Length: 08:11
Written & directed by Brent Lockley
Genre: Animation
Date: 2006
Rating: ★★★★☆
Rating: ★★★★☆
Logline: An amateur bowler must harness all his focus in order to beat a rival and to save his marriage in the process.
This cute animation revolves around the torrid world of competitive bowling and although it looks pretty rough around the edges, it's entertaining enough. Dialogue is well written and performed. The Northern accents add warmth to the story as well as humour. Lead voice overs are provided by the well known Philip Jackson and Anne Reid and lines are delivered naturally and professionally by all. The comedy isn't laugh out loud stuff but is aptly fitting and there's some nice examples of how structure is used in comedy writing in there too. Sound is well composed also. A suiting soundtrack plays throughout and is orchestrated well to echo on screen character emotion. The layered sfx's provide depth and round off the audio well.
There's some nicely considered shot compositions in here but often the camera lingers too long on the one pose so a quicker edit and more variation of shots wouldn't have gone amiss. Adding to the lagging pace is the slowish movement and character animation which draws out the action more than necessary. The simplistic design of the characters mimics the basic array of movements they can achieve. And while the animation looks kind of bumbling, in a way, it rather suits the tone of the film and is more of a style than a hindrance. Overall, not the best in terms of character look and animation but the voice over performances, cosy plot and thorough audio more than make up for it.
Best Bit: Voice over actors.
This cute animation revolves around the torrid world of competitive bowling and although it looks pretty rough around the edges, it's entertaining enough. Dialogue is well written and performed. The Northern accents add warmth to the story as well as humour. Lead voice overs are provided by the well known Philip Jackson and Anne Reid and lines are delivered naturally and professionally by all. The comedy isn't laugh out loud stuff but is aptly fitting and there's some nice examples of how structure is used in comedy writing in there too. Sound is well composed also. A suiting soundtrack plays throughout and is orchestrated well to echo on screen character emotion. The layered sfx's provide depth and round off the audio well.
There's some nicely considered shot compositions in here but often the camera lingers too long on the one pose so a quicker edit and more variation of shots wouldn't have gone amiss. Adding to the lagging pace is the slowish movement and character animation which draws out the action more than necessary. The simplistic design of the characters mimics the basic array of movements they can achieve. And while the animation looks kind of bumbling, in a way, it rather suits the tone of the film and is more of a style than a hindrance. Overall, not the best in terms of character look and animation but the voice over performances, cosy plot and thorough audio more than make up for it.
Best Bit: Voice over actors.
Worst Bit: Slow animation.
Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.
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