The Spine of Night Review

The latest game news from IGN - one of my fave channels ever - check it out This is an advance review from the SXSW Film Festival. The movie was watched via a digital screener. [poilib element="accentDivider"] As a medium, animation is widely considered kids stuff because of the dominance of Disney, Pixar, and decades of Saturday morning cartoons. However, more mature fare has been charting a course in television, from South Park to Archer to Rick and Morty and BoJack Horseman. Yet all of these are comedies, dealing in parody and satire. Far more rare in American animation is straight-faced drama that uses the limitlessness of this medium to manifest wild adventures and profoundly adult content. This is the path chosen by The Spine of Night, a fantasy film full of stars, graphic content, and mythos. Europa Report screenwriter Philip Gelatt teamed with animator Morgan Galen King, spinning his short film Exordium into a sprawling epic that traverses centuries with a robust cast of characters. Written and directed by Gelatt and King, The Spine of Night begins with Tzod (Lucy Lawless), a tenacious swamp witch, who wears only a smattering of bones and a strange blue flower. Though mostly nude, she treks tenaciously through snowy mountains, seeking The Guardian (Richard E. Grant), who has stood watch for eons unknown. What he stands watch over and what has brought her here will be the meat of this tale, with these two weary warriors as bookends and storytellers. [caption id="attachment_2484549" align="alignnone" width="720"] The Spine of Night, directed by Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King.[/caption]   All their stories center on the flower, which contains incredible magic and so is coveted by the power-hungry, like a snarling barbarian (Joe Manganiello), a mercurial tyrant (Patton Oswalt), and a deranged prophet (Larry Fessenden). Tzod will see first hand the horrors of such dark ambition, but so too will she share the heroics and humanity of a noble scholar (Get Out's Betty Gabriel), a trio of flying assassins, and gentle peasantry. One tale flows smoothly into the next, bringing in themes of betrayal, enlightenment, greed, and sacrifice. Far from family-friendly, The Spine of Night explores all this with casual nudity, buckets of blood, and flesh-scorching, bone-crunching violence. In style and substance, its animation harkens back to Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of The Rings (1978) and Gerald Potterton's Heavy Metal (1981). Like these animators, King employs rotoscoping to create his characters and their movements. He traced over live-action footage, frame by frame, to create a more realistic physicality for the cartoon characters. As such, when Tzod tromps through the snow, the weight of her effort is carefully rendered, underlining the difficulty of the endeavor. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=movies-that-are-definitely-not-for-kids-but-that-theyll-definitely-want-to-see&captions=true"]   Similarly, the heft of a weapon, a clumsy fumble, or a mighty blow all has a realistic sense of gravity in this style. However, the flat coloring chosen combats the visual acuity of rotoscoping. Like its inspirations, The Spine of Night doesn't employ shadows or highlights in its coloring. Occasionally, there's a visual effect applied to suggest candlelight's glow on flesh and fabric. But mostly these 2D characters' dimensions are flattened by low contrast, solid coloring. Despite gorgeously painted backdrops of stark contrast, this approach muddles the depth of field, making for some jarring execution. Speaking of flatness, Gelatt and King seem to have directed their cast to deliver voice performances grounded in grimness. Even Oswalt, who has played an array of zippy cartoon characters in everything from Ratatouille and We Bare Bears to Axe Cop and the upcoming M.O.D.O.K., offers a toned-down delivery that borders on dozy. Perhaps meant to compliment the grave subject matter, these voices speak with grit-teethed determination, hushed resignation, or steely defiance. But essentially, it's all shades of restrained, which becomes disappointingly monotone, whether foes are facing off or lovers are whispering under the stars. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=the-25-best-adult-cartoon-tv-series&captions=true"]

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