accountcrapper A typical Mamoru Oshii style film. Slow, heavy handed but often effective use of lens filters, dreary soundtrack, poor Foley work, cinema noir poses and some art-house meanderings. The story is so so, reasonably similar themes can be seen in a lot of work coming out of japan these days. Virtual reality or online identity cross merging with the real world. It is very anime in parts but I am not sure anime works for live action. In anime you can forgive some of the stiffness or the poor Foley but in live action it makes it feel a bit dead. A problem I have with all Oshii's film. The main actress is good. She does hold the film together. Not much is asked from her in terms of character development or script but she gives more than is on the written on the page and imbues the film with a feeling of lose, fading away, remorseful acceptance. I liked the film. I enjoy the theme. I thought the CGI was done well and there were some nice shots. The metaphors are a bit much but that is to be expected with Oshii. Boo to me but I wish he'd make GITS 3.SPOILER (NOT REALLY)I very much did not like the last scene. The is a scene where an orchestra perform the theme of the film Avalon with cuts going between a conversation outside and the orchestra inside. This for me was the worst scene. The filming of the orchestra was very standard TV style with no use of creative lighting to reflect the colour of the music, no close-ups of any of the instruments, no style at all just bad TV. Then it was clumsily cut with the conversation outside which were meant to reflect the lyrics of the opera. I thought it was very poor. And I thought the dog in the car was just stupid.

leeeoooooo I've passed this one over too many times. It always hooks me, but I'm too impatient. Now I have to get it for keeps.This is a unique gem. I'm concerned, as others have already suggested, that the people who were involved in this movie will not be recognized for what they have done. This is such special magic.What made me come back and take another look at this was a chance viewing of another often-misunderstood gem, "Vampyr" (1932). I see many similarities: the slow pacing, the sullen and underplayed characters, the unusual lighting and camera-work, the haunting, creepy feeling one is left with for *weeks* after. It seems to me that either (or better yet, both) of these movies are a one-stop film-making class. So many unusual techniques, so many encouragements to experiment without restraint.Well worth the time and intellectual excersize.

alahey Oh, gosh, if you are an MMORPGer, (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Gamer)you MUST see this film. The film captures why we game. Why people lose jobs, families, and money over gaming. Why people choose their addictions and escapism over reality. The movie is astonishing. But only if you're a gamer. Otherwise, the movie will seem somewhat meaningless to you. The controversy rages in the forums "worst movie I've ever seen", "best movie ever". The movie is subtle and apparently has many many levels of interpretation. This is not an action flick. It's a movie for those who want to think deeply. IMDb asks for movies that this is similar to. That's difficult. I can't think of anything. Lars von Trier's "Breaking the Waves" perhaps, or "Dancer in the Dark". These movies both deal with the fine line between reality and fantasy, escapism and realism.

Tom-2128 Lot's of comments compare this movie to "The Matrix" but they don't point out the obvious difference: the plot of "Avalon" is the reverse of "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", the main character starts out in the game (the Matrix) and moves to the real world. In "Avalon", the main character (Ash) goes in the opposite direction.Another interesting point is that the philosophy of "Avalon" is the opposite of that of "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", living in reality is presented as the highest value, worth sacrificing comfort and security. In "Avalon", the point is that the real isn't morally superior to the artificial: choosing the artificial (i.e. virtual reality) is presented as a perfectly reasonable choice.There is a dispute about whether the first part of the movie is boring or just depicting a boring character. It's both. The problem is that the director apparently didn't realize that showing a boring life doesn't have to be boring. He could have used techniques such as showing a dull sequence, then referring to it briefly several times. "Groundhog Day" used that technique.A common complaint in many comments is that Ash is emotionless and her real world is bland, boring, and (almost literally) colorless. That is crucial to the movie: it has to make the point that Ash's life outside the game is meaningless.I like the fact that the movie combines Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and Multi User Dungeons, and it handles each of them accurately.We can summarize the point of the movie as: the artificial world we create can be better than the world we live in.