Sky Blue [2003]

Sky Blue [2003]
Original Title: Wonderful Days
South Korea
Director: Moon-saeng Kim
My Rating: 6/10

For being released almost 15 years ago, this film looks beautiful.  The animation is really well done, it appears to have blended CGI and traditional animation styles quite well.  Like many animated films however, it has some of the usual flaws.  Characters with ridiculous/stupid hair aren't so bad here, because it takes place far enough into the future that a pompadour that sticks out half a meter could just be a future thing.  It's the dialog that kills me.  Most animated movies have great ideas and look great, until you hear them speak.  I'd like to say that the voice actors in a lot of movies aren't very good, but they aren't really given much to work with in terms of scripted lines.

The run time is pretty short for a Korean film.  Given the interesting world they've created here, more time exploring it would help the story.  Unfortunately, the characters don't have much motivation or development, so watching them deliver more crappy lines for another hour might not actually help the overall story.  I think this movie had a lot of potential to be good.  There were a few moments that made me cringe though.  A character stoically staring ahead when someone hurls a meat cleaver at them... yeah, of course it missed, but not by a lot.  It doesn't make them look super cool not to react, it's a child's idea of how a super cool person would react.

Despite having some problems, I'd still give this one a 6.  It's entertaining mostly and that's really all I can ask of a film.