I actually really liked it. The art style was very true to the DA series, with creatures animated pretty much exactly the way they are in the games and even some of the exact armors and peasant clothing that you see in the games. The Grand Cathedral felt all wrong to me, but it really seemed like the artists took the architectural style from Kirkwall and ran with it, not realizing that maybe that wasn't the direction all of DA was heading, but just the look for DAII's settings.
The first time I saw Cassandra stab through a piece of plate armor my husband, who does medieval battle reenacting, just looked at me like "ugh, wtf?" I gave his hand a squeeze and said "Her sword is silverite." He said "Thank you. I feel better."
When she sliced off that golem's leg he said "Yep. Definitely silverite."
There definitely were some new magical abilities that we don't know of as canon. Blood magic mind control was used on a small horde of ogres and golems alike, but doesn't work on dragons. So it only works on humanoids, and darkspawn are still humanoid? I really thought they didn't have a soul, but golems do so that much made sense to me. As far as whether mind domination is stronger than the magic that binds a golem to its control rod... I guess so? Like I said, we don't know if it's canon. There's also a scene where Galyan (a mage) is either invisible or blends seamlessly with his surroundings to hide himself. A young mage is born with the ability to communicate with and influence the minds of animals - a kind of magic we've never heard of before, but so was Rhys' ability in "Asunder."
There is no way that the writing was worse than "Redemption" - just no way. It had its cheesy moments, but IMO that's something you get from anime, because they're a specific genre written usually for a different audience. I was impressed that the two lead characters, Cassandra and Galyan, weren't gimmicky but still managed to have a personality all their own. Cassandra is tough, but she didn't irritate me by being "I am angry and awesome I will cut the foreskins from a thousand mages GRRR". Galyan is charming and has his funny moments, but he doesn't spend the whole movie cracking jokes. Often you couldn't tell who the villains were just by assessing their physical features, which was refreshing for me.
My only real complaint about the movie was that the main villain was completely one-dimensional. A blood mage who wanted power. No idea why he wanted it other than just to have it. He also had this grotesque physical appearance and some sort of mask attached to his head which was never explained to us, which I was disappointed in.
Visually, it was stunning from start to finish, but the ending battle with its spells and dragons had some seriously jaw-dropping moments.
And we got to see our first obese elf, which was pretty awesome.
If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it and forming your own conclusions. Mike Laidlaw and Mark Darrah were both involved, and it keeps surprisingly close to the DA we're familiar with. Keep an open mind, because there are some real gems in there.
Modifié par brushyourteeth, 30 mai 2012 - 04:55 .
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