Kaena: La prophétie (2003) Reviews

• Classic plot, beautifully rendered

  gtran2003-06-08

  Presented as the first full-length 3D-generated animated movie from France, Kaena was first an idea for a video game that was expanded into a `real' movie. A fantasy/sci-fi tale, it takes place on of flying forest made of gigantic vines inhabited by a tribe of humans, who, in order to appease their gods, must harvest the sap of the vines. Trouble is, the harvest is no longer what it was and the gods are somewhat angry. A young woman, Kaena, who looks like a cross between Lara Croft and Princess Mononoke, understands that the gods are up to no good, and fights them with the help of unexpected allies and funny sidekicks. The plot follows the well-used pattern where a young misfit must save the world from dark forces, battle monsters and unearth world-shattering secrets, and the script borrows from many previous ones (fans of French sci-fi comics will recognise bits of the `Adventures of Alef-Thau', written in the 80s by Alexandro Jodorowski, who is also credited on Kaena). The script is also certainly quite European in spirit, with more overt sexuality and a indictment of religion probably unimaginable in a mainstream US-made cartoon. While a little lacking in plot, Kaena mostly succeeds as pure eye-candy. Since the representation of realistic humans is still out of reach for computer graphics (Cf. the mixed results in Final Fantasy), the authors have chosen a half-comic-book style (like in Ice Age) which is quite pleasant, at least if you like people with really big eyes. The movie creatures are quite nice, particularly the talkative worms with their tired faces and their walking and flying devices. But it's the sets which are the most beautiful, with a particular attention to lighting, colouring and texturing: many scenes are shot in a golden light, slightly overexposed with lens flares and other atmospheric effects. The mixture of quasi-photorealism and more traditional CG style works quite well. The vine forest, the village and the spaceship scenes are exceptionally rendered, and among the most beautiful seen in a CG-rendered movie so far. The world of the gods, by contrast, has a dark, liquid and sticky feel (the gods themselves are liquid, gigeresque creatures) with bright shining reflections, and is truly original. Sometimes, there's a little too much of everything, as if the movie was a demo for CG effects (hair, particle systems, volumetrics.), not unlike the first Technicolor movies where everything had to be brightly coloured. But that doesn't detract from the WOW! Factor of the movie. All in all, Kaena is a very recommendable movie, and one can hope that the authors will follow with a bolder script.

• Judged on its own terms, this is a lovely film.

  docstrange2004-09-28

  This movie reminded me, more than anything else, of "Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within." I think that critics of movies like these sometimes criticize them for being A: animated, and B: science fiction. That's sort of like criticizing "Terminator" or "Lord of the Rings" because, as one reviewer wrote: "that could never happen." Well, yeah. I mean, isn't that the point, to create something that can only exist in the imagination? I have a hard time seeing the relevance of comparing "Kaena" even to other animated features like "Toy Story" or "Ice Age." SciFi is a genre unto itself and needs to be judged on its own terms. "Kaena" is a fully-realized fantasy. It has a comprehensive story, background and setting. The voice-over narration (English) is particularly good, especially Kirsten Dunst in the title role. The only real criticism I have is that the quality of the animation is uneven, ranging between mid-90's video game at one extreme and almost breathtaking at the other. The choice of a very muted color palate for most of the scenes doesn't quite make up in atmosphere for what it loses in vibrancy and realism. Overall, I give "Kaena" an 8 based on the strength of its story and characters.

• An artful montage with a single story.

  seals_jay2004-12-28

  Have you ever played a game on the PS2, PC or XBOX and just drooled over the cut-scenes, those small cinematic snippets shown between levels? This entire movie, scene after scene, *is just like that*. And I'll tell you why: when it was originally conceived by the director and writer, that is precisely what they had intended to do... they wanted to create a game. Looking at the "Special Features" and the Making-Of featurette on the DVD before watching the movie, I learned quite a lot about why and how it was made. The majority of the CG artists who worked on this film were, at first, all novices, most of whom had some minor experience in doing CG game work. When they first started on "Kaena", the 3D software darling of Hollywood, Maya, hadn't even come out on the market. These CGI animators were all using, basically, a freeware 3D modeling/animation suite. They worked on a shoestring budget, I might add, which is one of the reasons why all of their animators were so inexperienced and were learning as they went along. Their animation/CG crew began as a five-man team and eventually grew to 50 persons at any given time. At a few key points they had up to 100 people working on the entire project, but most of the time they had a fairly core group of people all working in the same office building. Looking at the scenes individually, I can definitely see where they gave certain scenes to certain teams- as a 3D artist myself, I've gotten quite adept at picking out different styles and techniques used. MOST of the biggest differences between the scenes can be found in the lighting setups, which in some spots are breath-takingly exquisite and at other times amateurish at best. Due to the original intention for this project to be a video game rather than a feature-length film, I can totally understand why the storyline would have some plot holes here and there- I expect that those gaps would have been filled in during gameplay. So taking that into account, I can honestly say that this film has a pretty solid storyline and some fairly well fleshed-out characters, all things considered. It is also good to keep in mind that this story wasn't written by "professional" sci-fi writers- it was written, in part, by the director who hadn't done anything like this before in his life. Looking at the entire project with the trained eye of someone who's been involved with the business for a couple years now, I think that "Kaena" is not only a superb film, but it is a testament to what is possible when enough people throw themselves into a project like this. No major studio backing, no major software endorsement, no real experience in this field whatsoever... it's amazing that it even got rendered, let alone having been edited, scored, printed and distributed worldwide. This movie is similar to "Final Fantasy" only in the sense that it was done completely with CGI. In every other way, however, this one stands alone and it SHOULD be given the proper credit that is due.

• Final Fantasy meets Fantastic Planet

  0rganism2004-11-11

  OK, let's get the bad news out of the way right now. The plot is weak. There are some gaping silly holes in the story, numerous unexplained critter origins, shaky science, and a few threads that don't resolve at all. Automatic scoring deductions, across the board. So what's good about the movie? First, the graphics. This is the natural evolution of French animation, of which there isn't nearly enough. Rene' Laloux's "Fantastic Planet" is one of the all-time animated psychotropic classics, and there is much in this film that pays homage to it: the visuals of the Axis "forest", the xenomorphic life forms, the conflict between master and slave races, etcetera. At the same time, the animation technique is the sort of hyper-real CGI used in Final Fantasy/Spirits Within, where each hair follicle is individually rendered. Like these two sibling films, Kaena abounds with brilliant bong hit graphics and mind-bending action sequences. One common pitfall for animated features, particularly those of foreign origin, is the voice acting. To its immense credit, Kaena has a fairly decent dub, and I felt none of the accustomed grumpiness that comes with de-synced speech for any of the characters. The main characters were all well voiced. The IMDb cast list doesn't appear to mention all the voice actors, and I'm pretty sure the little kid was voiced by the same person who plays Shippo on Inuyasha (Jillian Michaels?). Sounds that way, at least. However, while the voice acting is fine, the same cannot be said for the dialog. Long in exposition and short in character development, I get the feeling that this was an editor's nightmare. The balance between ensuring that people understand events and helping them care about the consequences of those events can be a difficult one to achieve. This has been the bane of science fiction films since the genre's inception. Unfortunately, dialog in Kaena finds a way to fail on both sides of the equation -- albeit at different times. Without revealing any more details, I will say this much. The story tries to operate on a grand scale, but is undercut by the uneven development, jerky scene transitions, mediocre dialog, and the aforementioned plot-holes. This is a film to be enjoyed as a raw sensory experience, not as a total cinematic product. It's not going to end up on any top-20-all-time lists and its pretensions to epic film status are undercut by its many weaknesses. The overall effect, however, is extraordinary; it merits viewing as an exploration of what can now be accomplished with CGI. I enjoyed it immensely from this perspective, to the point where I was quite distracted from the numerous shortcomings.

• Kaena, a fight for freedom....

  millinay20012005-03-01

  Kaena has been produced both by Canadians and French so to those who might be wondering, Canada being a bilingual country, this film has been made both for English and French audiences from the start. Kaena is a lovely orphan who lives on her own. People from her village toil incessantly in a desperate attempt to satisfy their God's thirst for a certain material, which they're having more and more trouble to produce. Kaena being somewhat on the edge of that society, having no authority above her is the only one who is not working and therefore she can afford to take some time to think. Thinkings gets her to doubt what she has been taught about Gods and fearing for her people's safety she sets out to discover the depths of the threat that these Gods have been enslaving her people with. This film is a journey to the truth and a quest for freedom. Will Kaena find what she seeks? Will her people be saved from the wrath of the Gods? If you wanna know just go and watch it because despite what some may think of the outfits of Kaena or of the designs, all you will see is a great show of colors and of emotions. Those who have been seeking humour in that film have been misled because this film was intended to bring the viewers to a state of emotion and to reflect upon some struggles humanity still has to face. Far from being a movie for the kids, it is suitable for teenagers, young adults and older viewers alike. I have seen it in French but since i'm a native speaker it was no problem for me but the choice is up to you.