Summer Wars
Summer Wars
PG | 13 October 2010 (USA)
Summer Wars Trailers

A student tries to fix a problem he accidentally caused in OZ, a digital world, while pretending to be the fiancé of his friend at her grandmother's 90th birthday.

Reviews
Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
sol- Accused of hacking into a virtual reality platform that controls traffic, water and other aspects of Japanese life, a young computer whiz has to prove his innocence and take back control of the virtual world in this imaginative animated feature. The plot is more complicated than just that as he has also been asked to pose as a classmate's boyfriend, with the whole film set during a family reunion where he finds it difficult to maintain the pretence. The mythology upon which the film is built (is a virtual world or a social network?) is arguably too complex for its own good with a slate of unanswered questions, but the movie does a very good job contrasting family life to the online world. The girl's extended family is also full of such lively characters that it is easy to get swept away in the story even when some of the virtual world elements jar - most notably how all the virtual fights simulate real life and how all the avatars are somehow programmed to sweat and show emotions identical to their users. Indeed, this is a film best appreciated with all the virtual reality aspects as metaphorical with the whole film really a tale of the main character becoming gradually accepted by his fake girlfriend's suspicious family. The film also takes a stab at the risks of placing everything online where is capable of being hacked, but this really more a tale of a nervous young man making good.
millecastle I saw this in the recent animated films and I was pleasantly surprised to find something set in cyberspace , said this I can say that the proposed environment although in the past proposed by cartoons like Digimon and others this time is presented to us in the form of social network ( Like Second Life ) who are now tied almost all human activities all from the hospital sector to that of firefighter and management also of the satellites , and in this scenario is emerging that will see the adventure starring a guy between various adventures if you will have to do with a dangerous computer virus that threatens to destroy the city and the virtual community ( engulfing avatar of Avatar ) . Some described the plot can only say that it is undoubtedly a good film that takes sometimes adventures in cyberspace proposed in the past by the aforementioned series and making it a more contemporary and advice if you are looking for a good animated film .
TheLittleSongbird Summer Wars is one of the most ambitious animes to exist, ambitious doesn't always equal greatness on film as a result of being over-ambitious but Summer Wars is one of those that gets it right. Some characters are better developed than others, the main family members are very compellingly real but some of the side characters are sketchily written. If the film had less characters than it did the character development would have been even better.The animation is just wonderful though and stylistically unlike any other I've seen, the colours are eye-popping and the backgrounds are so richly detailed and textured. None of it felt confusing to me. The cyber-battles are particularly strong in this regard, the action itself is thrilling and the visuals positively dazzle. Summer Wars has a music score that is both rousing and ethereal, and luckily mood-wise when matched with the animation and the tone of the storytelling it never jars. There is also a thoughtful script that handles its emotional themes very touchingly and remarkably maturely, while the story covers a lot but despite exploring several themes it doesn't feel too much. The family themes are ones that really resonate and charm, and while the message is not the most original it's a truthful message that doesn't patronise. The lead characters are engaging and the voice acting, both in Japanese and dubbing, is dynamic and expressive.All in all, a beautifully executed anime and shouldn't disappoint anybody who likes Wolf Children and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. It's ambitious but apart from the writing of some of the characters it doesn't feel too much so. 9/10 Bethany Cox
Tweekums In the near future just about everybody uses an internet site called OZ; on it on can do just about everything one can do in the real world and its security system means that governments and corporations use it too. Protagonist Kenji spends most of his time there but it looks like things might change when a girl called Natsuki offers him a summer job. He doesn't realise what he is expected of him until she introduces him to her grandmother… as her boyfriend and future husband! He isn't sure that he can keep up the charade but it turns out that is the least of his problems. That night he gets sent a strange mathematical puzzle, which he solves and in the morning his face is on the television; he has been accused of hacking OZ's security! Soon there is chaos as whoever has hacked in is interfering with the country's infrastructure and it is only a matter of time before it presents a real danger to people.This, Mamoru Hosoda's second film after 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' is a lot of fun; there are laughs, thrills and drama as well as tragedy and a little romance. Kenji is a fairly typical anime protagonist; shy around girls to the extent that he has a cliché nosebleed! This isn't really a problem though. The large cast of characters are entertaining and the depiction of the online world is nicely different to the real world… just don't expect it to be a realistic vision of anything on line; I suspect that realism would have made a less interesting film, especially for younger viewers. The film does rely on a level of coincidence that strains ones suspension of disbelief somewhat: Kenji, the best fighter in OZ and the person indirectly responsible for the events all end up at the same house at the same time! From the description it might sound like this is primarily a science fiction film but it feels more like a family drama; and these aspects of the story entertained me more; they were believable as a family in a way that made the more far-fetched parts of the story acceptable. The animation is of a high standard as anybody who watched Hosada's previous film would expect. Overall I found this to be an entertaining film that any anime fan can enjoy; there is certainly very little to offend.These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.