Samâ wôzu (Summer Wars) (2009)

So last week was the annual Boston Science-Fiction Festival! Yay! I look forward to it all year, and I took in a good amount of excellent sci-fi films so be ready for that in the next few days (well... probably. I'm actually going to Aruba for a week and I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing). Anyway. The new anime film Summer Wars proposes a not-so-far-off future in which a large amount of business, commerce, and entertainment takes place within a digital world called OZ. Users conduct transactions, interact with friends, and play games through personalized avatars, and many people are able to do their jobs through it.

When awkward math whiz Kenji is enlisted by the popular Natsuki to pose as her boyfriend for her great-grandma's birthday celebration in the country, he finds himself entwined in family dramas big and small. Shortly after his arrival, a major hack in the OZ system causes catastrophic breakdowns in several areas of Japan's infrastructure, and Kenji teams up with Natsuki and her family members to try to reclaim stability in both real-life and computer realms.

Summer Wars was a big draw for me since it's written/directed by Mamoru Hosoda, the guy who brought us the excellent feature The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Here he's crafted another interesting blend of science-fiction and teenage drama, though not quite as adeptly as his previous effort. There's a wealth of characters, all with their own outlooks and problems and comical affectations, and there's an interesting family dynamic at the core of the story. The problem is that all the computer adventure stuff doesn't quite fit into the family stuff. It blends together better by the end, but for most of the film the script feels composed of disparate parts that are forced into the same movie.

The animation and visual design here is so awesome. OZ is a pristine white wonderland with exaggerated cartoon characters, epic battles, and a giant cat head. Everything sort of looks like a Takashi Murakami painting, which makes me smile. As the film progresses it gains momentum with high-stakes battles that reference classic anime and video game imagery, giving it a comedic level of self-awareness amidst all the more serious real-life happenings. Though the script is a little uneven, Summer Wars is just a joy to watch, filled with enough humor, tragedy, apocalyptic disaster, and computer-simulated fun to keep viewers entertained throughout.

4/5

Pair This Movie With: Well if you want to continue with the Hosoda goodness, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is great. But thematically I would put it with WarGames, for sure.