There's a lot of terrible anime, but I thought only good anime made it to North American theatres. Wrong.<br /><br />I know nothing of the manga series, so I know nothing of what this was SUPPOSED to be about and am speaking on the movie as it stands on its own.<br /><br />The film is a poorly-paced muddled mess. The english dubbing obviously took some liberties and chose to do a LOT of exposition. But only on the obvious stuff, not on the complicated themes. "The power-shield is crumbling!" as we watch a power shield crumble. The art was typical "big-eye" design, and the animation was typical pan-and-zoom limited stuff. Thoroughly unimpressive.<br /><br />The characters were non-existent, and they spend the brunt of the film either talking terrible exposition at eachother or doing abstract battle with their non-descript mystic powers. They fly around in one shot, then worry about falling in the next. They hit eachother with waves of energy and bounce back, then hit each other with waves of energy and die. All done without any dynamic to the scenes or interesting FX.<br /><br />The themes were almost interesting here and there, if they weren't so muddled and unconnected. The only interesting bit was the empathetic bad guys; they were fighting for the well-being of the earth at the expense of human-kind. But it was done without any grace, subtlety, or style. Do yourself a favour and watch Mononoke, which breaches the same subject with infinitely more texture and intelligence.