Yeah it is pretty bad. There were some scenes I thought were kinda pretty but they were all superseded by the overwhelmingly cheap looking doughy animation. The ugly and aesthetically dissonant designs really took away from my enjoyment of the film as I wanted to gag at every new jumbled hodgepodge of a character design that appeared. Even the titular Darkside who is clearly supposed to be this cool suave guy looks absolutely disgusting with his vampirelike cape and cowboy boots complete with spurs. Imagine if Dracula looked exactly the same but was wearing cowboy boots thats what Darkside looks like. The aesthetics of the films were not clearly defined and in my opinion I felt that Angels Egg did something similar but better. I think the plot was supposed to be about a vigilante group thats fighting a dictatorship / corporate monopoly that owns 99 of the world but the film never actually explains a lot of crucial plot points. Moreover the entire time theres just this floating magical god guy that helps them out sometimes Darkside?? He just appears from a flying horse drawn carriage out of a hole in the ground and his motivations for being there are never ever explained. Hes just there aiding the main characters at times but this doesnt seem to be his main objective? He heals the other characters somehow by reading their minds but again the reason for this is never explained either. Theres some skinny brat who may or may not have magical powers that everyone respects for some reason. There were too many characters and all with no likeable or memorable defining characteristics to speak of. They also try to do this plot twist at the end but it made no sense. It was absolute mess from beginning to end and I regret wasting my time watching it. Bafflingly it felt like simultaneously way too much and not enough was accomplished over the course of the film and I felt completely apathetic towards what was going on. I cant say much for the music and sound design it was all so forgettable. Overall it was a poorly executed political allegory that tried to deal with the idea of what do we sacrifice in the name of peace? but it lacked focus. It was poor on all fronts and led to a very unsatisfying watch.
1 /100
4 out of 9 users liked this review