GREAT CG SKATEBOARDING, BUT, DVD IS NOT FOR CHILDREN
A. Daguio | eARTH | 10/13/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Okay, first of all just to fill you in about me, even though, you don't care... I can't skate, but me and my kids love watching Tony Hawk and his touring team skate, in fact I have most of his tour videos, and the movie Gleaming the Cube with Chris Slater, my kids... they have the complete series of Tony Hawk's PS2 games and the 3 Tricks & Tips box set.
Okay now to review this cg movie.
Parents, I know kids loves Tony Hawk... but, beware! This is a Not Rated cartoon DVD it has a Japanese Anime concept. Before I let my kids watch any videos with adult theme in it specially skateboarding movies I take the point to either read online reviews about the movie or I go watch it myself first, and me watching the whole video, this one is not for kids, this is for teenagers, my rating on this is PG-13, with all the harsh remarks, screaming and yelling, gross humor like drinking somebody else's snut in a cup, decaying toe nails swarmed by flies, guy getting smack on the nuts (can I say that?), kids doing stunts that could kill them in the real world, etc...
Motion capture is a very old concept in animation, it was used even when cartoon characters were just drawn manually and then transfered to cells, and I say, it was superbly done here, the 3d skate shots are great, watching the cg Tony skate you can tell that it is the real life Tony who was skating.
The best video, so far, that Tony Hawk produced which is kids friendly is the 3 Tricks & Tips series.
The Clown villains were created very grossingly scary, ugly & redneck looking (What becuase I'm ugly-looking I'm a villain, stereo-typing?), that a 6 years old watching this will most likely either cry, turn off the tv or get nightmares.
Kids are the mass Tony Hawk followers, yes, even a 6 years old loves Tony I know, I have one, this could have been a 5 star for me, if they made the video watchable for a 6 years old, at least. I know the heroes are teenage kids, but, this is still a cartoon, and cartoons and kids go together, leave the anime or manga concept to the Japanese.
I'm looking forward to a tamer follow-up series of this cg-3d-anime, it's got a potential, and I'll probably buy a remake of this feature dvd for my kids, without the gross humor, monster looking freak-of-the-week clowns, and the rest of the stuff I mentioned about the PG-13 rating.
Get a new editor, too, there's an editing screw-up in the movie when the kids were video taping the rail trick while DJ is being kidnapped by the crooks, the kids already caught it on the videocam when DJ is getting thrown into the camper, and then later on when the kids are aiming to stop them DJ is getting thrown again into the truck. Sorry, Tony but I got use to watching every scene in your videos while waiting for an awesome trick to happen, specially when you're the one skating.
We're also waiting for the DVD release of the Live Boom Boom show... the making is not that great, we want the entirety of the actual show not behind it.
MORE POWER, TONY! (You're not getting too old for these.)"