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Spriggan
Akira with Noah's Ark and Aliens 
Studio: Kawasaki/Studio 4C Format: Movie Released: 1/1/1998 Written by: Face 
Many delirious anime fans will declare Spriggan a wonderful film, simply because it was created under the supervision of acclaimed filmmaker Katsuhiro Otomo (director/creator of Akira). The director, Hirotsugu Kawasaki, is actually a protege of Otomo's, and the film is based on a manga series, named Striker!, which was originally inspired by Akira -- needless to say, Otomo had a powerful role to play in the production of this film, indirectly or otherwise. Evidentally, filmmaking is not a talent easily passed on. For all of the mind-numbing, over-the-top action sequences, Spriggan is as confused and irrational as it is idiotic and pornographically violent; it succeeds only in undermining all aspects of continuity with gratuitous violence and flapdoodling balderdash.
From what I could make out, Spriggan's harebrained plot (held together by duct tape and Elmers glue) revolves around the discovery of Noah's Ark on Mount Aratat. For some odd reason, it turns out that Noah's Ark is actually some sort of alien space... thing, I guess, with the power to control the weather, and in consequence the world. Currently, there is an investigation at the Ark being conducted by scientists affiliated with an organization known as Arcam. This terrorist group is deadset on absolute world domination, and certainly, they can not resist controlling such an amazing doomsday machine! However, they have some competition from a secret American agency, called Machine Corps. These mischief-making rapscallions are led by the very Akira looking Colonel MacDougall, a blue-skinned, whitehaired, ball-cap wearing child who possesses incredibly powerful telekinetic abilities. To stop these gunslingers, the government sends out a group of genetically engineered white knights, called the Spriggans, to save the day; rest-assured, because you can bet your heinie Yu Ominae and Jean Jacques Mondo will definitely succeed!  These two warmongering heroes get beaten to a bloody pulp battle after battle, and yet they never seem to learn blindly rushing into battle is a bad idea. They face off against deadly cyborgs, and even against Colonel McDougall in the finale, of course. In each fight, the battle scenes end up drenched with blood and destruction, and the buildings are left as nothing more than remnants scoured with automatic gunfire. The entire film is nothing more than a big fight scene, with explosions at every corner, blood stains at every corridor, and simple-minded hysteria everywhere you look. During the doltish finale, Yu goes man-to-man against a rather dinky McDougall in the most tactless, impish and downright dopey fight scene akin to only those of DBZ. Instead of finishing Yu off, McDougall finds it necessary to gallivant around his injured opponent while his back is conveniently exposed. The ending taking place within an alien version of Noah's Ark certainly doesn't help out much either. This abridged film is only a brief interlude, with numerous bits and pieces of information scattered about, suggesting several unexplained supplementary subplots. In the beginning, a student at Yu's school straps an explosive to himself, and detonates it on the roof, seemingly without reason. We are left in the dark for the rest of the film, never privy to his motives or reasons. Spriggan succeeds in being not only incoherently muddled, but also unreasonably self-conscious. As a result, terrorist organizations seem contrived, characters come off as artificial, and the story feels far too sophistic to ever be taken seriously. Much of Spriggan feels like an apocolyptic hodgepodge, very similar to Akira. But where Akira was founded on a reasonably meaningful story, Spriggan is misguided by its own slaphappy obsession with spontaneous bloodshed. There is only one reason to see this movie: the artwork is superb, with detailed backdrops, and extremely fluent animation. However, Spriggan's confused stab at substance, and deranged attempt at coherence are both humorously pathetic and regrettably deplorable. * 1/2 (Very Poor) Posted: March 3, 2004
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