The Genre: Action

The Format: DVD - 90 mins running time

The plot: Spriggans are the special operatives of the super-secret Arcam organization, which is sworn to preventing ancient and mystical artifacts from falling into the wrong hands. Yu Ominae is Japan’s greatest spriggan, and following the mysterious death of his classmates he begins investigating a n ancient discovery that has been made in Turkey.

Jerry Bruckheimer is one of the most successful film-makers of recent times. He basically makes action films, and with such classics as Bad Boys, The Rock and Pirate of the Carribean to his name, it’s easy to see why he’s been such a success.

The basic theory is to get as much of the budget “on-screen” as possible. His films tend to swagger from one spectacular set piece to the next, with each one raising the bar over the one before. Things blow up, stunt men fly through the air and the audience struggles to catch it’s breath.

The hero of our tale is one one Yu Ominae. Yu is a Spriggan. Spriggans are the special op’s type soldiers of the Arkham organization, possessed of phenomenal and deadly skill. Whether they are enhanced in some way or are simply meant to be James Bond types is never really explained properly, but they’re definitely the mutts nuts.

Of course, action films are nothing without some form of evil and shadowy organization out to control the world and Spriggan doesn’t disappoint. There are three main villians each of wich has what might be described as a super power. They aren’t really super-powers in the strict sense of the word, as it’s clear they’ve been achieved by bionic enhancement.

However, when you’re pitting your Spriggans against someone you want these someones’ to be pretty bad-ass or you’re not doing your job properly. Spriggan is based on a manga of the same name and all of the characters, good and bad, appear in the manga. Apperently it was very long running, though, so they’ve had the chance to cherry pick their favourites.

What we have then are a big dude who’s basically a cyborg with a chain gun for a hand, a wirey thief type who uses thin wires to slice people up and aq little kid who’s brain has been jiggered about with. This lets him produces and control waves of force, but makes him dependant on some form of medicine. This also makes him controllable by the shadowy evil organization.

Nothing sparkling imaginitive or particularly original there then.

But, as I said, that’s not really the point of this type of film. The point of this type of film is to provide visual spectacle, and on this front is does very well.

Full advantage is taken of this being animation, allowing them to do all sorts of interesting things for less money. Extensive use is also made of digital animation, with great effect - the bits where you’re not supposed to know are very smoothly done and the bits you are are very effective as well.

The film is very visually appealing, then, and sonically it’s very good as well. The soundtrack is suitably epic and the explosions are as rumbly and loud as they should be. For some reason, though, the original Japanese track is only in available in stereo, whereas the English redub has been put together in full dolby 5.1. And it’s been very well done, I must say. Use of a quality sound system when viewing is highly recommended.

So are there any bad points? Well, a few. Beyond the commentary, extras are limited to a few character designs and the likes, which never do anything for me. Also, being the type of film it is there’s nothing particularly deep or thoughtful. There’s no real twists in the tail or anything like that, and character depth is limited to a quick dip in the shallow end.

Still, for what it is it does a solid job.

The Summary: An action movie in the truest sense of the phrase, and it doesn’t do a half bad job of being entertaining.

The Score: 3/5

The Pictures:

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