I try to support local Malaysian cinema lately, but from what I’ve seen, they’ve got a long way to go. For instance, I thought the much talked about animation (Malaysian press only), See-Food deserved a look. It looked stunning in the trailers and the voice talents seem to have American accents. And it’s got some film festival nod somewhere or other.
The animation is about two sharks of different species. One is big and scary and the other shark adorable and harmless. They are best of friends. One day the smaller one’s eggs got stolen by poachers. Their adventure even takes them to land and even feature an outlandish made-for-fish out-of-sea bio-suit. All this while a horde of denizens of the deep plot to take over the abundant coral reefs.
Well, the graphics were next to flawless, they could have given it a little more shadow, I thought. The accents were a little disarrayed. Most accents were American, some more genuine than others, some were British, the grand old dame has a Malaysian Accent, and weirdly, one chicken has a German accent. What all these accents signify, I don’t know.
So where does this measure up against giants like Pixar’s Finding Nemo which obviously shares the same theme. Against Pixar, See-Food would have been fileted from its bone and made into fish food. Pixar’s story telling is par excellence, while See-Food is not even worthy of day time television.
Its plot was so bad, there were times so excruciating I had to look away. Their intended comedy is flat. Their overly kid friendly plot is so unexciting and messy; it leaves me drawing parallels to a cheap Malay cartoon on TV. When the credits came up, it’s obvious that there is only one writer credited, or incriminated, whereas it should be a whole team of writers taking many many months to create that one masterpiece.
I hope they really do get better in animation. Nothing beats a good story, and they need to build this foundation first before tinkering with anything else. I give it 2/10.
The animation is about two sharks of different species. One is big and scary and the other shark adorable and harmless. They are best of friends. One day the smaller one’s eggs got stolen by poachers. Their adventure even takes them to land and even feature an outlandish made-for-fish out-of-sea bio-suit. All this while a horde of denizens of the deep plot to take over the abundant coral reefs.
Well, the graphics were next to flawless, they could have given it a little more shadow, I thought. The accents were a little disarrayed. Most accents were American, some more genuine than others, some were British, the grand old dame has a Malaysian Accent, and weirdly, one chicken has a German accent. What all these accents signify, I don’t know.
So where does this measure up against giants like Pixar’s Finding Nemo which obviously shares the same theme. Against Pixar, See-Food would have been fileted from its bone and made into fish food. Pixar’s story telling is par excellence, while See-Food is not even worthy of day time television.
Its plot was so bad, there were times so excruciating I had to look away. Their intended comedy is flat. Their overly kid friendly plot is so unexciting and messy; it leaves me drawing parallels to a cheap Malay cartoon on TV. When the credits came up, it’s obvious that there is only one writer credited, or incriminated, whereas it should be a whole team of writers taking many many months to create that one masterpiece.
I hope they really do get better in animation. Nothing beats a good story, and they need to build this foundation first before tinkering with anything else. I give it 2/10.
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