Reviews

The main plotline concerning Kenji and the Jinnouchi family is straight out of an 80's sitcom. Here it works though because the tone of the film is quite quirky. Kenji of course plays the socially awkward doesn't really know how to act in front of people card for most of the movie. The family of course is a very eccentric bunch with each having their own personality traits of what makes them unique. This plotline plays all the bases that you've seen in many a story. It's handled better than most though because it lets us spend time with the family and all their quirky quirkiness. However it still is a pretty cliché storyline. The family does what one would expect a family like this to do: tease Kenji, be protective of Natsuki, be loud, eat a lot it's all here. There are some genuinely funny bits in here like the final battle being spliced with the aunt's cheering of the baseball team and the moving of the ice blocks and the grandma giving the beat down to one of her family members so it has that going for it. It does however have one more purpose that is executed well in the story and that's it's juxtaposition.

While Kenji is off being awkward OZ is hacked. A hacker is stealing accounts by the hundreds, destroying crucial parts of OZ and in general is causing a mess. It's known only as Love Machine. Love Machine is wreaking havoc upon the servers of OZ and unfortunately the first account it stole and grew from was Kenji's so he's the main suspect. Nobody can defeat Love Machine not even the greatest fighter in OZ King Kazma. Love Machine begins to mess with traffic lights, entire cities and even power supply plants and satellites. Since everything and everyone is connected to OZ when shit starts to go down it really does. So it looks like it's up to Kenji and the power of family to defeat him (yes I know how dumb that sounded).

This is where the film really gets it right in my opinion. You usually can't have a plot that has a sweet family/romantic story combined with kick ass action without one of the two feeling forced however due to the fact that they pretty much take place in two different worlds it works. I like the feeling that we're getting two complete stories in one and that makes the film's somewhat lengthy running time for these types of stories feel a lot more bearable. The two stories work with each other in a balance that comes into full play at the climax of the film which makes it feel all worthwhile. It can sometimes come off as comedic though whenever someone is defeated in OZ and it cuts back to the real world I'm reminded of the one World of Warcraft episode of South Park. It's still a great way to tell a story though and it works well in its favor.

Let's talk about the animation shall we? The animation for the world of OZ is really nice to look at. I usually don't like when CG is used in hand drawn animation but in the world of OZ it obviously fits. I like how dynamic the avatars can get and the animation for a lot of the big action scenes which include of all things a card game. I don't really know how to describe any other way really but the cinematography (which I guess you can't really call it that but whatever) is well done with the quote "camera" weaving in and out of the action well. The animation in the real world though is a little less impressive. It feels kind of unnerving and artificial. Movements are kind of jerky and stiff and it kind of makes me feel uncomfortable. It works well enough but I've seen this animation style from other projects before and it produced the same emotions for me there. Maybe that's the director's intent but I've never really been a fan of this style. Voice acting is also pretty good as well not much really to complain about here since everybody does their roles essentially the way they should be done but nothing really here to write home about either.

Summer Wars is overall worth a look. If you can get past the clichés of the family story and the predictable plot you should have a good time. I give it three and a half stars out of five. Give it a spin in your DVD or Blu-Ray player and find out yourself.

3.5/5