|
Reviewed by Ben Lee
This
review contains some spoilers.
Here we have one of the most anticipated 3DMM movies ever, 007:
Unleash the Dragon. Unfortunately, this was released unfinished,
and every time I see this, I keep thinking how good it could
have been if it was released properly finished. Just look at the
box office. Unleash the Dragon has recently died out picking up
38 points. This is just for an unfinished movie here. Imagine if
this movie was complete. I'd say this could give the Knights of
Camelot a run for its money to become one of the highest points
scorers in the box office. But it wasn't to be.
Unleash the Dragon opens up with a tense boat scene. Like any
Bond opener, this has plenty of action, suspense and a
jaw-dropping conclusion. Everything in there just seemed to be
animated flawlessly. Patrick was used magnificently with the
wide range of actions available to animate James Bond extremely
effectively. And the atmosphere was very like a Bond movie, just
what the director was aiming for, I presume. The only thing I
found un-Bond-like was the hand combat at the top of the boat,
which was slightly unrealistic in my opinion. But still, you
probably won't notice this, as you might have already been
sucked up by the brilliance of this opening.
Frogman then skips a couple of scenes to a rather short piece of
action. It's basically James Bond making his escape from a hell
of a lot of Michael characters, and although it was nowhere near
as good as the thrilling opening, it was still a good watch. And
then comes the train scene. This was one of the more unpolished
scenes, and you can tell from the notes and the lack of music in
some places. Despite all this, the animations are yet again
superbly done. I just couldn't believe how well the dirt bikes
and the explosions were animated, as well as the train and the
helicopter. It didn't quite beat the opening, but this section
really is awesome.
Finally, we come to the final 'complete' part, which takes place
in China. The snow was incredibly well done, and although it did
not have as much action, in my opinion this scene was the most
Bond-like one, especially with all the stealthy elements and
some dialogue. Summing up all these scenes, considering all the
animations were done at least a couple of years ago, this movie
definitely delivers visually. Apart from this being unfinished,
the only other gripe I have with this, although this is only
small, is that sometimes the scenes didn't feel like a Bond
movie should. I'm more referring to the second scene, but mostly
Unleash the Dragon did feel Bond-ish.
As I close this review, it is incredibly hard to score it. This
is an unfinished movie, and despite not being complete, I
enjoyed watching this thoroughly. But I'll settle on this
figure, as it shows that I was entertained a lot, but it just
lacked that little something to win over nearly everyone here.
And that little something was completion. It's time-consuming
and tough, yes, but Unleash the Dragon is a movie with
consistently stunning animations and with more than enough
action to keep you hooked to the screen. With a full story, and
more amazing animations and action scenes which would make you
go 'wow', this could easily be one of the most loved movies in
3DMM history.
Score: 83/100
|