This one was a serious disappointment, really.
Having just enjoyed the -frankly- masterpiece that is "How to train Your Dragon" (on Blu-Ray) the bland characters, the mediocre animation and the predictable story of "Justin" became all the more irritating.
I had seen the trailer, and on that basis I bought (yes, "bought!" ) the blue ray.
Turns out, the trailer had quite some amusing bits. The movie? Not so much. The story drags, the characters are bland and by times annoying. The setting was uninteresting and bland too. A mixture of Renaissance and medieval, done in the most jarring way possible.
But, what got me really annoyed was that the animators, director and editors fell for the big no-no in CGI-animation: " We built it. So we shall proceed to light it, ALL of it, as harsh as possible" The result? The picture seems burnt-out, bland, pale, and only got slightly interesting when the hero treks through misty mountains.
Oh, and the producers of the Bue Ray couldn't help themselves, and HAD to put in (almost) unskippable trailers of some extremely uninteresting CGI glut.. Having paid for the Blue Ray, I felt quite insulted by that, and started to understand some of the reasons that people decide to rip movies. It really, REALLY ticked me off.
I still refuse to rip DVD's and such as a matter of principle, but stuff like that, makes it really hard to keep steadfast.
On a side-note: it's not just "Justin and the Knights of Valour" that does that. It's an affliction shared by many big names. I hope, one day the industry wakes up. Offering a bare-bones download version of a movie is a first good step, seen with many movies nowadays.
All in all, it's -maybe- nice for kids, on a TV cartoon afternoon, but it's no feature film material. Too long, too bland, too predictable, and iffy animation to boot..
It gets a "4" for effort, being a smaller European studio, but that's about it.
Having just enjoyed the -frankly- masterpiece that is "How to train Your Dragon" (on Blu-Ray) the bland characters, the mediocre animation and the predictable story of "Justin" became all the more irritating.
I had seen the trailer, and on that basis I bought (yes, "bought!" ) the blue ray.
Turns out, the trailer had quite some amusing bits. The movie? Not so much. The story drags, the characters are bland and by times annoying. The setting was uninteresting and bland too. A mixture of Renaissance and medieval, done in the most jarring way possible.
But, what got me really annoyed was that the animators, director and editors fell for the big no-no in CGI-animation: " We built it. So we shall proceed to light it, ALL of it, as harsh as possible" The result? The picture seems burnt-out, bland, pale, and only got slightly interesting when the hero treks through misty mountains.
Oh, and the producers of the Bue Ray couldn't help themselves, and HAD to put in (almost) unskippable trailers of some extremely uninteresting CGI glut.. Having paid for the Blue Ray, I felt quite insulted by that, and started to understand some of the reasons that people decide to rip movies. It really, REALLY ticked me off.
I still refuse to rip DVD's and such as a matter of principle, but stuff like that, makes it really hard to keep steadfast.
On a side-note: it's not just "Justin and the Knights of Valour" that does that. It's an affliction shared by many big names. I hope, one day the industry wakes up. Offering a bare-bones download version of a movie is a first good step, seen with many movies nowadays.
All in all, it's -maybe- nice for kids, on a TV cartoon afternoon, but it's no feature film material. Too long, too bland, too predictable, and iffy animation to boot..
It gets a "4" for effort, being a smaller European studio, but that's about it.