Blood: The Last Vampire

The feature directorial debut of Hiroyuki Kitakubo, one of the special-effects animators on the seminal anime Akira, is in many ways prototypical Japanese animation, featuring a schoolgirl with a samurai sword and supernatural powers who hunts down demons. But stylistically, it's a huge break from the past, incorporating digital effects (and a more realistic look) to a greater extent than any of its predecessors, and merging the 2-D characters in near-seamless fashion. If Jerry Bruckheimer had the patience to produce animation, and ever held back on the quick cuts, he might come up with something visually similar. The demons in question are bat-like vampires masquerading as humans, with the new twist being that the only way to kill them is to induce massive blood loss from a single wound, thus necessitating the use of a samurai sword. There's a good, slow buildup, then an action scene or two, and then...the movie ends! With a ham-handed Vietnam allegory, no less. Just as the plot is about to thicken, we realize we're watching a 49-minute movie. It feels like a pilot episode for the most expensive made-for-cable cartoon ever produced, and if you expect quantity (or closure) for your $8 ticket, you may feel shorted. The quality, however, is unlikely to be disputed. Blood is, if nothing else, a visual stunner, and both James Cameron and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix) have said so.