Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre children Starring Kathleen Barr, Trevor Devall, Paul Dobson, Brian Drummond, Christopher Gaze Directed by Terry Shakespeare, David Molina Publisher Walt Disney Video External Links Official Site

Talk about a shock from beginning to end. Seriously, for a rather toyetically-based story targeted toward younger viewers, this is a pretty dark and involved story filled with deep concepts such as unity, betrayal, trust, terror and hope. This kind of story is what epic tales are made of and it shows what happens when a group of people put their entire hearts into engineering a quality product with actual substance. As the old saying goes: quality in, quality out.

One would have to see the first two Bionicle films to keep up with the ongoing story as it pertains to the start of "Web of Shadows", but the story itself does not seem to be entirely dependent on the others. Yes, it's a complete story, but the project itself does not confuse viewers with references to earlier episodes that they might not understand.

The animation is pretty top notch, just a little quick on the character movement. Otherwise, the textures are great and the modeling is nearly flawless. However, these physical features were merely a second fiddle. Lighting and environment proved to be the bigger player in this piece. Since the setting for the entire piece is so dark, animators had to make use of lighting elements and design to produce a pleasing visual picture. They've done that, without question. No need to adjust gamma correction on your screens. It's light enough to see and dark enough to chill.

The extras are the key winner in this DVD release. Chief among these is a web movie with a truly unique drawing and animation style. The web story is set up differently from the movie, but has a similar underlying premise about the Toa Metru being captured and changed into Toa Hordika. However, the story takes a different turn as they are sent to receive six stones in order to release the Mask of Light. The DVD only showed the first part of the comic, promising more at www.bionicle.com. It would be fantastic to see a DVD formed entirely from that story. Two different, yet similar stories, two great animated works. Coming in at a close second was a bio-file about characters in the film as well as some of the other figures found in the Bionicle line.

P.S. - For those of you who would like a definition of 'toyetic', watch Freakazoid.