NEGADON

This animated short subject seeks to be a tribute to classic Japanese giant monster movies from the past; in fact, its computer-generated imagery frequently forsakes pristine digital "realism" in favor of recreating the look of old-fashioned Toho-style miniatures. Unfortunately, despite the brevity, the story is interminably slow in its first half, while setting up the situation. In fact, during these scenes, NEGADON barely resembles a narrative film at all; it seems more like a demo reel put together to show off the technique of the digital artists.

The story is about a probe to Mars (which is being terraformed for colonizaiton), which crashes back to Earth and unleashes a monster. There's also an old, guilt-ridden scientist who has given up his dream of creating a robot since his experiment resulted in the accidental death of his daughter ten years ago. Fortunately, things pick up in the later portions of the film, after the titular creature has arrived to wreck mayhem upon Tokyo (in the grand tradition of Japanese giant monsters), and the scientist pulls his giant Gigantor-like robot out of the moth-balls to do battle. At this point, the film does a reasonably good job of living up to its intentions, which is to create a nostalgic vibe by echoing familiar motifs from classic kaijur films. The battle - set partly in outer space - is reasonably well realized, with some flashy, eye-catching action, and the whole thing even ends on a touching note of sacrifice. The result is a nice little homage that should be of interest to fans of this particular sub-genre.