n the grimy future of Avalon, the most recent movie directed by Mamoru Oshii (director of Ghost in the Shell, The Red Spectacles and Stray Dog, Patlabor 1 and Patlabor 2), the hottest form of entertainment going is a virtual-reality military game called Avalon. Players take on old-school character classes like mages, thieves, clerics ("Bishops") and fighters ("Warriors"), but instead of dragons and bugbears they fight squadrons of Nazi-like soldiers, equipped with heavily armed helicopters, tanks and giant robot monstrosities. Most players ally themselves into groups in order to stay safe and get more experience points (which can be converted to cash; the best players live exclusively on the proceeds from their games), but one bitter, isolated player goes it alone. Ash (Foremniak) was once part of a near-legendary team, but after a mission went wrong, the group's enraged leader disbanded it. Now Ash plays solo, and she's practically become a legend herself.
But then one of her ex-teammates, a down-on-his-luck thief-class player named Stunner (Swiderski), turns up to share a new development. Murphy (Gudejko), the one player Ash seems to miss, is now one of the "Unreturned," the players who become comatose vegetables and never log out of the game. While hitting Ash up for free meals and cash, Stunner explains that Murphy was also playing solo, in search of a mysterious apparition called "Ghost," who appears to be the portal to a super-high-level game area called "Special A."
It's not clear whether Ash is driven more by the challenge to beat a supposedly unbeatable portion of the game, or the prospect of rescuing Murphy, who may still be inside Avalon in some form. Either way, she becomes determined to find Ghost herself and enter Special A. Stunner informs her that Ghost only manifests around high-level Bishops; fortunately, a Bishop with fantastic solo gameplay skills has been haunting Ash lately. Eventually, she speaks to him, suggesting that they build a high-level team together. But naturally, he's not exactly what he appears to be.
Like cyberpunk, but without all the action
In many respects, Avalon looks like a low-budget spinoff of The Matrix. The couture (leather and big guns inside the virtual-reality world, homemade-looking layered rags outside) is similar, as is the grimy-looking real world, with its mushy gray food and big metal recliners for jacking into Avalon. Stunner's weaselly, aggressively ingratiating manner makes him strongly reminiscent of The Matrix's Cypher, while the bald, stoic Bishop (Biskupski), with his philosophical talk about game theory and advancing to new levels, is not unlike Morpheus. A scene in which Ash transcends her previous Avalon experiences by passing through a space full of brightly glowing numbers particularly looks like it was ripped straight from The Matrix's concept sketches. And Avalon's eventual plot twists take it in a fairly familiar direction, though with less panache and freshness than The Matrix exhibited.
Still, Avalon has many unique things going for it—primarily the gorgeous, lush choral music by frequent Oshii collaborator Kenji Kawai, and the even more gorgeous cinematography by Grzegorz Kedzierski. Avalon is a fantastically beautiful movie, and Oshii's usual languorous, slow approach practically lets viewers walk into the images and view them from all angles. The film opens on an action sequence, as Ash shoots and blasts her way through a game, but the fast-paced combat scenes are far outnumbered by the drawn-out moments where Ash silently runs searches on her computer, slowly dresses after a solo game or prepares a luxury meal for her pet dog. Oshii's movies are all marked by their meditative, thoughtful, wordless sequences, and Avalon is no exception. Action fans may fall asleep early on.
But fans of weighty, thoughtful science fiction will likely enjoy the film's ominous, moody tone and its blend of cyberpunk concepts, unique CGI effects (special attention was placed on the different ways in which dead game characters fade from the world) and solid acting and directing. A slightly weightier script and less obvious Matrix influence might improve Avalon, but it's still an enjoyably dreamy experience, with enough rough-and-tumble stuff mixed in to spice things up.
