| New American full-length cartoon on Moscow screens The creators of “Titan after the Death of the Earth” had a way to make good money on their creation: they had to get a time machine, go to the USSR during the late stagnation era, print several thousand copies and release the cartoon in Soviet rentals. Those who, at a tender age, queued up in the morning to see the Japanese cartoon “Ghost Ship” will confirm that I’m right. For obvious reasons, the described method was not used: the film failed at the American box office (the box office receipts could cover no more than a third of the budget) and now it has reached us. But it’s too late: over the past decades, the technological beauty of space flights has lost its aura of unusualness even in Russia. Relatively cheap full-length cartoons and animated series produced in Asia have occupied the television screens of Europe and America, and now, in order to get the younger generation to the cinema, something truly extraordinary is needed.
"Titan After Earth," directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman (creators of "Anastasia"), is truly unusual. Despite the huge number of films about the expected and ultimately averted end of the world, the apocalypse itself has not appeared very often on the screen. In “Titan,” the Earth bursts juicily, with a crash and a roar at the very beginning of the story. 3028 After the destruction of their home planet, orphaned humanity, or rather, that small part of it that managed to escape from the ferocious alien civilization of the Dredge, turns into poor nomads wandering the universe on board orbital stations, or into cheap labor in space mines. Among the latter is the main character of the cartoon named Cale, a gloomy guy with a map tattooed on his hand (in the original he was voiced by Matt Damon, and Akima, Cale’s lover, spoke in the voice of Drew Barrymore, but the film is released dubbed in Russia). This map is the key to the salvation of humanity: using it you can find the place where the “Titan” is hidden - the cosmic Noah’s Ark, which, when activated, is capable of completely cloning the Earth. The search for the Titan takes up most of the film.
In places, “Titan after the Death of the Earth” is enchantingly beautiful. The chase scene in the “hydrogen forest” is amazing: people on flying boats and a flock of intelligent giant vultures flee from the Dredges - sparkling clots of pure energy. “Hydrogenic trees” are like orange Chinese lanterns hanging in the dark: if you touch such a “lantern,” everything around disappears in a blindingly bright flash of hydrogen flame. And what about flying through the deathly blue needles of space ice, making the planet Tigrin look like a killer space hedgehog? God knows what else they need, these children. At their age, I would have given all the money I saved on school lunches for the opportunity to see something like this. Maybe they are already familiar with all these beauties from three-dimensional screensavers for computer games, and the plots of their favorite quests are much more inventive than the simple-minded saga of “Titan”?
Be that as it may, there is a comforting lesson to be learned from the American failure of Titan. Lately they like to say that fantastic computer special effects and surround sound are destroying the author's principle in cinema: no matter what you shoot, the very industrial power of the spectacle will crush and subjugate any viewer with its technological perfection. The ultra-technological and super-spectacular “Titan” refutes these fears. If you miss a little, all computer miracles happen in vain. Even now we cannot do without the author, who intuitively determines the spirit and structure of the future film. The more powerful and accurate the weapon used, the more important the gunner's skill.
The closed premiere of the cartoon will take place today at the Horizon cinema at 19.00, and from Wednesday “Titan” can be watched there at screenings 9.00, 11.00, 13.00, 15.00, 17.00, 19.00 Alexey MEDVEDEV |
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