n space, a massive space station mysteriously implodes and crashes down on a nearby planet. Its inhabitants die upon collision with the surface, and soon a vast growth of roots and vines forms a hub around the carcass of the ship. Fast-forward 600 years later, and the humans who have colonized those nooks and crannies now serve at the behest of an unseen master, who demands regular tributes in the form of sap mined from the vines, which are called the Axis.
Among the humans, a young woman named Kaena (Dunst) lives out her days dreaming of a mysterious blue orb, and hoping for the fragile possibility of something better for her people. The village's spokesman, the Grand Priest, commands absolute loyalty to their purported "gods," but after an accident that occurs during one of the offerings, Kaena questions the logic of higher beings who would inflict such misery on the lowly beings they supposedly created. During a confrontation with the Grand Priest, Kaena is accused of attempting to murder him.
Fleeing the village, Kaena seeks refuge in the tangled vines, and discovers that she may or may not be an essential part of the Axis' long and unspoken history. As she encounters strange new beings, including a wizened old human named Opaz (Harris), Kaena discovers that her own past and Axis' future are inextricably bound, and she must choose to face her destiny or watch her fellow humans die at the hands of an alien race who seeks to consume the fruit of their labor and leave their world a rotting husk.
Tangled but impressive
Kaena: The Prophecy is as much caught in the bramble of its seemingly infinite story possibilities as the characters are in the snakelike vines of the Axis. While it occasionally lands upon moments of near brilliance, combining its decidedly environmentalist bent with a standard-fare hero story, too often does the film feel like a collection of ideas that never quite graft together into a cohesive whole.
For fans of more recent CGI films, the animation will feel more than a little stilted in comparison with the fluid landscapes and photorealistic movements of Shrek and Finding Nemo's worlds; at the same time, Kaena's stylization ends up being its greatest virtue, allowing for the unique possibility that the creatures who exist in this world are actually not of earth, and are not quite born of the same laws of physics that we are. In particular, the ornately designed Marauder, an enormous, baroque creature who sees his intended victims through a gauze of flowing sap, is remarkable to behold and conveys sufficient peril for the characters that the audience forgets he's merely a construct on some designer's hard drive.
Ultimately, the biggest problem with Kaena is that it too often feels like the video game it was once designed to be. Director Chris Delaporte elevates the material to cinematically compelling levels many times throughout the film's intricately woven narrative, but overall one wonders if it might not have been more effective if the viewers could control the characters from the comfort of their homes with a joystick in one hand and a soda can in the other.
