From one movie to another, this time it's Captain Harlock but not a live action but a CGI version.
Captain Harlock is the broody captain of the Arcadia, a ship powered by Dark Matter, crewed by a ragtag band of space pirates, his mission is to steal all the detonators to use on certain planets to trigger what's known as the Genesis clock that would reset time and space in a bid to rid himself of the guilt of being the man responsible for reducing Earth to a Dark Matter wasteland, stopping them in their path is the Gaia Sanction who after a war over the Planet Earth forbid everyone to return to it hiding the fact that Captain Harlock already ruined it for everyone.
To try and stop this plan, a boy named Logan infiltrates the Arcadia only to start sympathizing with Harlock's cause.
Captain Harlock is a massive franchise, there are too many named anime series that he stars in for this movie to really make sense, so the story feels restricted to newbies and I find that to be a shame, Harlock himself is the embodiment of awesome, it's hard not to gush over one of the most infamous swashbucklers in all anime and he's well backed up by a decent performance by David Matranga in the dub which is of course Genjo Sanzo in the Saiyuki dub. However my reservations about this film are similar to that of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, it's the CGI, it doesn't suit anime, while I can see the effort gone into it, it can make the characters feel wooden as a result as the over reliance on exaggerated facial expressions that anime is built on it makes them less angry character more angsty teenager, this not well backed up by the female pirate Mimay who basically the designers took one look at Samus Aran and said "copy her", surprised Nintendo didn't slap a lawsuit on it.
If there is something to take from it, it's that it looks incredible as a film and Captain Harlock is every bit as awesome in this film as he is in the anime, if not better, but I feel it needs a selection of notes to try and welcome the new fans in.
Final Verdict: Captain Harlock is worth gushing over in visuals and the title character himself but try and dissect the story and you'll get lost easily.
