War of the Worlds: Goliath- Review

Multi-award winning huh?

Have you ever had something in your life that you wanted so desperately to love, but knew in your heart of hearts that you couldn't? Regardless of how promising that thing you want to love may be, deep down you're completely cognizant that any love you could feel just isn't there. Every time you gaze upon it, you're reminded of what could have been. If only it would have lived up to expectation, realized its goals, or tried harder to leave an actual impression, then the floodgates of your love would flow freely. This sort of thing can be a sad situation to say the least.

Do you know what can be really hard for me to endure sometimes? Watching a film that has a fantastic idea fail to deliver on its awesome concepts. I'm the kind of nerd who can easily fall in love with an idea. Especially if I think that idea could be a great one. Not too long ago I got to experience such a thing with War of the Worlds: Goliath. It's taken me a little bit to really organize my thoughts and feelings on this film, but I finally think I'm ready to state my peace.

If you want the short version of this review, I can sum up War of the Worlds: Goliath quite simply: It's wasted potential. I only say this because when you get down to brass tax War of the Worlds: Goliath is not a good movie experience at its core. As much as it pains me to say that, this film just falls flat, no if's, and's, or but's about it. On the contrary, it isn't a bad movie either. This is one of those unique occurrences where a piece straddles that ever-so fine line in entertainment. The final product isn't good enough for you to feel any strong emotions for it, but not bad enough to make you turn away. It just wastes what good ideas it does have on things you don't care about.

In the year 1899 a highly advanced race of martians from the planet Mars attacked Earth and nearly succeeded in destroying all of humanity. It was only because of the martian's lack of immunity to Earthly bacteria in the atmosphere that mankind was able to bring itself back from the brink of total annihilation. For fifteen years humankind combined their resources to rebuild the shattered world.

The year is now 1914, and Earth's forces are stronger than ever. From the ashes of the martian invasion scientist Nikolai Tesla has reverse-engineered the alien Tripod/Heat-ray technology/weaponry so that human soldiers can use them. A multi-national defense force known as A.R.E.S. is formed, and now stands as Earth's most powerful military entity. Under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of War Teddy Roosevelt, and Russian General Kushnirov, new recruits are trained day in and out to prepare for another possible martian attack.

Gorgeous concepts at work!

Does that sound like a totally cool idea to you or what? I know for someone like myself it does! On paper War of the Worlds: Goliath reads like an old-school nerdy wet-dream. It stands as a spiritual/action packed direct sequel to one of science fiction's most iconic stories (H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds) places heavy emphasis on an absolutely beautiful dieselpunk aesthetic (with World War 1 era technology along with the already cool alien heat-ray tech) and even gives us totally bad-ass versions of Nikolai Tesla and Teddy Roosevelt just for good measure.

The concept artwork alone is noteworthy just on how incredible everything looks. Clearly a lot of effort is being put forth by everyone to make this as much of a kick-ass sci-fi animation as possible. If you don't believe the passion is reflecting in the art, just check out the production log here and you will clearly see the creative team's dedication for this project. It's readily apparent they want to make something fantastic.

Seriously, this is awesome! You don't waste this!

With an idea this awesome on concept alone, they would almost have to try to botch it right? The answer to that question is a bit of a yes and no. For every cool thing the story introduces, it almost immediately makes it somehow feel boring. This happens because the story is not letting us actually see how fun these ideas truly are. For instance, the story brings in this kick-ass version of Nikolai Tesla and Teddy Roosevelt, just to put them on the back burner for much of the film's length. This one element alone is indicative of almost everything that is wrong with this movie.

I don't know about you guys, but you don't waste something like dieselpunk Nikolai Tesla and a muscle bound Teddy Roosevelt fighting against martians with heat-rays. You just don't. Before you ask, yes, this problem even extends into the main cast of characters that exist away from the historical figures. Every interesting element about the cast that crops up fails to deliver on its premise by not expounding further.

Such potential...

Conflicts throughout the plot resolve almost as quickly as they begin. Early on a potential war is brewing among the European nations that could risk dividing A.R.E.S. and the newly formed Goliath crew if it were to start. Instead of developing that plot thread, the martians just attack and every nation becomes hunky-dory again. A member of the Goliath crew bears ties to a terrorist cell, and is even given the task of stealing Tesla's technology. This plot thread goes nowhere because it has no time to develop. The aliens attack, and what could have been a very interesting character conflict simply resolves and disappears. At almost every turn it feels like this flick just wants to make things fall flat. Perhaps if War of the Worlds: Goliath was a television series instead of a singular film than it could have room to grow its cast and its world appropriately. Since that isn't the case, we're left with a clutter of ideas, characters, and plot threads that all sound great but ultimately fail to impress.

Thankfully I cannot say the same about the voice acting. Everyone in the film delivers their lines perfectly, and for the Highlander fans out there, this is going to be extra fun for you. A hefty slew of actors from the Highlander T.V. series come together here, and they're just as awesome a crew now as they were back in the day. Peter Wingfield plays the main character Eric Wells, while Adrian Paul and Elizabeth Gracen fill out the Goliath crew. Other voice acting mainstays such as Steven Blum, and Adam Baldwin come in for minor roles, but they play their parts up incredibly well. Epecially Adam Baldwin, who plays a completely psychotic survivor of a recent martian attack. Most notable though is Jim Byrnes as Teddy Roosevelt, who undoubtedly owns every scene he shows up in without question. It's a downright shame that this awesome voice cast doesn't have the time to really spread their wings and make this movie soar to the heights that I feel it could.

Solid character designs.

On the animation front War of the Worlds: Goliath is a bit of a mixed bag. From the outset one can clearly see that Tripod Entertainment (yep you read that right) is working on a fairly limited budget. I do understand that the film is Malaysian (in terms of its production) and Malaysia isn't exactly known for animation, but I feel this could look so much better. Of course I will concede that it could look a whole lot worse too.

Characters animate with stiff and jerky motions most of the time, along with having several odd facial expressions. The animators do keep characters on model though, and the core idea for the character designs are pretty damn solid overall. Some may find the decision to make all the characters very angular in appearance slightly jarring, but I think it plays perfectly into the other (even more-so) stylistic elements the movie has to offer just fine. It is a shame though that the final animation isn't more reflective of the detail seen in the concept work and promotional images. The A.R.E.S. uniforms look pretty bad-ass, and every member of the Goliath crew looks unique in some way, but in the film they just feel somewhat lifeless.

Weaponry and the overall look of the technology is without a doubt fantastic. A lot of the A.R.E.S. base backdrops are instantly worthy of being a computer desktop wallpaper the moment you see them. Sadly budget saving measures do crop up throughout the experience and take away from what flare is there. The obvious use of static panning shots is nice for showing off the awesome backgrounds, but makes most of the scenes feel slow. Use of rehashed animation clips throughout the film throw quite a few of the more intense actions scenes well out of rhythm. While they're not too egregious, they are definitely noticeable and only add to the film's already long list of detriments.

Too bad the movie doesn't look this good.

The addition of CGI animation for the vehicles stands relatively fine on its own, but clashes pretty hard with the 2D animation most of the time. The characters look almost like paper cutouts when walking among a polygonal landscape or riding upon a CGI tripod. While I have seen far worse in older and even current films, I will say that the abundant CGI fire does draw attention to itself in the worse way possible. If I didn't know any better I would swear this movie came straight out of the year 1999 or early 2000's. For a first-time effort from a new studio I will say that it isn't bad, but certainly not up to current animation standards.

When the animation is running on all cylinders though it actually looks pretty good, but not great. Once the martians launch their second invasion, the war scenes get surprisingly graphic. We see people literally melt from the heat-ray blats, and it's certainly refreshing to see an animation not pull punches on how gruesome war can really be. The alien spacecraft and the A.R.E.S. biplane dogfights are the stand out battles, showcasing the best animation, and possess the most intensity.

War of the Worlds: Goliath does also have a fairly good climax. It's here that we finally get to see the movie make good on some of its more lofty promises and see stuff like Teddy Roosevelt blasting martians with a bad-ass heat-ray. The pacing for the climax is solid and the stakes do feel appropriately high. Sadly it is also too little too late, so by the time the third act roles in it just feels like the movie scrambling to make good with the audience. Special mention I feel must also go the the movie's opening montage. While it is nothing but still shots done up with some sepia tones, it is very effective. We see humanity building itself up throughout the industrial revolution being juxtaposed to the martians preparing their first invasion of Earth, and it does a great job of setting the tone for the whole story.

In terms of music there really isn't much to say. Luka Kuncevic is given composer credits, and while I don't think any of the music is bad, all I can really say about it is that it is functional. It gets the job done, but there is literally not one single track that actually stands out. At no point does the music ever come into the equation during a scene. This is easily one of the biggest reasons why War of the Worlds: Goliath feels so flat half of the time. The music comes off like such a non-entity that it just sucks all the fun and emotion right out of the film.

Overall I will say that I don't hate War of the Worlds: Goliath. I'm more-so in that mind of disappointment really. At practically every turn in this movie I see how great this really could be. There is a fantastic science-fiction story here that is just begging and scratching at every corner to break free. I would love nothing more than to end this review by telling you to run out and see this movie ASAP, but I can never do that with the product we actually have. The only people I could ever recommend this to in some form of good conscience is to those who are curious as to what wasted potential actually looks like. Other than that if you miss this movie, you sadly didn't miss anything at all.

Positive Factors

• A lot of awesome ideas at work.
• Solid character designs and fantastic backgrounds.
• Perfect voice cast. Everyone plays their parts incredibly well. 
• Alien spacecraft and biplane battles are pretty cool.
• Muscle-bound heat-ray wielding Teddy Roosevelt is as awesome as he sounds!

Negative Factors

• Wastes a lot of its awesome ideas seemingly anywhere it can.
• Cost cutting measures make the animation suffer considerably on both characters and the CGI.
• While the voice cast is great they are given very little to do.
• Music is almost a non-entity.
• Commits the greatest sin of not doing anything with an awesome version of Teddy Roosevelt.

Final Rating: Mediocremarkable...