← Back to Reviews
in
Parasite Dolls (Dub) Status: COMPLETE
Movie
Parasite Dolls is the kind of movie that comes up in conversations when you say you like Ghost in the Shell.
I have some advice for you: If anyone ever says to you, "Hey, if you like Ghost in the Shell, you'll like Parasite Dolls", SLAP THEM.
Ghost in the Shell wasn't perfect, but why in the hell would you ever lower your standards to something like Parasite Dolls after seeing it?
Soak it in 'cause this is as cool as it gets.
Movie
Parasite Dolls is the kind of movie that comes up in conversations when you say you like Ghost in the Shell.
I have some advice for you: If anyone ever says to you, "Hey, if you like Ghost in the Shell, you'll like Parasite Dolls", SLAP THEM.
Ghost in the Shell wasn't perfect, but why in the hell would you ever lower your standards to something like Parasite Dolls after seeing it?
Soak it in 'cause this is as cool as it gets.
Okay, so Strike 1: You failed to suck me in.
I usually give any movie 15 minutes to get my attention, but it took almost 20 minutes before I had even the vaguest impression of what was going on.
Supposedly we're in Bubblegum Crisis world (which I haven't seen so take that for what it is) which is a future city where there are robots that look like people.
Supposedly some robots are running rampant in pretty visually uninteresting ways and we discover that some sort of "drugs" on the street are actually capsules containing nanobots which are designed to fix this rampage bug in a certain line of robots. It's suggested that this reverse drug exists because the corporations that built the robots risk bad publicity by publicly recalling their old models so they try to secretly patch their ****** products after they already sold them.
Hmmm... THAT SOUNDS AWFULLY FAMILIAR SOMEHOW...
So Ubisoft are the villains apparently. I'd be cool with this realistic evil corporate plot if it wasn't completely ditched halfway through the movie.
Aaand Strike 2: You bored the crap out of me.
Parasite Dolls definitely has the art quality it needs to compete with Ghost in the Shell, but it's animation quality is bizarrely inconsistent.
Most scenes use very minimal frames and it makes regular walk cycles look stilted, while during other scenes, particularly those involving closeups of characters doing really mundane **** like lighting a cigarette or something, the animation quality suddenly jars into gear like the animator was falling asleep at his desk and someone just randomly walked up and threw a wad of bills in his face and yelled, "WORK!!!".
Over 7 years later and this moment from Ghost in the Shell still puts anything from Parasite Dolls to shame.
There are a couple great shots in the movie, but there are equally as many strange edits that don't add anything to scenes. Two characters will be talking seriously about someone and then we'll cut to that person just long enough for them to cough out of discomfort from having the camera unexpectedly pointed at them and then the rest of the conversation will just resume and I'm left wondering if it helped the studio's ailing budget to draw up entirely new frames to add in that pointless cutaway.
There's a lot of talking...
and talking...
and talking...
and exposition...
and talking...
and after all that talking I still don't know any of the characters' names except maybe Kimble, which I think was the detectives' robot sidekick and Takahashi because it's a really common name even though I don't think Takahashi ever actually appears in the movie. Or does he? Don't tell me, I don't care.
We ditch the evil corporate drug-patch-thing to pursue some plot about robots getting killed off (which are called Boomers for some reason but that sounds stupid so I'm just gonna call them robots) and we get some interminable dialog about the lady cop being uncomfortable dealing with pimps and dealers who who illicitly install what I'm going to call 'sex modules' on consumer robots, because she's "a woman, you know".
I take your lousy stupid lady cop and I raise you one badass air force colonel lady.
I usually give any movie 15 minutes to get my attention, but it took almost 20 minutes before I had even the vaguest impression of what was going on.
Supposedly we're in Bubblegum Crisis world (which I haven't seen so take that for what it is) which is a future city where there are robots that look like people.
Supposedly some robots are running rampant in pretty visually uninteresting ways and we discover that some sort of "drugs" on the street are actually capsules containing nanobots which are designed to fix this rampage bug in a certain line of robots. It's suggested that this reverse drug exists because the corporations that built the robots risk bad publicity by publicly recalling their old models so they try to secretly patch their ****** products after they already sold them.
Hmmm... THAT SOUNDS AWFULLY FAMILIAR SOMEHOW...
We got enough body horror in this review yet?
So Ubisoft are the villains apparently. I'd be cool with this realistic evil corporate plot if it wasn't completely ditched halfway through the movie.
Aaand Strike 2: You bored the crap out of me.
Parasite Dolls definitely has the art quality it needs to compete with Ghost in the Shell, but it's animation quality is bizarrely inconsistent.
Most scenes use very minimal frames and it makes regular walk cycles look stilted, while during other scenes, particularly those involving closeups of characters doing really mundane **** like lighting a cigarette or something, the animation quality suddenly jars into gear like the animator was falling asleep at his desk and someone just randomly walked up and threw a wad of bills in his face and yelled, "WORK!!!".
Over 7 years later and this moment from Ghost in the Shell still puts anything from Parasite Dolls to shame.
There are a couple great shots in the movie, but there are equally as many strange edits that don't add anything to scenes. Two characters will be talking seriously about someone and then we'll cut to that person just long enough for them to cough out of discomfort from having the camera unexpectedly pointed at them and then the rest of the conversation will just resume and I'm left wondering if it helped the studio's ailing budget to draw up entirely new frames to add in that pointless cutaway.
There's a lot of talking...
and talking...
and talking...
and exposition...
and talking...
and after all that talking I still don't know any of the characters' names except maybe Kimble, which I think was the detectives' robot sidekick and Takahashi because it's a really common name even though I don't think Takahashi ever actually appears in the movie. Or does he? Don't tell me, I don't care.
We ditch the evil corporate drug-patch-thing to pursue some plot about robots getting killed off (which are called Boomers for some reason but that sounds stupid so I'm just gonna call them robots) and we get some interminable dialog about the lady cop being uncomfortable dealing with pimps and dealers who who illicitly install what I'm going to call 'sex modules' on consumer robots, because she's "a woman, you know".
I take your lousy stupid lady cop and I raise you one badass air force colonel lady.
Suck on that, Parasite Dolls!
Although maybe I shouldn't encourage sucking since Parasite Dolls already gives itself a LOT of fetishized violence to suck on.
And I don't use "fetishized violence" lightly, but what else can you call it when you have shots of a woman being casually ****ed over a desk as she moans loudly over an ongoing conversation right before they shoot her in the back of the head?
And that's not even the FIRST naked woman we see graphically beheaded in this movie.
Jeez, Parasite Dolls, I... didn't know you were into this... I'm not sure we can be friends anymore...
Not that it would have really lasted any considering Strike 3:
What little story I can follow doesn't make any ******* sense.
As I puzzle over why "god" isn't censored and "damn" isn't censored, but both words combined into "*******" is censored (what the hell, Movie Forums?), I also puzzle over why anything happens in this movie.
So we have a robot prostitute, a "robostitute" if you will, who hooks up with a guy. The two are having sex when the lady cop busts in to arrest her and we discover her hair is a different color, she's got cables stuck to his skin doing... something and then suddenly a cat jumps out of her face, it runs up the wall, and then literally pukes out this giant phallic robot worm laser cannonWTF AM I WATCHING!?
Supposedly this "the killer" that's been going around and killing robots.
It's a... thing... that's never explained or mentioned again.
Then we do more talking and talking and talking and FINALLY we discover that the guy behind everything IIIIIIIIIIISSSSS...
Some guy the detective knew from college who's going to use the detective's college thesis about blowing up 90% of all robots in a city with strategically placed chain explosives to frame him and set him up as the bad guy! *SHOCK GASP!*
Wait... WHAT!?
Although maybe I shouldn't encourage sucking since Parasite Dolls already gives itself a LOT of fetishized violence to suck on.
And I don't use "fetishized violence" lightly, but what else can you call it when you have shots of a woman being casually ****ed over a desk as she moans loudly over an ongoing conversation right before they shoot her in the back of the head?
And that's not even the FIRST naked woman we see graphically beheaded in this movie.
Jeez, Parasite Dolls, I... didn't know you were into this... I'm not sure we can be friends anymore...
Not that it would have really lasted any considering Strike 3:
What little story I can follow doesn't make any ******* sense.
As I puzzle over why "god" isn't censored and "damn" isn't censored, but both words combined into "*******" is censored (what the hell, Movie Forums?), I also puzzle over why anything happens in this movie.
So we have a robot prostitute, a "robostitute" if you will, who hooks up with a guy. The two are having sex when the lady cop busts in to arrest her and we discover her hair is a different color, she's got cables stuck to his skin doing... something and then suddenly a cat jumps out of her face, it runs up the wall, and then literally pukes out this giant phallic robot worm laser cannonWTF AM I WATCHING!?
Supposedly this "the killer" that's been going around and killing robots.
It's a... thing... that's never explained or mentioned again.
Then we do more talking and talking and talking and FINALLY we discover that the guy behind everything IIIIIIIIIIISSSSS...
Some guy the detective knew from college who's going to use the detective's college thesis about blowing up 90% of all robots in a city with strategically placed chain explosives to frame him and set him up as the bad guy! *SHOCK GASP!*
Wait... WHAT!?
HOLY DEUS EX SCAPEGOAT BATMAN! What the hell isis.piso.upi p.vync,.pv ibovuiwboevuieo uioeuieuk xnqcepd icanteven TY>PE anymore this DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!
FIRST!
WHY was the detective's college thesis on creating a chain of explosions to decimate a city with the specific goal in mind to target a particular minority of people (robots)? You'd THINK... I-I don't even know what to think, can that happen? Can you actually graduate college by presenting the equivalent of The Anarchist Cookbook?
SECOND!
WHY is this the climactic twist of the movie? We've never even SEEN these guys at college before so there's literally NO SETUP OR FORESHADOWING to this whatsoever! This comes out of the friggen' blue! And you know why the villain's plan is supposedly guaranteed to work?
Because "nobody would suspect a disaster of this scale without an inside man".
Friggen' WHAT!? How do you stick the blame on one specific guy in one specific department of one specific agency relating to the robots that got killed? That doesn't make any sense!
Why him anyway!?
THIRD!
WHY is 90% of the total worldwide robot population in this city? These robots have been accepted into high-level police work and they've barely been shared outside of it? How 'bout BS!?
FOURTH!
WHY does the lady cop who shoots the villain at the end monologue about the positive qualities of robots after the villain EXPLICITLY SAYS THAT HIS WHOLE SCHEME WAS ABOUT POWER, NOT HATRED FOR ROBOTS!?
The villain's motivations don't make any sense either, he just does evil **** and then grandly monologues about how "power to dominate over the weak is the most cliche cliche cliche cliche society cliche cliche subservience cliche cliche cliche IT'S NOT ABOUT THE ROBOTS cliche cliche cliche *shoots a robot* cliche cliche"
FIFTyou know what, no. Done. Parasite Dolls sucks.
Boring suckage.
Suckitude.
Suckatopia.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSRobostitute.
Suck. Done. Out. Get outta here. BLEGHH!!!
Oh, and the dub's was edited like crap.
Final Verdict: [Friggen' Awesome][Pretty Good][Meh...][Just... Bad][Irredeemably Awful]
FIRST!
WHY was the detective's college thesis on creating a chain of explosions to decimate a city with the specific goal in mind to target a particular minority of people (robots)? You'd THINK... I-I don't even know what to think, can that happen? Can you actually graduate college by presenting the equivalent of The Anarchist Cookbook?
SECOND!
WHY is this the climactic twist of the movie? We've never even SEEN these guys at college before so there's literally NO SETUP OR FORESHADOWING to this whatsoever! This comes out of the friggen' blue! And you know why the villain's plan is supposedly guaranteed to work?
Because "nobody would suspect a disaster of this scale without an inside man".
Friggen' WHAT!? How do you stick the blame on one specific guy in one specific department of one specific agency relating to the robots that got killed? That doesn't make any sense!
Why him anyway!?
THIRD!
WHY is 90% of the total worldwide robot population in this city? These robots have been accepted into high-level police work and they've barely been shared outside of it? How 'bout BS!?
FOURTH!
WHY does the lady cop who shoots the villain at the end monologue about the positive qualities of robots after the villain EXPLICITLY SAYS THAT HIS WHOLE SCHEME WAS ABOUT POWER, NOT HATRED FOR ROBOTS!?
The villain's motivations don't make any sense either, he just does evil **** and then grandly monologues about how "power to dominate over the weak is the most cliche cliche cliche cliche society cliche cliche subservience cliche cliche cliche IT'S NOT ABOUT THE ROBOTS cliche cliche cliche *shoots a robot* cliche cliche"
FIFTyou know what, no. Done. Parasite Dolls sucks.
Boring suckage.
Suckitude.
Suckatopia.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSRobostitute.
Suck. Done. Out. Get outta here. BLEGHH!!!
Oh, and the dub's was edited like crap.
Final Verdict: [Friggen' Awesome][Pretty Good][Meh...][Just... Bad][Irredeemably Awful]