Review of Machinima Film Festival 2002

Introduction

Okay, what the Hell is Machinima? In brief, it`s a platform for a computer-generated form of VR animation constructed on home computers with the use of widely available consumer software. A collection of the resultant films are presented here, from cops-n-gangstas parody `Rick Jones 2` to quirky lumberjack comedy `Hardly Workin`. Deep-space pod love is explored rather graphically in `Rendezvous` and the sci-fi epic is reinvented on a more lo-fi scale with `Anachronox`.

By way of a disclaimer, (and public service warning) if you ever decide to press play on this disc, I`d give it about 5 minutes before you`re clawing into your skull with a hammer.

Don`t say I didn`t warn you…

… seriously, it`s so bad you`ll want to punch yourself in the face. Don`t waste your time even processing another thought about Machinima. Print this review out and burn it, then flush the embers. In fact, go away. Go away right now. Do something else. Sort your crockery, sweep the spider-webs from the cornices, write a folk song about squirrels, build a Grecian fountain, anything, just don`t waste another moment on anything even tangentially Machinima-related.

Anyway, now that I`ve got that off my chest, lets proceed.

Video

Technical sophistication is a four-letter word at Machinima, with the modus operandi of its contributors seeming to be the eradication of all aesthetic value and formal distinction. So, the resulting transfers vary from scratchy and ill-defined to muddily unwatchable.

Audio

Inconsistent volume, often completely inaudible dialogue tracks, the bare minimum of sound design still somehow failing to come together. Utterly crap, but unsurprisingly so.

Features

Smug commentary from the wretched creators of `Rich Jones 2` as well as a couple of mind-meltingly dull interviews with the filmmakers of `Hardly Workin` and `Rendezvous`.

Conclusion

Congratulations Machinima, this is the most worthless DVD I have ever seen.

You want to admire the amateur, underdog spirit of Machinima, its scrappy integrity, its unselfconscious experimentalism. And whilst there`s something oddly noble about the way its contributors wear their incompetence so proudly on their sleeves, Machinima is as creatively stunted as it is technically meager. And whilst it`s obvious that no attempt is being made to compete with professional films (in fact, Machinima seems to exist to perform the opposite service), the relentless dirge of blocky, lifeless images presented here is so flat, witless and juvenile that it serves no other purpose than being a time-wasting hobby-craft for sickly technophiles.

The individual films themselves bear no witness to the creative expanses opened up by contemporary developments in technology, and instead allude to nothing more than a soulless poverty of imagination. `Rick Jones 2`, a lame blaxploitation pastiche whose humour is more dated than the legacy it claims to satirise, possesses graphics so bad they bypass gutter-chic "ha ha" crapness into the grim vaults of the truly, bafflingly terrible. `Rendezvous` and a selection of micro-movies are utterly forgettable, only managing to capture the invariable sensation of watching a cloddishly edited replay from a video-game, and at best (and I do mean best) a scratchy animatic for a proper movie. On the upside, `Hardly Workin`s sense of the absurd is vaguely diverting, and `Anachronox` fleetingly displays glimpses of cinematic style: an amusing "lost in space" montage and a neat 3D graphics device that mimics hand-held camera-work.

Whilst the genres covered range from comedy to sci-fi, the universal facet of all of them is a crippling lack of understanding about what makes a film compelling or emotionally involving. It`s all well and good for some geek to potter away his free time on a gimmicky animated skit, it`s quite another to expect other people to watch it in appreciation and awe.

I once swore that I would never succumb to that awful autobiographical reflex when reviewing, that last pleading route to a reader`s affections… and I still won`t. But this collection from Machinima is so profoundly worthless, so spirit-seeping, soul-crushingly empty, that I simply cannot forgive its interference in my life. I simply demand my time back. Machinima, I want my time back. I want that time back now. You owe me Machinima. You owe the world to stop making films. Stop. Forever. And let us never speak of this again.