Hoping to replicate, the success of their first two Pokémon films, 20th Century Fox hope to distribute, yet another, of their Japanese anime own TV Series for the big screens. This time, it will be their Digimon: Digital Monster franchise created by Akiyoshi Hongo. First produced by Toei Animation in cooperation with Bandai and Fuji Television in Japan. The show was later pick up by Fox Kids for distribute in the US, when their Pokémon show, became a big hit. While, the show is look upon, as a Pokémon clone or rip-off, the show is more influenced in style by the contemporary Tamagotchi or nano gigapets toys craze of the late 1990s. The TV Series tells the story of a group of pre-teens children who became the caretakers of Digital creatures that came to Earth from their "Digital World"; a parallel universe that was created by Earth's various communication networks. Technically, this movie claims, you don't need to watch the show, to enjoy this film. They say they will explain everything to new viewers. However, this movie did little to no explanations to those unfamiliar with the show. Yes, it did have some exposition dump, but there isn't a lot of time spent, explaining it all, to have the audience absorb what's going on. The movie excels in visual unnecessary action. Most of the film is this. Due to that, it fails to build any kind of emotional involvement with the characters, human or otherwise. The protagonists are given little to do other than explain the latest crisis then cheer on their respective Digimon when they fight. Scenes alternate between kitschy cuteness and spectacular violence, with only a nod toward plot, character development, and motivation. So if you came, across this movie, without seeing the show. You'll be deeply confused. Another fault about this movie is how it was made. Since, Toei Animation had no feature-length films for Digimon, but instead had smaller animation featurettes. The producers of this film, felt that three solo short films of the Digimon franchise could be combine into one film. It didn't work. Digimon: The Movie had a significant degree of bad editing, with more than 40 minutes of scenes from the individual Japanese versions cut out to save time. The three films, used Digimon Adventure (1999), Our War Game! (2000), and Digimon Hurricane Touchdown! / Supreme Evolution! The Golden Digimentals (2000), were respectively 20, 40, and 60 minutes long, footage was condensed to fit 85 minutes. The last film included in the compilation, was heavily cut and reedited, because Saban Entertainment lacked the funding to produce a full two-hour movie. Due to this, the movie lack a cohesive narrative. That's one of the reasons the movie is so terrible. It has no arc, no connection between the three stories. You could pop on the movie at any point and have no idea if you're in the first act, or near the climax, or the resolution. In order to connect the stories of the different movies together, the adapting screenwriters place the film over a span of eight years, in which the movie chronicles the first appearance of the Digimon, the internet meltdown caused by another powerful Digimon, and last the fight between the whole cast of Digimon Monsters against a mysterious Digimon named Kokomon. The first act has nothing to do with the actual plot of the movie and serves nothing more than to introduce those who are not familiar with the Digimon franchise. The second act is possibly the heart and soul of this movie. Truly epic in scale, the movie's second act has both the thrills and deeper emotional. It's also smart. There is a nice subtext satiring society's dependence on technology and the dehumanizing effect of internet communication. It should have been the final act. Sadly, this movie had to end on an extremely weak note with the badly made third act. The animation is alright, but it's very different from the TV series. In fact, it follows more of the western animation conventions than Japanese anime. They seem to be a lack of detail in the artwork, with characters being just simple outlines with flat colors without even simple shadows or clothing folds. The characters' eyes are smaller with less of that "anime shine", and the designs have been simplified somewhat. However, the animation movements is a lot more fluid and expressive. The movie tries a little to less Japanese, and more American. The culturally awkward Japanese elements were removed, and replaced by badly Americans stereotype ones. Due to this, a lot of the jokes fall flat. The movie even add an awkward American sounding pop rock eclectic soundtrack that felt distracting. Many of the pop tunes has little to no relation with the film, itself. Honestly, what does the song, 'All My Best Friends Are Metalheads' by Less than Jake, have to do with this Japanese anime!? The songs are effectively no help for the scenes they are coupled with. Some of the songs are so, overused, like "All Star" by Smash Mouth, "The Rockafeller Skank" by Fatboy Slim and "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies. I'm kinda tired of seeing them, in all these late 1990's/early 2000s flicks. At least the music is catchy. It's better than the ear grating "digi-rap" that opens the film. It's also weird, that the movie opens with another cartoon, introducing it. A four-minute short film featuring animation characters from the Angela Anaconda (1999 to 2003) TV series appeared before the film in the theatrical and home media releases. Don't get me wrong, I love Angela Anaconda, but I found, this self-promoting a bit jarring. I get that Angela Anaconda was owned by Fox as well, but couldn't they just cut this part from the film or add it to the special features. Overall: This movie is disappointing even for Digimon fan. Just stick to watching the show. It's better.

Digimon:The Movie was one of those movies, that I thought I wasn't going to enjoy. Anyway, I watched it with low expectations, and it was better than I expected it to be. Maybe the pivotal factors of my fear that it wasn't going to be good, is because I am not a huge fan of the TV show, and that I did not like Pokemon:The First Movie. I did enjoy most of it, but it is mediocre as a film. The animation is mostly good, and true to the show, and the voice talents on the whole were dynamic and expressive, and aided by some good dialogue. The characters are likable,even the villains were adequate, and there are one or two thrilling action sequences. Sadly, there are some factors that let it down. I am still not receptive to the title song, and whereas the film starts off fine, the last 20 minutes are rushed, and are highly suggestive of two or three episodes thrown together. There were also some parts in the story that were underdeveloped. While mediocre, Digimon certainly isn't a terrible movie, it just isn't a great one either. 5/10 Bethany Cox.

I begin this review with a question because this movie is an oddity. I'll get to that in a second. First off, let me say that I have never seen any of the Japanese versions of the films, so I can't compare them and I won't try. That leads me to the second point I would like to make: if you didn't know, this film is actually three separate Japanese films edited into one American version.That's what makes this film odd. All the faults lie with the editing, dubbing, scripting... basically all the American added elements (surprise surprise, right?). The animation in the film(s) is great: I'm not sure who did the art direction, but it's drastically different from the series' animation, which I always found stiff and repetitive (which, again, might be the result of American editing). The animation in the movies is smooth, dynamic, stylish, and very action packed. It can be compared to the animation in FLCL or the animation in select episodes of Naruto (such as the showdown between Naruto and Sasuke). Everything sort of flows. The character models are a bit more distorted, and it uses darker/cooler color shadings. The overall effect is very good and entertaining.Unfortunately, the superb action and animation direction is moot when put beside the HORRIBLE dubbing. Saban, like 4Kids is wont to do, chose to drastically alter the original script and writing. Often, side-comments will be added to the dialog for no real reason except, possibly, to cram more dialog into a scene. The jokes are often flat, and distract from the main plot instead of adding to it. If you want a good example of this, watch any of the One Piece episodes translated by 4Kids (i.e. the ones with the crappy rap song opening). It's awful. Thank God Funimation took that show over, but I digress.Speaking of plot, it's bad. Let me clarify: the plot for the first two sequences (Greymon vs. Parrotmon and the first digidestined vs. Diaboromon/Infermon) is actually good, mainly because it's simple. As stand alone movies, the plot would be fine. However, when combined together with the third sequence/film (featuring the digidestined from season 2 vs. a new digimon named Endigomon), it's bad. Real bad. The connections between each movie are tenuous at best, and terribly explained.And don't get me started on the third movie. The third movie, in which everything is "explained" and the plot comes together has been edited to hell. There is no continuity, and everything is pretty nonsensical. If you can get any enjoyment from this segment of the film, congratulations. I was just confused, because the scenes have been chopped up and thrown together again. There is no logical flow of action from scene to scene.So, if I was to make a one word value assessment of this film, it would be "bad". Not terrible. It has some redeeming qualities. I would say it's better than, say, the Yu-Gi-Oh movie.

I was watching this movie today, having not seen it for about two years, and I noticed a LOT more in it this time than when I last saw it: 1. The stunning animation. Not the Americanised, simplistic anime but a prettier and more detailed style. Smoother animation, too.2. The plot - a more developed version of what you get on the series, which is what fans like to see! :) 3. The humour! I have always loved Digimon's humour and it is definitely improved further in this movie.4. The fight scenes are as good as ever! 5. Great soundtrack! (apart from that Digimon Rap thing at the start - it got on my nerves o_O;;)So, overall, this movie is great entertainment. Obviously I recommend this especially to Digimon fans but it also appeals to other audiences. I myself was a Digimon fan about 6 years ago, and hadn't seen it, and when I saw the old videos I have of the series and the movie recently after pulling them out of my shelves I remembered why I liked Digimon so much :D As everyone else has said, beats Pokemon any day! And this is coming from an ex-Pokemon fan too! Maybe the reason it beats Pokemon (apart from the reasons above) is because Digimon shows a lot more human emotion, rather than just fight fight fight pull Brock away from girls and more fighting and getting shiny badges.Three word summary: BIG Digimon adventure