LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

hazelra80 Whilst this can be a bit slumpy in places. I feel that it does depict the depth of palmes love and inner torment."One minute, Palme is a humble hero in search of himself, the next a violent psycho with an unhealthy fixation on a girl" ¬Mindboggling, by Sarah USis that not love? it is not illogical and complex, conflicting and overwhelming? It is beautifully portrayed through the eyes of palme. a boy made of wood to be a companion of a girl. the tree from which he was cast was sentient so he developed thoughts akin to feelings. The story is bittersweet. it follows palme as he explores who he is as well as what perceived feelings and attachments truly are. you feel for palme but because he's not 'a real boy' you are with him without feeling uncomfortable. the mesh between Pinocchio and Puppy is a clever and essential device to the telling of the story. If you cannot appreciate that then you have missed the point entirely. I would class this as slice of life rather than fantasy. but there are 2 types of the aforementioned. If you want an anime that spells it all out for you and leaves you feeling all cutesy-poo then this is not for you. If you like anime that provokes thought and the slice of life you're after is the big questions and quandaries then this is a must see.

PoochJD I bought this DVD purely on the spur of the moment, having not heard anything about it. Having sat down to watch it, it's certainly an intriguing and surreal film, which is worth a viewing, if you fancy something out of the ordinary.The story, is essentially a fantastical retelling of the Pinocchio fable. A boy robot is desperate to become human, but has to join a group of aliens, humans and other robots to rescue the soul of the robot boy's mother, whilst trying to outwit a second band of aliens who are prepared to do anything to stop him from his goal.This is not your usual type of anime. In fact, it's almost pseudo-anime: the vast majority of artwork is undertaken by a Korean animation team, and is quite dissimilar to regular anime art. There are still characters with large, friendly eyes, but the backgrounds aren't as detailed as in some recent works like "Akira", "Ghost In The Shell" and "Perfect Blue". Having said that, the film is well animated, and the use of CGI is limited but credible, rather than overpowering.But, with that all said and done, this is a movie that is aimed at people with a good attention span, and an audience willing to give the film the time it needs to breathe. The story is leisurely-paced for sure, but if you let it lead you down its path, you should grow to like it.As you watch the film, you will notice many nods to other works and artists, including "Akira", Rin Taro, "Metropolis" (the anime), Osamu Tezuka and many, many more. Don't let this put you off, because whilst this could be seen as Nakamura being unoriginal, the combination of recognisable works actually helps the film, rather than hinders it.The UK DVD release from ADV Films is superb, with both an English-dubbed and English-subtitled version, both in 2.00:1 Anamorphic Widescreen. Occasionally, the subtitles can go a little too fast, or get a tad confusing, but on the whole, it is a great effort. If you are willing to devote the time to this film, and don't come expecting lots of big action set-pieces, then you may be pleasurably surprised.One word of caution though: although predominantly a film suitable for children, there are some scenes of bloody violence that may not be appropriate, or deemed a little too dark and mature in tone for them to cope with.

Sarah The teasers for Tree of Palme try to pass it off as a sort of allegory for a fairy tale with actual meaning, then immediately start raving about the animation. I should have known what that meant.The main character, Palme, is a good example of the whole movie's problem. One minute, Palme is a humble hero in search of himself, the next a violent psycho with an unhealthy fixation on a girl he once took care of.Like all of the characters in the movie, Palme is poorly defined. You do not bond with the characters at all, although Shatta has acquired a couple of fan girls. It seems that the writer was more interested in cramming all the drama and complexity he could into this movie than actually exploring his characters' motivations and personalities.New, useless story lines were being introduced in the last fifteen minutes of the movie. The writer seriously needed to streamline his story. Perhaps he was trying to be epic, but it was simply too much information for a two-hour movie. However I can't help but wonder if a plot with so many dimensions and characters would have been better suited for a TV series or graphic novel.In the last five minutes of the movie, I simply could not endure the sheer lack of quality any longer and began laughing at how contrived the characters, the relationships, and the whole plot was. I touched my companion and he started cracking up too, as did a young man seated behind us. We tried so hard to control ourselves, but we simply could not take the terrible quality of this movie.On the bright side, the animation is incredible and viewers will find themselves admiring the lush backgrounds and charming character designs. The animation almost guides you; when you don't care about the characters, it tells you how to feel.

dbborroughs This is one of the best looking anime features I've run across. The animation is glorious, the design and the world created are rich in images and wonders to see. The trouble is that the movie is a snail paced retelling of Pinocchio that even at two hours and sixteen minutes doesn't tell the whole story, there are gaps between sequences that leave you puzzling how we got from A to B. The film is suppose to be a very personal project by the director who worked on it for ten years, but there is such a thing as being too close to a project and in this case he was much too close. I can see how the lack of complete explanation might appeal to some people but for me it was more bewildering than intriguing, the film didn't make a lot of sense and took forever not making it. (Visuals are a ten out of ten, the rest is up to you, I give it a five over all simply because the visuals are so fantastic it makes watching it interesting at least for a majority of it)