Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Kong Ho Meng Although made like a low budget film and a super slow pace which can be a sore boredom, it is very surreal not just in a high form of art but the hidden power of Avalon is it leaves a lot of food for thought. Whether reality is what it seems or what is the real setting/situation behind what can be seen in the eyes through this movie? What is actually going on behind Ash's real character? I am not even commenting on the music score or the wonderfully done surreal atmosphere generated in the game world.The more you rewatch it, the more you think about it the more this movie offers many versions of interpretation. This is one of those films where you will get a different conclusion every time you re-watch it. A reminiscent of the directors' other films which are not what they appear to be, Avalon is meant to be made to reveal very minimal details to the audience, hence the slow pace and lack of solid 'plot line'.In fact reviewers who feel so much criticism for it should refer to the fan forums online on this movie and you can see the enthusiasm from those reviewers on their versions and intepretations - really not many movies are able to do this. Brilliant!

Rabh17 It looks like a live-action movie about anime, about Artificial Reality, about Gaming and Society. Yes, this is Correct.It Looks like a Movie about a Fictional Game played in a Fictional Dystopian Future. Yes. . .But mostly Not quite what you think.It will NOT give the average viewer the usual Hollywood thriller blood 'n' guts Bang-Bang FPS shoot-em up. Instead, the creators of this movie, which could NEVER have come out of Hollywood, are using the Artificial Reality/Game to pose a dramatic question. Some reviewers have called the plot/pace slow...No-- it's called 'Drama', folks. It's not a recorded screenshot of ADHD paced shoot-em-up gameplay foisted on us and called a Movie. It's a Movie that dares to call itself a Drama and pose a QUESTION about Gameplay. It's seems 'slow'-- because you are supposed to wonder what IS ACTUALLY happening.Yes, it is about What is Artificial vs what is Real. But it does it with music, lighting, a play on color and a poetic sense.If you are willing -and able- to sit back and take in this movie as a Dramatic Event instead of the expected Blam-Bang-Boom action flick, you will be surprisingly moved.The Opening Theme at the beginning is stunning. The Musical Performance at the end is simply Beautiful.Girl-Friend Test! If she sits thru the first hour and then can't stop watching...she's a keeper.

accountcrapper A typical Mamoru Oshii style film. Slow, heavy handed but often effective use of lens filters, dreary soundtrack, poor Foley work, cinema noir poses and some art-house meanderings. The story is so so, reasonably similar themes can be seen in a lot of work coming out of japan these days. Virtual reality or online identity cross merging with the real world. It is very anime in parts but I am not sure anime works for live action. In anime you can forgive some of the stiffness or the poor Foley but in live action it makes it feel a bit dead. A problem I have with all Oshii's film. The main actress is good. She does hold the film together. Not much is asked from her in terms of character development or script but she gives more than is on the written on the page and imbues the film with a feeling of lose, fading away, remorseful acceptance. I liked the film. I enjoy the theme. I thought the CGI was done well and there were some nice shots. The metaphors are a bit much but that is to be expected with Oshii. Boo to me but I wish he'd make GITS 3.SPOILER (NOT REALLY)I very much did not like the last scene. The is a scene where an orchestra perform the theme of the film Avalon with cuts going between a conversation outside and the orchestra inside. This for me was the worst scene. The filming of the orchestra was very standard TV style with no use of creative lighting to reflect the colour of the music, no close-ups of any of the instruments, no style at all just bad TV. Then it was clumsily cut with the conversation outside which were meant to reflect the lyrics of the opera. I thought it was very poor. And I thought the dog in the car was just stupid.

Tom-2128 Lot's of comments compare this movie to "The Matrix" but they don't point out the obvious difference: the plot of "Avalon" is the reverse of "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", the main character starts out in the game (the Matrix) and moves to the real world. In "Avalon", the main character (Ash) goes in the opposite direction.Another interesting point is that the philosophy of "Avalon" is the opposite of that of "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", living in reality is presented as the highest value, worth sacrificing comfort and security. In "Avalon", the point is that the real isn't morally superior to the artificial: choosing the artificial (i.e. virtual reality) is presented as a perfectly reasonable choice.There is a dispute about whether the first part of the movie is boring or just depicting a boring character. It's both. The problem is that the director apparently didn't realize that showing a boring life doesn't have to be boring. He could have used techniques such as showing a dull sequence, then referring to it briefly several times. "Groundhog Day" used that technique.A common complaint in many comments is that Ash is emotionless and her real world is bland, boring, and (almost literally) colorless. That is crucial to the movie: it has to make the point that Ash's life outside the game is meaningless.I like the fact that the movie combines Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and Multi User Dungeons, and it handles each of them accurately.We can summarize the point of the movie as: the artificial world we create can be better than the world we live in.