Oh, what fun it must be to live on the Tamagotchi planet. Everything, even common household objects is alive in glorious multi-colour, they speak in high pitched squeaky voices calling each other names like Mametchi and Kuchipatchi , no-one is evil in any way, babies take a few days to be born in eggs before growing up just as fast... Wait. What do you mean this isn't a bad acid trip?! Oh. Oh dear.So we have this girl called Tampopo (dandelion in Japanese, apparently) from Earth who gets transported to this diabetes nightmare and promptly gets involved in adventures with these insufferable cuties. Together, they save the world by rescuing the sun from a sleeping black hole (don't ask). Coincidentally, one of the Tamagotchi gang is expecting an infant sibling soon... and so is the human girl. So we get lots of talk about what it means to be DA BEST BRUVVER OR SISTA EVA!! Kill me now.This 'thing' was not meant for people like me. It was produced to sell crappy hand-held toys for kids who's parents were too stingy or houseproud to give them a real life pet of their own. But I can't help thinking... surely subjecting them to such intolerable nonsense, which is at least ten times less sophisticated than the already pretty dumb Pokemon craze, would cause them more harm than good in the long run? Fortunately it looks like their little scheme failed, as Tamagotchi are now in the doldrums and seem set to stay there.Now all they have to do is develop something equally jinxed for a certain Ninja Turtle franchise, and I can die a happy man... 2/10

I am a massive Tamagotchi fan, so of course I love this movie; and I'm sure any other fan of the popular virtual pets will feel the same. The characters are brought to life through lovable personalities, and the movie maintains the colorful, creative world we Tamagotchi fans know and love.The movie teaches valuable lessons to both children and older people. The themes more for children are to conquer your fears (like Mametchi being afraid of the dark) and to accept new siblings even though they take your parents away from you. The themes suitable for older viewers are to take responsibility for your actions and that sometimes friends just have to leave in the end.The scene where Tanpopo leaves is amazing. The sparkling dandelions are so beautiful; Tanpopo's departure is so sad and touching it always makes me cry. This movie's flaw is that some messages are targeted at the very young, but that just makes it appealing to even the youngest of viewers. Ten out of ten!

The Good:The visuals. Now, I'm not much of an animation buff, so my standards might be comparatively low, but I think this is where the movie (quite literally) shines. The world of Tamagotchi is filled with unique characters and odd, "living" architecture, all rendered in beautifully eye-pleasing pastel. Everything, from the buildings to the filing cabinets, has subtle faces, makes expressions and is in constant, organic motion. The characters, while stylistically simple, are all completely unique; in fact, despite a rather dense population, I could not spot even two identical looking characters in the entire movie. All of this contributes to an atmosphere of strangeness and wonder. In this regard, the movie definitely succeeds.The Not-So-Good:The story. This is the movie's biggest and most damning weakness. The core premise is that of a young girl's accidental teleportation to Tamagotchi World, the home planet of the famous virtual pets, but instead of focusing on this girl's adventures in this strange, new world, or maybe on her attempts to get back home, the story shifts focus almost every ten minutes. At first, it's about the girl, then it's about one of the Tamagotchi characters' fear of the dark, then it's about his little Tamagotchi sister hatching from an egg, then it's about the planet getting sick, because the sun has disappeared... you get the idea. So many random ideas, so little cohesion. The fact that these conflicts and their consequence-free resolutions are often unrelated to one another makes the movie feel more like a collection of short episodes and not like one, coherent storyline. It's a shame, really, because as I said above, the world design and the color palette certainly are nice enough to make for a good kids movie. To be fair, however, as weak as the story is, at the very least the movie's messages are not quite as ill-conceived and trite as they are in many other substandard children's movies and TV shows. They address the various insecurities a child might feel in the role of the older sibling, and encourage the expression of feelings and opinions even at the risk of offending others. That's a bit more substantial and practical than the usual "Be nice and love everyone" theme, I suppose.In closing, I guess I would recommend this movie only to two kinds of people: Very young children and devoted fans of Japanese animation, who can get enough of a kick out of the vibrancy and radiance of the visuals to overlook the clumsy randomness of the story. On a side note, I watched the English version of this, and some of the voices were ear-bustingly shrill. I cannot say if the Japanese original fares any better in this regard.

When I first got this movie, I expected it to be like the Tamagotchi Video Adventures released back in 1997 (I think). As you can guess, I wasn't too ecstatic about watching it. Within the first ten minutes I found I was totally wrong. "Tamagotchi: The Movie" is bright, colorful, and light-hearted all at once. Children and Tamagotchi fans of all ages will enjoy this movie, and it's a pretty good babysitter if mom and dad need to get some work done. It's sprinkled with humor that kids will find amusing, and contains amazing special effects that will dazzle anyone who watches it. Girls can favorite the adorable Chamametchi, the trendy Memetchi, or the kind and caring Tanpopo, while boys can watch Mametchi create (or fail at) interesting experiments, or laugh at Kuchipatchi as he stuffs his face full of food. My verdict? If you see this for this sale, buy it before anyone else does. Trust me, "Tamagotchi: The Movie" is worth the 90 minutes it takes to watch it.