Batz is a frantic animation that sees a young, adventurous bat chasing a mosquito down into the belly of the underground, bringing both him and his prey into contact with another bat who, due to a bad childhood experience, is terrified of mosquito – a fear they seem all too aware of. What follows is a fast-moving chase sequence through tunnels and trains in the city.
As a piece of animation, this is effective because it has a lot of movement and a lot of energy; the chases occur with lots of fast movement of the virtual camera, but also good design in the places and situations, so it has a lot of style and flair to it, not just the technology to deliver upon the idea. All of this makes it distracting but the problem I had was that there was not quite enough beyond this. I didn't really care for either character, visually or for their characteristics, and generally the action seemed to be mostly about the movement rather than laughs or thrills. This is not to say it is totally lacking in these, but it is neither as funny or thrilling as it needed to be, and just moving quickly is not enough to cover for that.
Ultimately it is quite fun for what it does well (the animation, the energy, the movement), but it lets itself down for not doing more and doing it well. Worth seeing for its strengths, but for most viewers I guess they will be looking for more than this delivers.
As a piece of animation, this is effective because it has a lot of movement and a lot of energy; the chases occur with lots of fast movement of the virtual camera, but also good design in the places and situations, so it has a lot of style and flair to it, not just the technology to deliver upon the idea. All of this makes it distracting but the problem I had was that there was not quite enough beyond this. I didn't really care for either character, visually or for their characteristics, and generally the action seemed to be mostly about the movement rather than laughs or thrills. This is not to say it is totally lacking in these, but it is neither as funny or thrilling as it needed to be, and just moving quickly is not enough to cover for that.
Ultimately it is quite fun for what it does well (the animation, the energy, the movement), but it lets itself down for not doing more and doing it well. Worth seeing for its strengths, but for most viewers I guess they will be looking for more than this delivers.
