Mad God is a terrifying triumph to animation. It is mesmerizing, unique, and disgusting through and through. The ruined city in the film is coated in these overwhelming layers of grunge and unknown fluids that practically ooze onto the audience. The film seems to draw homage from the Labyrinth Cenobites reside in from the Hellraiser films. Apart from taking away that we’re all doomed to repeat the same pain and anguish for eternity, Mad God’s one flaw is reasoning behind its gruesome existence. Dreams and aspirations lead us through life like a treasure map, which more often than not, never com... read the rest.
Wow, but the quality of the stop-motion animation in this is breathtaking. On a big screen, the detailed movement of characters and settings alike; the clever use of light and shade look superb - it's really quite an astonishing piece of art to enjoy. The story itself is almost incidental - it centres around a gas-mask clad human lowered into a dystopian environment of ruins and hideous mutations where life and limb are at risk every step it takes edging through this murderous and perilously dark and dangerous environment towards a central tower from which, we can safely assume, the root of thi... read the rest.
As a technical artistic piece demonstrating the expressive power of stop motion cinematography, it is a triumph. As a story, it is a eighth grade goth kid sitting in the back of class, doodling their inner turmoil and profound nihilism. Most of the metaphors relating to our world (e.g., work, medicine, military, birth-rebirth, religion, etc.) rarely rise above that depressed 8th grade standard. Still, I'd rather watch this technical masterclass in cinema than yet another vanilla film that is little more than a pile of cliches. You will certainly not forget it, and the ending is worth staying fo... read the rest.
What the hell did I just watch? And who on earth is Phil Tippett? And please, Phil, more please, thank you.
I mostly didn't understand what was going on in this hell ride, so how can I rate it a perfect ten? Well, I rate ten when a movie leaves me feeling like there was nothing you could change to make it better. It doesn't mean it's the best movie I've ever seen, it just means that to me, it appears to perfectly do what it tries to do. Other such examples could be Aliens, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and more up this movie's alley, Lost Highway.