As a TV series, Digimon is nothing more than a Pokemon knockoff that takes itself too seriously. As a movie, however, Digimon contains all of the series’ flaws, but also contains some surprisingly good moments. As such, the inevitably titled Digimon – The Movie is an alternately frustrating and fantastic experience.
In the film, a computer virus threatens all data on the Internet, and it’s up to the Digimon (Tamagotchi-like creatures who actually live in the digital world) to set things straight. Each Digimon is friends with a little boy or girl in our world, and much of the film takes place with frantic online communication. I liked this part of the film a lot. While it’s no Serial Experiments Lain, the writers of the film did a pretty good job of dealing with the Internet in a knowledgeable fashion. Characters get booted off-line and have to dial up again using their modems (just like you and I do), and there are also some cute lines of dialogue such as "he’s eating us out of house and homepage!" This is particularly impressive because Digimon is obviously a child’s movie. The writers, with their attention to Internet details, demonstrate that they aren’t talking down to kids.
The dialogue, too, is often quite good and very funny. Repeating any of the jokes would spoil them but once again, Digimon’s comedy doesn’t look down at its primary audience. Considering that Digimon’s distributor is Saban, this is a major achievement. Prior to Digimon, Saban was best known for chopping up silly Japanese costumed martial arts kiddie adventures and using those tidbits as the chief ingredients in the even sillier Power Rangers. If Power Rangers demonstrated Saban’s remarkable and monstrous contempt for the credulity of five-year olds, then Saban’s treatment of Dragonball Z showed how little they thought of older animation fans. Saban saddled the American dub of Dragonball Z with a grotesque new musical score that sounds like Casio keyboards played in a hotel restroom. I’m amazed that Saban finally treated its audience with a little more respect.
However, since we are still dealing with Digimon, every blessing is balanced with buffoonery. For example, the character designs are terrific; the human characters have oversized heads and hands and skinny bodies, perfect for representing pre-teens. However, the characters are never truly fleshed out into anyone anybody unfamiliar with the TV show and its minutiae can care about. The monster designs range from whimsical to trippy, but the monsters themselves aren’t very compelling. The funny dialogue and eye for detail are admirable, but the actual plot is not only anticlimactic but also incoherent. In truth, Saban simply amalgamated a series of Digimon short films to create Digimon:The Movie, and the seams are obvious. And, maddeningly, every time we pause to admire the high-quality animation (some of which is unabashedly mind-blowing for a film of this type), the most inane theme song of any modern anime series starts to play. There are also scattered examples of contemporary punk rock, which has the benefit of being catchier than the rest of the music in the film, but which unfortunately seems tacked-on.
The end result is what many critics call "eye candy" which is a nice way of saying that nothing in the film is grounded in good storytelling. I enjoyed whole sections of Digimon the same way I enjoyed Transformers - as pure, free flowing animation. There were times when the film was so much fun I was tempted to revise my opinion of Digimon as a TV series. Far too often, modern animation doesn’t dazzle anymore, and it was a treat to see sequences that are well animated, clever, and surprisingly funny. I can’t recommend Digimon as an unqualified success since it’s primarily a kiddie draw. However, I think the film is a wonderful antidote for the hours of stiff, unconvincing, and boring animation many of us have sat through too often. Animation fans, in the right state of mind, will enjoy parts of this film.
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