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Armitage - Dual Matrix (Special Edition)

Armitage - Dual Matrix (Special Edition)

List Price: $29.98
Your Price: $26.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Spoken like a true Armitage fan!
Review: I am going to try to calmly write a review with ideas in neatly arranged in some sort of order.
1st- acting... I feel very sorry for the voice actors in this movie. Not that they were bad or anything, but pioneer didn't keep one voice actor the same, despite several characters that appear in the same movie. That means that the actors not only had to live up to the japanese for subbies, but also to the old english ones for dubbies. Juliete Lewis does quite the job. Her voice is lower and rougher than Elizabeth Berkley's and her acting was quite good. She give as much heart and soul as Elizabeth Berkley and she obviously had fun doing it. Skip Stellrecht tried his best with Ross, and had a very hard time keeping his voice low. He tried to match Kiefer Sutherlands, and he almost had me fooled sometimes. Being a dubbie, I thought he was a little too...act-y for Ross, because I was used to Kiefer Sutherland's crude and flat Ross. Yoko... oh boy, when I found out that rebecca fordstadt (mihoshi, tenchi muyo) was doing her voice, I was scared, then, upon seeing her performance, was quite pleased. Her crying was a touch odd, but was her voice, not her acting. Demitrio, michael mcconnohie was mediocre at best, sometime underacted, sometimes over acted, and sometimes right on, but nothing too special for a bad guy voice. Mouse was played by the guy who does the voice for jar jar binks, ahmed best, and that scared me worse than the mihoshi thing, but again, I was pleasantly surprised. Very good, very wacky! Strings... nothing too much here, just a flat military character. As for Julian... Mona Marshall, all I can say to you is nice job not sounding like Izzy from DIgimon. Music was GREAT!!! LOVE LOVE LOVED IT! Kudo's to Julian Mack. Visuals... nice animation, very smooth, a little much on the computer, but still blended quite nicely. Character designs were very true to the original. Now the story of coursr, is the ultimate test. You can't expect another Armitage III: Poly Matrix, you ahve to accept that it's a different kind of story, and I think the director is different too. The action was very apparent, but hey if you're an armitage fan, you love that kick bum stuff! ^.^ The story didn't lose heart though, and explained some more of the politics that were left to crumble in the first movie. It had a different feel to it, but it was still a good story. I'm not very picky about DVD set ups or special features, I was just kind of like oo, fancy interviews and trailer... the most I can is that it was a very spiffy user friendly set up. Besides a few random ... shots, the language and violence were no worse than the first, so maybe a PG-13. Not too much comedy, except the random please (?) don't touch on the second's but and the kick in the balls that the bad guy deserves... I enjoyed this movie, and I hope you will find this review helpful and enjoy the movie youreself!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent for the fans
Review: I found this second Armitage film to be a wonderful continuation of the first Poly-Matrix. Wish the voices had stayed the same...but very rarely does that happen...and Juliette Lewis did a very good job still. I really enjoy the way this film shows how having a child and hiding from the government has affected their family. So when someone takes out a plant manufacturing IIIrds Armitage must investigate. Fascinating display of emotions and growing closer to her husband and daughter...I thought this film deserves two thumbs up overall. The story line was a little weak...but no more so than most sequels. I enjoyed the actions...and Armitage's evil counterparts were SUPER! Ending was superb in my opinion and I can't wait to purchase my own copy (Saw this one with a friend). Overall I would give it five stars....but it lacks that little something...so i'm rating it a wonderful four stars. ENJOY!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I absolutely LOVED this movie!
Review: I have been an anime fan since 1996, when they were showing movies on Saturday mornings on Sci-Fi. Until now, I hadn't seen an anime movie strongly worth recommending except Akira. But I have to say I really, really recommend "Armitage: Dual Matrix". I have not seen the first movie yet, but I understood the plotline. It was all about a female robot named Naomi Armitage (played strongly by The 4th Floor and The Other Sister's Juliette Lewis) , who in the first film was one of the very first (she is called a "Third" for some reason) female robots to be able to conceive a human child. But now, a megalomaniac wants the data inside of her to be able to conceive a child. Now she's on the run trying to protect herself as well as her daughter Yoko. But, she's not alone, she has the help of her husband Ross and the help of a robot mechanic named Mouse (played by Ahmed "Jar Jar Binks" Best). I normally don't like watching English dubbed versions of anime, because with most anime, they change the dialogue and character names in the original Japanese version. But, I watched the English dub of this one (w/ English subtitles, to see how bad they messed it up) and I thought it was fairly true to the original dialogue. Some words were changed around, but it was well done. Plus Lewis does a great job playing the role of Armitage. I recommend this movie to every anime fan. The film is rated PG-16 (I have a rating scale for Anime. I just follow the suitability age and add a PG, this movie was rated 16 and up, so you get the point) for language, strong violence including violence against women and gore, and some nudity. The movie isn't really bad for kids, there are some parts with nudity (the megalomaniac makes replicas of Armitage, but they wear little clothing, but nothing is really bad). Here is my content scale:

Language: 7 (the "s" word is said a considerable amount of times, as well as the "G-D" word)
Violence: 10
Nudity: 5 (very mild, considering the rating)
Thematic Elements: 8 (Armitage's daughter is kidnapped and Naomi cries for her)

I think this is an awesome movie for all anime fans. The movie has an easy storyline, it is way better than VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST which was strange and kind of stupid.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: armitage dual matrix (special edition)
Review: i liked armitage dual matrix, they should of kept the same
actors.
also the hair style of armitage should have stayed the same
but over all i say 4 stars.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Anime at its Best... Unless You Haven't Seen Poly-Matrix
Review: I loved Armitage III: Poly-Matrix, so I pre-ordered Dual-Matrix as soon as I possibly could. The differences between the two versions are like night and day, but they are both narratively excellent - fully engrossing and complete with twists and surprises.

The main difference between the 1980s Poly-Matrix and the new Dual-Matrix is the animation style. This is similar to the difference between the original 1980s Bubblegum Crisis series and its late-1990s rehash. In both cases, the latter versions use much "cleaner" animation; in the case of Dual-Matrix, there is a very heavy use of CGI, which creates some stunning visual effects, but is generally not very seamless at all. This seamlessness detracts very much from the viewing experience and momentarily jars the spectator away from the narrative, in much the same way as Macross Plus or Blue Submarine No. 6; despite its relative "age," the seamless use of CGI in Ghost in the Shell is still the benchmark which other anime series and films must strive to achieve.

Another difference is the voice-acting. The North American audience has only commercially had access to the dubbed version of Poly-Matrix; the voice-acting in that film was absolutely brilliant, although not quite on the level of excellence of My Neighbor Totoro. Although Juliette Lewis returns as the voice actress of Naomi Armitage in Dual-Matrix, her voice has definitely changed in the intervening years, which itself changes Armitage's personality in unexpected ways. Unfortunately, she is the only returning voice-actor for the English dub, which also means that Ross Syllabus' personality undergoes severe changes with the new voice-actor.

Dual-Matrix is an excellent film, and is definitely one which any true anime fan should see and cherish. However, those who have not seen Poly-Matrix will certainly miss a lot of the character motivation in Dual-Matrix. While Dual-Matrix does begin with a brief synopsis of what has happened in the intervening years since the end of Poly-Matrix, it truly glosses over the details of the original film, resulting in utter confusion for those unfamiliar with Poly-Matrix.

Dual-Matrix is an EXCELLENT film, and the DVD balances this nicely with good extras. Particularly interesting is the film trailer, which itself is worthy of awards. The PlayStation2-compatible DVD is nicely constructed, and definitely worthy of a "5" rating :-)

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: [sorry] sequel
Review: I really enjoyed the first Armitage series, then turned to a movie. There was actual character and story development, great animation, terrific concepts overall of robot/human relations, etc. The sequel however, was a [sorry] rehash; using the basic premise of the societal problems in the first film, it portrays naomi as more of just a robot rather than the thinking feeling third that she is, and Ross as the hapless tag along... Poor computer graphics, repeated images, and panning across still landscapes fill this anime, giving it about 12 minutes of actual animation and 0 originality.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Just my opinion about Armitage and Pioneer
Review: I thought the first Armitage (Armitage Polymatrix) was a great movie lots of action. I think the second one will be good as well if its anything like the first.

As for the comments about pioneer from the other reviewer He obviously hasn't seen "Tenchi Muyo" which is also made by Pioneer. It was done well. Oh did I mention that Pioneer also made "Trigun" which is one of my all time favorites and one of the best Anime series I've ever seen. I can name a few more that is made by Pioneer and are great series that he's gona miss out on if he doesnt buy Pioneer anymore "Seriel Experiments Lain" (great series even if ya have to watch it a few times to fully understand whats going on), "Hand Maid May", "Battle Athletes Victory", "Elhazard", "Fushigi Yugi" aka "The Mysterious Play", and I'm sure alot more as well.

Just becuase of a few typos printed on the box is no reason to not like it. And as for there not being Japanese language track on the first, well if your into anime alot like I am then you should know that the companies that release these in the US have been getting pressured into not releasing them in the US with the Japanese audio tracks or so I have read on a few reliable anime websites. The Japanese fans can import the US versions for alot cheaper then it cost to buy over there so I hear. Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust (which is not made by Pioneer) didn't have the Japanese audio tracks, but thats cuase there never was any in the first place. Does it make it any worse a movie? No its an awsome movie just like the first Vampire Hunter D.

Well I'm not here to make up your mind for you but not buying from one company becuase of a few mistakes on ONE anime is no reason not to buy from them anymore. If you do that, well why are you an anime fan at all??? Better yet why do you even watch movies or TV???

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Dual Matrix is a heartless sequel
Review: I wish Pioneer had given the directing of this movie to somebody who really cared about Armitage, becuase the result is a heartless sequel. The computer generated graphics are lame, the voice acting is stale and the main characters are empty. I haven't seen the original television series, but I have Poly Matrix on dvd and despite it's shortcomings, has become one of my favorites (I even bought the McFarlane figure). The animation of Dual Matrix is cleaner, but the composition and style of Poly Matrix beats it hands down. Further, the aspect ratio of this "special edition" is 4:3. I'd have to recommend against it, and the fans of Armitage will be all the more disappointed. Go get somthing else you've had in your wish list, or pop in the first movie if you're feeling nostalgic.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This Sequel Shames It's Predecessor
Review: It was a Herculean labor just to get through this .... Not only were the characters watered down, dull, and one-dimensional (in fact, they're mere shadows of the characters they were in Poly-Matrix), but the plot was dull and uninsprired, and the thing was so full of badly done and even more badly integrated CGI that I had to cover my face in disgust every time it came on. The English dubbing was so awful I had to change it to the Japanese just so I could stand it. Just buy Poly-Matrix and pretend that they never made this disappointing sequel.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: To compensate for the dude who gave this one star...
Review: It's not great but it's not a bad movie either, and it surpasses Polymatrix by far in terms of keeping the viewer's attention. The animation is on par with Sol Bianca and has appropriate CG work for the most part. The plotline is almost typical AIC--inappropriately ruminating on human relationships with staggered glitzy visuals. This occurs all at the expense of character development (shallow all-around) and makes for muddled storytelling. I would have given it a three, and I would have kept it for the visuals if I had bought it (I watched a legal free webcast).


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