RUN LEIA RUN
creators' Web site
Web site for downloading @ TheForce.Net

"review" written 2/23/2003

When I decided to make this Web site my first goal was to review every fan film I'd ever seen. And so, in a weekend of flurried activity, I cranked out honest, carefully-worded critiques of everything sitting on my drive, random AtomFilms entries, stuff on TFN I hadn't seen yet. I ended up watching quite a few new fan films, making notes on things to download to review some other time, and feeling like I'd accomplished something.

But then I realized that I hadn't subjected my own fan film to the same treatment.

Could I do so without being biased?

What the hell. I can be objective about my own work, right? I know what's good about it and what's not. And in order to preserve some degree of journalistic integrity, I won't give it a letter grade.

Let's begin. I'm pretending I didn't make this movie... now.

BEGIN FICTIONALIZED OBJECTIVE REVIEW

Run Leia Run insists that you play by its rules. Which I think is kind of neat. It's an unusual fan film, even experimental.

The plot stems from Lola rennt (Run Lola Run), and if you haven't seen that movie, you're not going to get a lot of the jokes here. In fact, the whole thing might confuse you. Which, in a way, is fun. Enjoy the ride. Let the movie take you where it will. It all works out in the end.

Once a somewhat long logo sequence ends, we get a blast of originally composed music—a rarity and a delight—and one of the best-looking opening crawls around, which unfortunately suffers from Flash's slowness. After some Pythonesque subtitling and some general weirdness, we get into the regular opening titles, where the art style temporarily changes. Creator Adam Bertocci does his best to handle these deliberate style shifts so it's not too confusing. He occasionally succeeds.

The characters live in a world of muted colors and geometric shapes, yet are built with bright colors and smooth vectors. The animation is nothing special, but the characters look right (except for a few strange features on the face we unfortunately see the most—Leia's!) Adam tries to take advantage of the Flash medium by repeating objects and shapes and sounds, and this works, except when the scene simply gets too busy for Flash to keep track of.

This animation's high points are not in its look but in its sound. The score is top-notch and the voice talent, featuring a mix of old standbys like Ben Fletcher and Darren Scales and some notable new talents, is always passable and often excellent.

Run Leia Run is an interesting fan film. Varely rarely have I seen anything like it. I don't know if I would want a horde of knock-offs, either. But it's a breath of fresh air, albeit one that may leave you wondering what the heck is going on.

END FICTIONALIZED OBJECTIVE REVIEW

Well... I did my best. I like to think I was fair and not too self-promotional.

And now that we're out of that difficult territory:

This movie is unmatched brilliance! I urge you to download it today. IT IS THE GREATEST FAN FILM IN CREATION! ADAM BERTOCCI IS TEH BEST!!!!!11!!! FORCEBOAT FORCEBOAT FORCEBOAT FORCEBOAT FORCEBOAT A+ A+ A+ A+ A+++++ omg lol!!!!