Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
Grimossfer
Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Kien Navarro
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
after-hour_dvd_collector
I stumbled upon the Heavenly Sword blu-ray more by accident at the bargain bin of a local electronics store. Being an ever hopeful viewer of video game movies (despite many previous experiences with the genre), I've looked up some gameplay videos ("that's actually pretty cinematic") then went out and bought the movie. Since I've already committed the error, you may not need to repeat it yourself. It's bad. And sad. If I understand the closing credits right, this movie was made by a small team (some 20 people?) on a shoestring budget of 6 million, and I generally applaud small independent productions, even if they aim high and end up .. not quite as high. Enthusiasm covers a lot of cinematic sins. Heavenly Sword however was a wholly different thing, especially compared to the game it originates from. The game has mo-cap actor legend Andy "Gollum" Serkis and the late Terry "Discworld" Pratchett's daughter Rhianna at the helm, and impressive graphics for its time and hardware (2007). It's a mixture of hack-and-slay, sniping, quicktime events and a whole lot of action-adventure tropes rolled into a playstation title. The movie is significantly less than that. Its storyline is at times disjointed, its animations and environments are just bad compared to the game, and the framing and editing of scenes is a step down from the game's cut-scenes as well. I needed to watch the game footage to get the movie's storyline in order, and noticed that the game manages to elicit more emotional response than the movie.How a movie that came out in 2014 manages to look worse than the real-time graphics of a game from 2007 (with the assumption that - since it's an official franchise product - the producers must've had access to Sony's graphics and animation data that the game already had 7 years earlier), is completely beyond me. Lowlights are the three boss fights, with the showdown against the water witch being the absolutely worst, both in terms of action and in terms of graphics. Some more doubtful design decisions are sweeping camera moves during quiet "character moments", and turning the moats of the tyrant's impressive fortress from the game's exaggerated-yet-realistic water into ludicrous lava.Using the gameplay as a template, shortening and framing the combat scenes cinematically and rendering the cutscenes with more advanced and fine-tuned facial animations and cloth/hair simulation could've made this into an impressive production. As it is, it was interesting to watch, but definitely not enjoyable. Can not recommend this. 3 / 10, and this includes a pity bonus of +1 point.
makomomo98
The movie is great and graphics are really amazing.See it in FULL HD blu-ray on the best TV led are very impressive.I don't know how others saw this movie and saw bad graphics...the texture and expression or modeling was amazing,stunning.Only one thing was bad...the physics of the animation,speed-movement of characters was fast with bad accomplished but...still, it's a movie made it after a game, so what? I never play it Heavenly Sword and now i really want to play this game.The story are strong and dramatic and memorable prime character, Nariko.Of course, Kay are second and maybe forthcoming heroine...I strongly recommend this movie, without great expectations but with some powerful pleasures...Goodbye Nariko, peace be with with you!
DaRangedTC
When the Heavenly Sword game came out, it was at the pinnacle of the PlayStation 3's graphics and even the original graphics from 2007 look better than this movie.The animation, the acting, and the dialogue, everything that made the game brilliant is missing in this film. The characters have little to no facial animation when expressing emotions. No effort has been made to try and match the mouth movements to dialogue. Might as well be watching Team America/Thunderbirds puppets in CGI. Only the backdrops look good... from a distance, because as soon as you get close they blur or pixelate... and I am not even going to get started on the physics are represented.The film also borrows the 2D animated miniseries which preceded the game's release. This is chopped up and used to tell an abridged version of the story, but they have also dubbed the original voice which was much better acted than its replacement, so I cant even give them credit for that.And then... there are the continuity mistakes.. even as bad as to switch King Bohan's scarred eye from left to right and more than once in the opening act!? Unforgivably bad.Not having much to fall back on, there is none of the music from the game which was beautiful, and the story follows some real gagworthy plot clichés.Sorry, in a nutshell.. there are no redeeming qualities, so don't waste your time on money on this.You're much better off watching the Full Cutscene version movie of the game on YouTube, or playing the game on PS3.
gerry barnaby Film Reviewer
Heavenly Sword is an film animation from the popular game on the PS3 (play-station) about a heroine and her sister, with an unbreakable bond, that set off on a journey to to find their long lost brother chosen by fate to wield a sword of the the Gods. The story concept of this film is an extraordinary story, specially taken from a games own storyline, but sadly this animated film has a lot of flaws which lets this film down. The voice acting is good but Some of the animation lets this down. Any one that has played this game will know this story all to well only Problem is i cant give any thing else about this film that good because there are just so many things wrong with it it just a let down, some may like it where other wont.Dislikes : The physics of the animation was off at times and things were sometimes way to fast for what they ought to be, but i think this was down to rendering, The animation is pretty poor for this film, which suggest a very low budget as the film feels like Long game cut scenes movie between game play. I feel the C.G.I could have been done better specially with the fight scenes i feel if you going to have blood in a scene at least show like the person is been cut & not just have blood spurt out, it shows no realism in this film, sadly for an animation of this storyline this was a big let down, which ruined the film for me.