Review of Memories

"Memories" consist of three entirely different short movies, which, as I'm going to argue, may be not bad individually but as a compilation aren't probably worth anyone's time. It's not even fully comprehensible why these films ended up bundled together. They are not tied by any single concept. E. g. first two look like adaptation of some short-story of the month from random SF magazine, while the third much more resembles short-film with focus put on visuals (and it's the only one which is actually short). The first movie has significantly more complex plot than second and third - the latter ones explore one ideaonly in a hit or miss manner. The first and third movie are dead serious, second one is supposedly more light-hearted. Of all of them only the first has some connection to the title of the collection. And all have distinguishably different art style. Thus it's quite probable that the viewer will like only one or two of them, while not liking the rest.

Therefore it's probably more reasonable to watch the movie in more than one go. Also diversity makes it difficult to rate this as a whole or even particular parts relative to each other. But I'll try to do it briefly anyway. In the order they were in the movie:

MAGNETIC ROSE
6/10 - It's a story about fateful encounter in deep space - crew of garbage disposal ship answers SOS call from a dangerous region. Standard SF concepts ensue. It's not bad, but most people probably saw/read something similar many times before. And animation is beginning to show signs of age. I was a little bit bored by it, but generally, it's pretty average. I'll give it +1 point on assumption it was not as behind the times in 1995 as it is now.

STINK BOMB
?/10 (my personal enjoyment - 1/10) - It's essentially "Akira" made shorter, simpler and goofier. This story works only if one finds its idiot protagonist funny. I didn't, so I found Stink Bomb daunting and irritating. And much too long - idiocy of the protagonist is the only source of humor (and driving force of all the events) for almost 40 minutes. Nevertheless, many people don't share my sense of humor (or lack thereof), so you can give it a try.

CANNON FODDER
8/10 - The shortest one which I liked the best. But it's only good as a short movie, when compared to Magnetic Rose it comes out as shallow. Its main strength is creative art style and depressing dystopian setting. When one doesn't like it one won't find anything interesting in it.

OVERALL
?/10 (my personal rating 5/10)
I think most people would like at least one of these stories. It is questionable however if it's good investment of your time to sit through all three parts to find out which one you'd like. I strongly suspect it is not, all the more neither is particularly exceptional. Find yourself something more fitting your taste.