Dead Space: Downfall

This anime was far more entertaining than I'd expected, a pleasant surprise. The animation has a Nickelodeon quality about it and that's the only resemblance to anything nick has ever produced. It's liberal with deep space (surprise!,) aliens, blood, bullets, horror and... bashing... and hacking... and CG, which is good.

It's dumb fun.

Some other movies that come to mind after watching this are Event Horizon, Silent Hill, When they Cry and... Avatar. Many others too, though honestly, this plot and setting, they feel new.

P.S. There is some impressive animation, kudos to the artists.

While I'm writing this review the current IMDb rating is 6.2 and I find it quite fare.

First of all let me say - I have no idea about the DEAD SPACE game and I'm not a fan of the game, but I am a hardcore animation fan and I follow pretty much everything that comes out. So when I got my hands on this one I was pretty excited - a brand new mature oriented animated feature!! And when I say mature oriented I mean that it has some swear words plus animated violence and blood, which we don't see every day, especially when it comes to western animation (cause if you're into anime you can't complain from the lack of these elements) "Dead Space: Downfall" is above average, but far from brilliant. And the reason for this is mainly the screenplay. The characters lack depth and emotional charge and the story itself is somehow ripping off key elements from John Carpenter's "The Thing" (the designs of the creatures...), Ridley Scott's "Alien" (the intro on the distant planet, the strong female lead, the ship sent by some corrupt institution we never really see...). There's nothing wrong in borrowing already tested classic elements, some fan-service is always welcome. The problem is that the story itself just fails to grab you. There's no background of the characters, too little information about the aim of their trip and the institution that sent them (some kind of a new religious organization... maybe it's the dystopian future when Scienthology rules the Earth?!? OMG!! I can hear Charlton Heston screaming "Damn you all to hell!", we'd prefer the rule of the Apes). The story lacks drama and suspense.

The voice cast is doing more or less OK, I guess that you can't expect them to put into their characters something that's not really there in the script and make them more interesting, so...

The music - during the movie I hardly noticed any music, but the ending credits were quite good I can say. And the use of "Twinkle, twinkle Little Star" is creepy for sure! The character design is very well done, nothing that will totally amaze you, but it fits perfectly well into the atmosphere of the movie. Everything from faces and expressions to clothes and hairstyles is neatly done.

The backgrounds are detailed and not in contrast with the coloring of the characters and the animated objects (unlyke some other animations where you can "feel" what moves and what doesn't just because the animated objects are colored differently). Even the CGI doesn't break the unity and doesn't feel out of place when it's there (mainly for the 3D models of the spaceships) The animation and the directing itself are quite good, well done boys! The perspectives and the camera angles are nice, the movements as well. It's a mixture of traditional western animation with some elements taken from the Japanese school (when it comes to the blood being splattered or the shrinking of the eye-irises for example).

I enjoyed the film, but I Felt disappointed by the story. The animation is stylish enough to accomplish more than that and with better writing it could be something of the class of "Heavy Metal" or "Titan A.E.". STill worth watching, though! Check it out if you have the chance.

Very pleased with this setup flick to the game Dead Space. Gives a concrete premise to the game and watching this movie has really peaked my interest. Downfall reminded me slightly of Heavy Metal 2000 in the manner is was drawn, which is a good thing IMO. Character development is short but not needed in this scenario. The monsters are well drawn, believable, spread really fast which keeps the movie going at break-neck at speed.

This flick was very heavy on the GORE, which I love, and set an atmosphere of dread and eeriness till the end. A most excellent animated feature which I recommend you watch, preferably at home, alone, and in the dark.

Once you finish with this you'll definitely being going to buy the game. I'll be doing the same very soon...........

Upon buying the game on release day, the guy behind the counter lovingly threw in a copy of the blu-ray for an extra £10.

I'll be honest, having read Luke-warm reviews on other sites, I wasn't particularly looking forward to watching the feature, but when taking a breather from the game (it gets to your nerves after a while...) I was pleasantly surprised at what the flick had to offer.

The script and voice acting are competent, and the story will definitely appeal to enthusiasts of the property. And whilst the animation isn't stellar, as a companion piece to the video game and animated comic, it serves its adequate purpose of adding another layer to this intriguing universe, a universe that I can only hope will develop into a successful franchise.

A hint to those who may be in my position though, finish the game before you watch this, there's a slight spoiler at the end of the movie.

This movie came free with a special edition of the Dead Space game that i bought. Being a fan of animation, i immediately popped this into my DVD player for a view. On first viewing i was impressed, though with subsequent viewings, the flaws started to bubble to the surface.

The story seems to be a blend of Aliens, Resident Evil(the game) and Doom(the movie). Spaceship responds to a distress signal from some far off mining colony, some alien organism gets on board and starts replicating and killing the crew. Throw in an internal power struggle between the ship's captain and his doctor, a dash of pseudo-religious talk and lots of bloody action and you get Dead Space Downfall.

The more interesting parts of the story is actually the interplay between the captain, his bridge crew and the doctor. It builds up very nicely to its satisfying climax and plays out like a live action movie in terms of the dialogue and level of acting. Hidden agendas are brought to light and trust goes down the drain hole, leading to the eventual breakdown of order on board the spaceship. Sadly, the film chooses to focus on the bland and clichéd story of the security team tackling the alien infestation.

Characterization wise, none of the characters really come across as any thing but one dimensional. The captain and the doctor are pretty well done but since the story did not focus much on them, it was a wasted effort. The main characters in the security team are typical sci/fi B movie stock characters. Acting tough but still getting killed off ever so easily. The pseudo-religious subplot could have evolved into something really interesting or could have been used as a metaphor for some really life issues today. Sadly, the writers focused too much on the action than on developing the more interesting aspects of the plot.

Which brings me to the action itself, and the animation. The animation is inconsistent. Though it is a huge step upward from Film roman's previous animated movies like Hellboy Animated and Turok Son of Stone, it has not yet reached the standard one would expect from direct to DVD animated features. The animation for the most part is smooth with a high frame rate, but that is due to the stylized angular character designs and simple shadows and shading. The CGI and backgrounds though are a real treat to look at as the cel shading blends almost seamlessly with the simpler 2D designs and doesn't feel at all jarring. While most of the animation and art are quite good, it is during the action scenes that we see a visible dip in quality. The level of art detail drops A LOT in the action scenes and the character movements suddenly get really stiff and choppy. Some scenes are very obviously only a few key frames "motion blurred" to give the illusion of movement or a single frame "panned" across the background with a shaky camera. Muzzle flash from guns are also out of sync with the blood splattering hit squibs. At times, a few gun fight scenes even look like a bad flash animated internet game.

The most slower paced scenes in between gun fights are more enjoyable and really effective in their combination of lighting, shock factor and designs in conveying a overall scary feel. This is especially true in the first quarter of the film where the suspense is allowed to build nicely. But once the action picks up, the scares die down.

For fans of the game, many would notice the many inconsistencies between this movie and the Dead Space game. For starters in Downfall, the alien artifact is huge, almost as big as an entire hanger bay. In the game, it is only twice the size of a person. Also, the plasma cutters work very differently. In the game, they emit charges of plasma energy that can be used to sever limbs with a click of the mouse. In Downfall, they are presented like lightsaber chainsaws.

In the end, this movie falls short on many levels. What could have made the movie great, such as the power struggle intrigue, the pseudo religious sub plot and the scary atmosphere in the 1st quarter, were cast aside in favour of following tried and tested(see cliché) story plot and themes. The animation is on par with many anime OVAs; better than TV series but not as good as animated movies. A great show to pass some time at home.