Aerotroopers is a cute, interesting fantasy which takes place on a planet without a solid surface. People live in tree villages floating in the sky and a giant beast (Nemeclous) is wreaking havoc on everybody and everything. The only thing as dangerous as Nemeclous himself is the slipstream - a raging torrent of air which destroys everything is its path.Young Joshua wants to fly very badly and invents a glider early in his life. Nemeclous comes along and destroys his village, but his glider allows him to escape. He is eventually saved by an aerotrooper (Qyun) who takes him back to his airship (a fantastic dirigible) and recruits him as an aerocadet.The story that follows is epic in nature, as it takes Joshua through his training, up to his young adulthood and the beginnings of a sweet and innocent romance, all with Nemeclous hovering nearby waiting to strike. In order to keep the story clear and to tie together many of the tangential scenes, a voice-over is provided. I don't usually enjoy voice-overs, but this one works.The only weak links in this charming little story are the human animations and the soundtrack - both of which are a little painful. The ships look great, the back-story is surprisingly interesting, and the action sequences are fun.The film is definitely appropriate for kids, though there is plenty of non-graphic violence, and the story does involve the death of a couple of the major characters - so be careful if you have a young one who is likely to be sensitive to this.

It was a different kind of animation. The story line needed some work. But the background of the story, the floating islands of trees reminds me of a book by Larry Niven called "The Integral Trees" Where a smoke ring around a neutron star supported plant and animal life. The people that lived there were in a constant state of free-fall or zero gravity. They lived on huge trees that were in my minds eye very similar to the floating forests in Aero-Troopers. I liked the bit were the kid made his own glider. And being able to fly under your own power was interesting. How the instructor teaching the cadets had a very eastern way of speaking.

I would have to classify this as one of the least enjoyable movies I've ever watched. There were many wonderful ideas, including imaginative locations and vehicles, and the basic premise of the story had merit, but the execution seemed *miles* off target.Firstly, the main character looks to me like a little boy, somewhere between 3 and 8 years of age. The opening scenes find him running and playing, with suitable childish glee. I was both startled and disappointed, then, when he began laughing with the voice of a young teenager. The voice felt utterly wrong for the character - like sci-fi scenes where a woman speaks with a man's deep voice. We are also supposed to accept that a considerable amount of time passes over the course of the film, but his character never looks or sounds any older. His childish appearance is made all the more disturbing by the fact that he is given a love interest (whom we are supposed to like, but whom I found to be repulsively creepy).One of the biggest overall problems with the film, however, is pacing. Things just don't happen at a natural tempo. This is true both in the bigger scope of the story, as well as within the context of particular scenes or camera shots.A prime example of this would be the many scenes which simply showed two characters doing something and laughing. The purpose of such scenes is to establish that the characters are bonding, and having a good time together. This could be accomplished in about 5 to 10 seconds. Unfortunately for the viewer, these scenes are drawn out to a minute or two in length. At the end of the scene, the characters are still in the some location, doing the same thing, and nothing new has been presented. This extra time does nothing to advance the plot, and very quickly becomes tiresome.Not only is this laughter hard to justify from a story-telling standpoint, it's also hard to accept it as believable. When people are enjoying an activity, the normal human response is not to laugh, but to smile. People only laugh for extended periods (without anything funny happening) when they are exceptionally tired or drunk, and the laughter in the film didn't seem to be caused by either of these.In many of the shots, the animation was also just *slightly* too slow to feel natural. Other shots were clearly intended to be slow-motion, but these lost much of their effect and believability, because motion blur wasn't added.It is also worth mentioning that a substantial portion of the dialog in the film consisted of single words. The characters showed a tendency to say things like "oh" "ah" and "ooh", in response to their environment, to a degree which was excessive, annoying, and rather silly. They also liked to answer questions with single word answers, whenever possible.If I'd seen the movie more recently, I'm sure I could quickly double the length of these comments. Since it was a few months ago, however, (and I don't plan to watch it ever again,) I shall conclude my ramblings with the recommendation that you go and watch this, as a spectacular example of how *not* to make a CG film.

I initially rented the DVD at Blockbuster for my kids to see -- one is eight and one twelve. But then I sat to watch it with them -- and I got hooked.It started slow, but then picked up the pace after about fifteen minutes. The story is a little thin, but the animation, the production designs (air ships, weapons, robots, costumes, etc.) are VERY creative. You can tell the designers spent a lot of time creating them. We kept rewinding just to see all the background details we missed.The action sequences are GREAT, too! In fact, they're BETTER than most live action sci-fi films I've seen in years. The climactic battle scene alone had us glued to the screen.Like I said, I rented the DVD, but I plan on buying it now. This is a movie we will watch several times.JK