[KFCC] Avalon Review

Story: In the not so distant future videogames will take on a new form, technology has been refined to the point that the videogame experience has become truly lifelike. But this new technology does not come without risks, if one dies in one of these games they may never recover and thus essentially becoming vegetables. These games quickly become illegal but many still play for the extreme thrill that awaits them and for the very best players there is great profit to be made. One of these incredible players is a woman named Ash who has now set her sights on a secret mission where none has ever returned from.

Review: Avalon is a drama set in a virtual reality future, the story focuses around online videogames. People who play Quake, Unreal or even Everquest can relate to this movie as their adapted portrayal of tournaments and clans is very good. The only difference here is that the games are fully immersive and death caused by the game is not too uncommon. For such a high action context the movie is pretty slow paced. A lot of effort was put into the visual aspect of the movie and on the story which can be a little hard to follow at times.

There are only a handful of characters of importance in this movie, the story mainly revolves around Ash. There is no initial background to the characters but during the course of the story you discover a few things that allows you to understand them a little better. For the most part the character development is pretty subtle. Ash is probably the only really interesting character and she fits with the ambience of the movie perfectly.

Action wise this movie leaves you wanting a lot more, during the entire movie you have only two large battle scenes. The missions in game are pretty impressive, also the equipment and vehicles are for the most part real. These two battle scenes are pretty action packed, it is a shame there was not more of this in the movie. The rest of the movie is very slow paced. There are also a lot of scenes we kind of found useless, like a cooking scenes with nothing else going on.

The subtitles are very good on the DVD version, the dialog is kept pretty basic so you should not be too overwhelmed. One of the most impressive qualities that stands out in this movie is the visual aspect. The majority of the movie is in a brown shade where most of the colors look brown, dull and dirty. The use of this brown shade added a lot to the overall feeling in the movie, it made everything look old as if from some distant communist era in Europe. Along with the camera angles the visual aspect of the movie came close to pure brilliance, we commented during the movie that this sort of felt like watching an anime. Unfortunately due to the slow pace few people will find this movie exciting but it is worth to be seen at least one for the sheer beauty of the creation. Video game fans might like this movie due to the subject and anyone who appreciate beautiful cinema.