Shadows on the Wall: DIGIMON

Digital Monsters
Digimon, the Movie

dir Takaaki Yamashita, Hisashi Nakayama, Masahiro Aizawa
scr Jeff Nimoy, Bob Buchholz
voices Lara Jill Miller, Joshua Seth, Doug Berholt, Mona Marshall, Brian Donovan, Michael Lindsay, Michael Reisz, Philece Sampler, Colleen O'Shaughnessy, Derek Stephen Prince, Robert Axelrod
release US 6.Oct.00;
UK 16.Feb.01
Fox 00/Japan-US 1 out of 5 stars

REVIEW BY RICH CLINE

If Pokemon is excruciating, just imagine how torturous a blatant rip-off like Digimon will be. Then magnify the horror beyond anything you can imagine. And you still aren't even close to the sheer awfulness of this film. Nothing about it makes any sense--characters, story, animation ... nothing. I sit through a lot of bad films, and this must be one of the worst things I've ever seen on a big screen. I can't begin to explain the story, because the film never bothers to explain it. Something to do with creatures hatched from cyberspace and a virus that mutates one of these things into a horrible beast that tries to take over the internet. Then it returns years later to try again. And there's a band of kids who call themselves DigiDestined and act as sort of caretakers for the Digimons. And they travel from Japan to New York to Colorado and save the world, or something like that.

It's such breathtaking rubbish that not even the merchandising possibilities are explored coherently. We never have even the foggiest clue which creatures change into which ones--the things have completely unpronounceable names like Kabuterimon and then they digivolve into completely new things with new names (Demiveemon?), so who can be expected to keep track. Lots of pop tunes are pasted into the soundtrack along with sad attempts at humour and surprisingly blatant product placement. Do not go see this film. Do not buy the toys or anything with the Digimon name on it. Put this whole thing out of its misery quickly before they make another movie that I have to sit through.
violence 13.Feb.01

R E A D E R R E V I E W S

Luke, UK: "I think this film is 15 stars. Anyone who says this movie is bad is dumb. I like all the bits in this film, especially the DNA Digivovle (means two Digimon turn to one) and Golden Armour Digivovle." (17.May.03)

Walter AKA Rookie, Estonia: US version 1/5 ; Japanese version 5/5 "I really love Digimon, but I really DON'T like the American one. Why didn't 20th Century Fox translate the original movies? They just made a mess. The humor was awful! The music wasn't the same. No more words." (18.Jan.06)