Flow (2024)
I had such high hopes but I wasn’t really in on this. It is impressive what they have achieved here, especially given the technical budget limitations. A feature film without any dialogue that doesn’t fall completely through is also worth praising in itself.
Starting with the animation, which is impressive in its own right, but I still think it mostly looked like a long tech demo. Especially with how the camera moved around honestly gave me vibes from computer game cut scenes. The score was also kind of generic placeholder type stuff. The one thing that did work well was the animals, that definitely felt very animal-like. Very natural and convincing.
Since it is called Flow it is likely meant to be like that, but the narrative was to me barely anything more than events that just flowed together without much beginning, middle or end. And then it just becomes somewhat repetitive. It does tie into the underlying theme of “the flow of nature” and I do appreciate the core message of trust, providing help and friendship, but as a whole it was honestly rather boring.
I had also heard good recommendations on that it would be good for kids, and my daughter isn’t a stranger to the sort of slower paced animation like some Miyazaki films, but she also completely lost interest halfway through.
Rating: 2.5