I almost added a half-star to my rating solely on account of this movie's graphics. I personally believe the way an animation is done graphically is an important part of the experience, no matter what the actual story may be like. Creating a strong visual effect, not only through quality of graphics and style but through camera angles and general cinematography, is no simple task, and is a defining feature of "Kaena: The Prophecy"...at least, if you ignore the occasional blatant errors.

Sure, that's a good starting point: In spite of what I just said, there are two issues I had with the graphics. First, this 3D computer-animated movie was clearly such a demanding render that the developers were simply unable to fully...well, render it, at least by whatever deadline they were being held to. This is evidenced by the occasional cuts which are, I kid you not, rendered at about half the framerate of the rest of the movie, giving an awful jarring look to them and placing them in stark contrast with an otherwise extremely fluid motion picture. Second, the already-struggling character models are further hindered by a flaw in which an occasional close-up shot will reveal armpits that look like crudely-bent sticks of clay where the arm meets the shoulder. The fault for this lies solely on the -shoulders- of the character modellers. (As a 3D animator, I suspect this happened because the characters were modelled with their arms straight out to the sides. This is why I always argue that the arms should be down at roughly a forty-five degree angle when in their root position!)

Anyway, "Kaena" is an example of an animation with a lot of production put into it, made from a script that never should have been produced at all. The title character is just meant to be a "hot chick," whether you're considering her feisty, yet curious (did I mention shallow?) personality, or the numerous close-up shots of her body...*ahem* I mean, her highly revealing outfit, which leaves very little to the imagination. The supporting characters are forced and unappealing. The story is complex and largely unexplained, as are many of the editing choices that were apparently made. The villains are weird and sexual without being sexy. The movie manages to provide an explanation for the existence of a gargantuan spire made of tree branches, but I never did find out why there were occasional shots of a giant floating cube made of tree branches, or why it was floating, or why it was a cube...or for that matter, why it was made of tree branches.

Bleh...I dunno. To its credit, I admit there were some visually stunning sequences in "Kaena: The Prophecy," at least moreso than in "Metropolis," which I gave the same rating. However when all is said and done, I just can't find it in me to recommend this movie, at all, to anyone. I'll agree that it might have done better as a television series...there were some cool ideas that could have been pulled off...no...no, nevermind.

I used to think that Miyazaki's Spirited Away was the weirdest movie that I had ever seen -- that is, until I saw Kaena: The Prophecy. Watching this movie is a lot like playing an imported video game. First off, the animation at times looks as if it were made for the cut scenes of a game, though at other times, the animation is absolutely stunning. The plot is a bit elusive; almost as if the "omitted" game play portions of the game were integral to the plot. Never once during the viewing of this movie did I feel qualified to explain to someone else what was going on, though that's not going to stop me from attempting to do just that in a bit. Lastly, this movie actually is an import from France (which explains the prevalence of edible slug creatures). Though the dub is quite good, with performances by Mary Jane Watson and the original Dumbledore, perhaps something was lost in the translation.

The basic premise of the movie is that Kaena lives in a village located in a giant tree (complete with its own atmosphere) suspended in space between two planets. There are some sap monsters making things tough on the villagers, and Kaena must lead her people to a new age of freedom. Notice I didn’t mention a prophecy, well neither did the movie except for in the title.

It is because of these shortcomings that Kaena has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 7, and that is a real shame. While this movie is flawed, it definitely breaks the mold of traditional animation. It creates a highly stylized world unlike any I have seen before. If you just let your imagination fill in the many blanks, what you end up with is something truly worth checking out. It is bizarre, but I like it. I give this film a B-, though I highly recommend it to animation fans looking for something new.

I honestly don't know where to begin with this review. There seems to be so many things I want to comment about and complain about with this movie that I'd have better luck throwing darts at a dartboard to decide where to start, than to come up with a decent opening on my own. There's the amateurish telling of the story, the dependence on visuals to tell us what's going on, the awful lighting effects that obscure the visuals, the... aaaah. Give me a moment, I'm going to go MacGyver up a dartboard.

Okay, here we go.

The story of Kaena is... kind of hard to figure out, if not for the ever so helpful TV guide, and the listing here at Keyframe. A girl who dreams of stuff has to protect her people and her home from some creatures who want to destroy it. If I didn't know better, I'd say this was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within all over again.

As it happens, the story is shown rather than told, in the actions of the characters and in the visuals and setting. While the back story of the movie is explained at one point by one of the characters, for the most part everything happening in the present has to be both seen and heard. This wouldn't have been a problem, except for the rather liberal use of lighting. I don't think I've ever seen as badly lit a movie as Kaena was. It's almost as if they were trying to hide errors in animation by using lights far too bright to make anything out, or maybe this was their way to keep from having to put much thought in the backgrounds for the movie. The sad thing is, there doesn't need to be so much lighting. While watching Kaena, I was reminded of the lighting in the "End of the World" episode of Doctor Who. And yet, even in that episode, when parts of the television screen were literally white with light, you could still make everything out. Not so in Kaena. And this is a shame, because much of the movie is beautiful... it's just hard to see that beauty when it's hidden by too much light.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well: in scenes where bright light isn't present, it's often too dark to make out many of the details. There are entire scenes in the bad guys' lair where you can't see a lot of the detail because of the poor way the scene was animated.

And speaking of animation, this movie would probably be better suited as a short television series, maybe something like ReBoot or the aforementioned Doctor Who. Elements of the movie were too rushed to be effective, poorly executed in what seemed like an attempt to keep the movie short. It's like if they tried to make the entire third season of ReBoot into a two hour movie. It's just not going to happen.

The characters' expressions and actions remind me a lot of the kind of animation ReBoot featured in the mid to late 90's, which sadly means this movie is 5-10 years after its time. This is not a good thing. There were a few places where elements of the background that should have reacted to the characters were instead static and unmoving, like in a video game. And speaking of which, throughout the movie, I was reminded of the animation from the FMV cut scenes in the video game "The Legend of Dragoon", and that isn't a good thing either.

I was both surprised and not surprised that there was a song at the end of the movie, and was disappointed that during half of it, the singer was just crying out Kaena's name, as if the song was about her. The fact that I didn't turn off the movie then shows how much of a glutton for punishment I can be at times; the fact that I didn't turn off the movie earlier shows how much of an optimist I can be at times. Alas, the movie didn't improve, and the resolution at the end makes you go "huh?". I am trying not to give away too much, but I admit that I somehow lost track of where the priest went near the end, and the bad guys seemed to just cancel each other out. Imagine three people bullying you, and then suddenly two of them meet each other and decide to go away together, and the third somehow learns the error of their ways by standing around and thinking for a moment, then disappears forever as pennance. That's how hollow an ending Kaena had.

As this is an English dub, I can't help but wonder if something was lost in the translation. I can't help but wonder how closely the English translation follows the actual story. And yet... I don't care enough for the movie to find out. This could be one of those really cerebral movies that only a select few get, or this could just be another stinker that shouldn't have been made in the first place. After posting this review, I'll stop caring. It's not terrible enough to remain burned forever in my mind (that animated Dinotopia movie is still taunting me, and it's been quite some time since I saw it), and yet it's not good enough to watch again. I have no problem recommending this movie to no one, and I would in fact recommend that not even the reviewers on Keyframe watch it. It may never get enough reviews to be eligible for the Top 5 Worst Feature Films list, but it doesn't matter. I'll always consider it one of the worst computer animated movies I've ever sat down to watch, and my only consolation is that I didn't pay money to see it.