Garm Wars: The Last Druid
Mamoru Oshii is best known for directing classic anime films like Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Ghost in the Shell, and the Patlabor movies, but he’s also taken his hand at live-action over the years. I loved the Matrix-y Avalon years ago, and with its baroque, CGI-heavy visuals, Garm Wars: The Last Druid is cut from the same stylistic cloth. Which means that it has some occasionally stunning visuals even as it suffers from a bleary, washed out look that makes it look like one long Final Fantasy cutscene. The story’s an interesting-if-convoluted blend of Celtic mythology, sci-fi, and post-apocalyptic cyberpunk, but nobody — not even Lance Henriksen — is going to win any awards for their performances. (Kenji Kawai’s score, on the other hand, is lovely.) And after about 90 minutes, the film just sort of peters out, which is ironic given the epic final imagery. In the end, this one’s really just for Oshii diehards.