" Cloaking Dinosaurs. Are you kidding me? What is this, Carnosaur meets Ultimate Fighting? "

      Title: Tekken- The Motion Picture- From ADV films

      Format: Anime DVD!

      Reviewing Monkey: Chimpan-A

      The Hype: And lo, that which was once a fighting game came unto the animation table and became… "ANIME". And then it was a fighting game some more, but let’s take some time to look at this anime movie based on the Tekken fighting games. Ready? Fight.

      What This Monkey Thought...

      Animation: The character animation is just fine. Everybody looks great, although some may be a little disappointed in the translation from video game to animation. The backgrounds on the other hand do not fare so well. A lot of the background props look tacked into the picture and then moved like some kind of bad Claymation. Also the backgrounds during some of the intense fighting scenes are a little wonky. There are some very cool moments with Jack 2 as they suddenly go into x-ray mode. Watching a guy’s bones shatter as he punches a steel wall of abdominal muscles is definitely cool. 3.5 out of 5

      Action: It’s a fighting game anime. It’s practically nothing but action! Luckily these are some cool actions scenes. Not all of it is martial art fighting either. My only complaint about the sequences is that they’re really short. I guess it makes sense in a movie only an hour long, but come on; some of that stuff was just too cool to be over that quickly! The non-fighting action isn’t bad either. Don’t go expecting Masterpiece Theater here, but it’s not likely to make you throw feces at the screen (which are quite hard to clean off). 4 out of 5

      Story: For a fighting game, I was pretty impressed at how well they pulled together a believable story. Apparently a mysterious group has been developing some kind of terrifying biological weapon on a remote island. The group is lead by fighting legend Heihachi (does anyone else think he looks like Dilbert’s boss if he were Japanese… and a tournament fighter…). This particular megalomaniac enjoys world destruction, obscure martial arts tournaments in far off jungles, and throwing little boys off cliffs. His plan is to make his son (the aforementioned cliff diving kid) into some kind of rage fueled killing machine. Thus, he stages this whole tournament as a test. The story is told more from the point of view of Jun, who is an officer with an elite police force. She gets assigned to investigate the goings on at the island, and try to track down the bio monsters. She knows Kazuya (the son in question) from back in his "being thrown off a cliff" days, and is determined to save him from his own darkness. The best development in the movie is the triangle between Heihachi, Kazuya, and Jun. Anyway, the two get to the island, where they fight against the other contestants. Little do they know that they’re about to be attacked by the only major pitfall this movie’s story had, the amazing biological weapon? Cloaking Dinosaurs. Are you kidding me? What is this, Carnosaur meets Ultimate Fighting? This is what your fascination technology leads up to? Feh. Oh well. By the way, if all you want to do is just watch all the action scenes, just watch the two trailers that come on the DVD. That’s pretty much every action scene in the movie. 3.5 out of 5

      Music: Here’s where things get a little tough to judge. See, the movie actually has two different musical scores depending on the language you’re listening too. The English version has a lot of rock songs, and other westernisms. The Japanese soundtrack is far mellower, with a lot less music, actually. Both are good, although the English soundtrack does tend to get in the way of dialog sometimes. It’s a fighting game movie though, who’s paying for dialog. The Japanese soundtrack is mellow, and tends to stay out of the way nicely, but there’s not too much to listen to. The English soundtrack is the thumping action music we’re used to, and accentuates the action scenes quite nicely. Should I judge them separately? Screw that, I’m lazy. 4 out of 5

      Translation: They appear to have stayed quite close to the straight translation on this one. I only noticed a few changes here and there. Only one phrase that caught me as weird and it wasn’t even an important one. Good work all around. 4.5 out of 5

      Rewatchability: Well, this category depends on just how much you need to see random fighting with little in depth plot development. If that sounds like your kind of movie, watch this. It’s only an hour long, so it’s easily watched over again. If you want something with a little more meat on its bones though, you’ll probably pass this up. All in all, the fight scenes are cool, but not enough to draw you back to watching it over and over again. 3 out of 5

      The Verdict:

It’s based off a fighting game; let that lay down a baseline for you. Start off with some kick ass action sequences, and thin character development. Move on to a plot that is actually believable; add in some more kick ass action sequence (You’ve got time, they’re short). Then squeeze it all into sixty minutes of fun. It’s not the greatest anime ever, but it’s definitely entertaining.

      The Good: Cool action based on all your favorite Tekken characters! (Provided your favorites are those three mentioned above)

      The Bad: CLOAKING DINOSAURS!! (Oops, did I ruin it?)

      The Overall Ugly: There are far worse animes. Pick it up if you’re looking for a quick action fix.

      What it's Worth: Market price.