Woodyanders Four hardcore gamers are forced to cast aside their differences and work together in order to defeat a giant sand worm monster in a computer simulated virtual reality world. Sounds like a really cool and fun premise, right? Well, it just ain't. Writer/director Mamoru Oshii gets the picture off to a cracking start with the gnarly CGI monsters, striking shots of a bleak desolate landscape, and rip-roaring action scenes. However, the movie runs out of gas early on and becomes bogged down in an increasingly tedious and tiresome brooding existential moodiness that strives for profoundness only to wind up coming across as extremely boring, irritating, and pretentious instead. The meandering and repetitious narrative goes around in circles just like the thinly drawn characters trudging through this ordeal. While Oshii does deliver several stunning visuals (one girl gamer sprouts wings and takes flight in a particularly breathtaking image), the annoying bickering between these unlikable individuals with one-note personalities, the draggy pacing, a frustratingly lame'n'abrupt ending, and the general mind-numbing ennui make this film a serious chore to endure. Worst of all, the fact that everything is simulated negates any genuine tension or urgency because one never gets the impression that anything substantial is at stake at any given time in the story. The basic point seems to be that combat in between fighting is dull. Pity the movie itself proves to be pretty blah and dreary as well.

keal I'm a fan of Oshii's Avalon. The haunting music, the subdued colors, the quiet, restricted lifestyle of the main characters, Oshii's quirky little games of putting things like dogs and statues through the film, making you wonder why they're there. Not to mention the scene where Stunner chows down on eggs and sausage, and we watch the whole meal.It's all there in Assault Girls! This seems to be a direct sequel to Avalon. Same haunting music, subdued colors, quiet characters... yep, there's a dog, a statue, and now, a snail (poor snail goes through a lot!) Of course, there's a scene where someone's chowing down on eggs and sausage.Yes, the pace is slow. But beautifully colored skies, people meandering around the landscape, solemn music, really gets you into a contemplative state. If that's all there was to the movie, I'd agree, it's a boring way to spend 70 minutes. But there's a point to this.**SPOILER ALERT** The bulk of the movie has the 4 main characters pondering having to work as a group to get to the next level of the game they're playing. They can't do it individually. So, near the end of the movie, they get together.They kill the monster.Here's the best, and I swear, most unexpected ending. It all happens in the last couple minutes of the flick All the players are racing to get out of the game, first one out gets all the spoils of war. But the main player with the big gun, doesn't have a way out of the game. Everyone's laughing at him. You think to yourself, what a way to step on someone that helped you out. He agreed to split the reward, but looks like he's getting nothing for his efforts.Then he blows a fuse, and shoots down all the other players, yelling that he's going to become a player-killer! So in the end, everyone gets screwed, and it's an all out war between the players.A quiet, slow-paced film with a hell of a twist in the end that made me laugh so hard my sides hurt! The guy's 'I've had it with this game!' face as he unleashed his ammo on everyone was just so funny, I kept rewinding and laughing.EDIT: If you haven't watched Avalon (you don't have to) you might have a harder time tolerating the utterly strange elements in the film. Why use Japanese actors and force them to speak English? What's with the semi-cheesy cgi? Here's a little trivia. Director Oshii has a long-standing peeve about Japan's insistence that movies from their country should be in Japanese language. Why he's over the top about this, I don't know. But he purposely made the film Avalon with Polish actors speaking Polish, and now this follow-up with Japenese actors speaking English. I think it's great.My one complaint about this film, along with Avalon, is that they're both poorly marketed and advertised. Very misleading. Both films should be packaged together, along with a short documentary or interview with the director, explaining the mysteries of the films.Avalon and Assault Girls, my 2 favorite movies of all time. Can't wait for Oshii's next meditative sci-fi adventure!

wonderflee If you really want to watch this movie after reading all the reviews, I recommend renting rather than buying because I doubt that you would want to watch this movie twice. The CGI special effects were almost video game quality and minimal. Most of the time the characters are wandering around volcanic soil with no other discernible landmarks other than a small mountain in the background. There are too many slow moments when the camera would focus a close up on a snail, voice overs that sounded totally gibberish, and confusing plot lines. The characters were wooden with no developments and added little to the plot line. Worse, when the characters spoke, they often spoke broken English with bad accents under muzzle type face masks that made it very unintelligible (even to me, an Asian, that is used to bad English). I guess to some (0.01%) of the population they would say that this movie is arty or avante garde. But if you are looking for a fun movie full of hot girls with guns (as I expect you would by the title "Assault Girls") this ain't it.

ChristerDoo By spoilers, I mean more by way of telling what this movie is not as opposed to what happens in it. I would really not call this a movie per se but more of an experiment in existential nihilism. The entire proceedings are not really explained - you are just thrust into this VR world and see a few player avatars killing giant sand worms a la Dune (or Vexille's Jags). As said, if you watched this expecting a movie which has a start/ middle/ and end and a plot which makes sense, you will be disappointed. If you are someone who likes experimental cinema and is willing to go for the ride, however bizarre and truncated it may be, you will be less disappointed. If you are the former and appreciate anime and video games, and Japanese cinema and culture in general then you will probably find it an interesting watch, even if it is ultimately without true context or meaning in a traditional sense. Slight shades of Final Fantasy and ICO can be seen, as well as perhaps a very roundabout homage to TRON and a more obvious reference to Mortal Kombat or its ilk. So while not really a movie in the traditional sense, it is nonetheless interesting enough to watch.