix' simulation, in which Ash has to kill someone to complete her mission. Rules: she can only leave the level if she completes her mission, so she becomes brain dead on earth if she fails her mission; she only gets one clip of bullets, one hand gun, and some vague directions. But she seems to know just where to go, luckily, because it looks like she has a whole city to navigate.

Some who get to the secret level like it so much that they decide to never leave, on purpose. Ash faces the same choice: succeed and go back to reality or stay in the borderline world forever. Apparently the mission is actually pretty easy to complete, and the only difficulty is that many players do not want to complete it, because they do not want to leave (and for no other reason really). I thought the opposite: I thought the level would be really challenging.

The secret level seems realistic to the point that one would wonder whether she would ethically want to walk up to the target and shoot him\her, a normal looking person, but she is smart, she knows it's just a game and no one can 'really' die. But is this true? Do people who choose to stay there (and let their bodies go brain dead) die when they get killed? It seems so to me, since their mind is their identity (or at least it is something important enough to them to choose to stay in the game forever) and it still exists on the game, but their body is unplugged and over at a hospital. So she has to possibly really kill a person (i.e., if she has to kill another player who went brain dead, then that player's mind and only existing identity is destroyed for good) in order to fulfill her mission, which she seems to have no ethical problems with! But I did!

However, I thought its overall scenery and beauty was startling and I thought it was very thoughtful throughout, a visionary work that is nearly as good as the 'Ghost in the Shell' movies -- and even a little better in a few respects: it doesn't have long winded philosophical treatises for dialogue and it doesn't seem very eastern minded. The only eastern minded aspect was the problem of dualism: while one's mind is in the secret level, one's body -- at the same time -- can be transported to a hospital and one's body is completely unplugged from the game; therefore, we find that players that were previously brain dead are still floating around in the game (or, that is, their minds are). I found it very, very odd! Do the brain dead people come back to life when their minds are killed in the game? I think not since their bodies aren't even hooked in!

I loved the intricate detail in this movie. The dark, bleak atmosphere reminded me of the 'Blade Runner' environment, without the neon lights. I highly recommend it.


Good plot!
A woman is addicted to an illegal war game. She's one of the top warriors of the game and even makes her living by playing it. Her goal is to be the first to complete it. Along the way she learns of a secret level that can only be accessed by top players. Unlike the rest of the game, once you enter this level there is no going back. If you die - you die in real life, but if you win....


I thought the premise of the movie was pretty interesting, but I had read a couple of bad reviews about it. After seeing it, I have to disagree. I thought this was a VERY interesting movie.

The movie itself is slow moving and "arty" by nature, which is probably where it received the poor reviews. Because the game is a war game, I can see where some people would get the notion that it would have more action and thrills. However, the point of the movie is not the game. The focus is her and how her life is wrapped up in the game - not the game itself. So please keep that in mind before deciding to purchase/view the movie.

One of the best features is that the movie starts off with dull shades and once Ash proceeds to the secret level, everything is flooded with rich colors. It really helps to set the theme. Also the slower pace helps create the atmosphere that she lives in. It has a quicker pace during the game and very slow in the real world. Another interesting aspect is that the movie was by a Japanese crew, but the actors were Polish, which only adds to the unique style of the film.

The cons of the flick were character development and special effects. It would have enhanced the movie a bit more if they went into better detail of what happened to Ash when she was in team "Wizard." (They give the basics, but not enough to help the audience identify with her.) This would give more credit to her loner-style. As for special effects - given that they probably didn't have a high budget to start and the year it was made they did a decent job, but having a faster paced game with more intense explosions (and not quite so much dust) it might have made it a bit more suspenseful.

Overall I'd give it a 4. Although this movie is good already, it has mass potential in a remake.

An artistic film with a point
This movie's filmmaker (Mamoru Oshii) seems to be Japanese, so I wanted to match it since they make very fun movies in East Asia (think of Final Fantasy) But I didn't care the cast is European (Polish), people who usually make quite boring movies when trying to make artistic films. There are people who can swallow the artistic thing, but others like me just can't.

At least this product has an interesting message about how people uselessly try to enlighten their pity lives with mere illusions. The heroine character, Ash, has a boring and rather austere live that is enlightened by playing futuristic 3rd dimension games up to the grade that she makes a live from it. Yet, it doesn't make her a much fulfilled person. Her quality of live is good compared with others around her, but still austere overall as the film stresses scenes where she has to cook without all the stuff you get in USA or her dark and tiny apartment.

The best artistic characteristics are the extremely long static scenes of Ash's normal live where she commutes, walks or they simply show a hall. The film keeps you watching the train's wagon for minutes and minutes in order to contrast the fantasy action from her games with what her real life is. You will a need a strong artistic (if it's the proper name) sense to enjoy; I only used the quick play with these scenes. I'm not very positive if suing the actual colors of the movie would have made this product more enjoyable as the first reviewer said when claiming Miramax replaced the original "washed out" color for deep orange, or I would say dark yellow. The real point of Mamoru must have been showing the sad Ash's life.

Up to this point we could say that the movie is excellent, but from time to time they don't explain very well what is going on over there. For example, one reviewer commented that the mentioned a legend about King Arthur without making clear how it related to the movie, I agree, and our misunderstanding should not be due to fast DVD playing since (at least me) only played quick the silent scenes. Perhaps the purpose was to show the senseless life of all people in this movie.

I didn't like this film but it doesn't mean I can deny it has good points shown as it ought be, even when they make the movie boring becauase this may have been their very point: life is boring (actually pathetic) when you avoid reality.

Finally, I want to thank other reviewers for mentioning similar movies to this one (something about a ghost) so I know what to keep away next time!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Next Page