The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act

Spoilers, of course.

The movie starts off with a bit of 4th wall breaking with a ugly fish reappearance to talk about theater etiquette, which is appreciated with an eccentric fanbase like this. And then a message directly from GLITCH about spoiling, pirating, and leaking, unfortunately ironic considering it was leaked a month before it would have been published to YouTube and Netflix. I happened to stay spoiler free just for this early theater release.

There is then a funny, not that helpful, mini recap from Caine. I think they included this because they know a lot of viewers (teenagers...and kids) would bring their parents, who wouldn't have a clue of what is going on mostly. I do like that a lot, the humor reminded me of the videos seen in the interactive favorite character poll seen before Episode 6.

Beginning Episode 8, I adore the abstract art style seen in Caine's backstory, showing that he was the failure and ended up absorbing his successor Abel (presumed name). Seen is a bit of early circus life before abruptly cutting to the present, where some of the cast starts to accept their fate in the circus. Caine is seen is his office and Bubble abruptly antagonizes him about being defective of his role in being a circus ringmaster. This is the start of pacing issues I've seen in this movie itself.

Caine lets go of his passiveness and becomes more irritated and sadistic with his newfound god complex. This leads to Pomni pulling Kinger into consciousness with a trick she remembered, asking him how to stop Caine. As Caine grows unrelenting and almost aware of their tricks to stop him, Kinger accidentally deletes him and part of his creations. Those being the circus, which has deteriorated and lost color. The cast learns this demise from him and noticed his censor is gone as well.

Beginning Episode 9, Jax's brief altercation with Kinger over Caine's deletion was stopped, and Kinger revealed to them that they are truly brain scans and not directly digit...

This is honest upfront about what it is: parts eight and the grand finale of a long running television series and if you haven't seen the previous episodes, this isn't going to make a great deal of sense. Barring a thirty seconds recap and an opening scene that reminded me of Norman McLaren's line-based artwork, that is correct and so for much of the rest of this I had only a developing clue as to what was going on. The gist appears to be that "Caine" - an animated and slightly menacing set of dentures bedecked in a circus-master's costume - is holding some characters captive in his nether realm where he tries to keep them entertained but without them ever having any hope of returning to the human world from which they originated. What follows sees each of those given a few moments in the digital sun as we start to understand a little of their characteristics and of what drove them to seek refuge in what turned out to be this purgatorial existance. Each has a story to tell, and gradually they learn that only by working together and by being honest about themselves can they ever hope break the cycle. The quality of the animation is pristine, but that's what computers do so I wasn't so impressed by that. What it does offer us, though, is an interesting observation of introspection and modern-day isolation driven by an obsessive use of technology that alienates rather than engages. It ultimately extols the benefits of honesty and inter-reliance and of course, there is a clear message for bullies too amongst this brightly coloured and quickly paced film. There's a tremendous amount of imagination in play here, and though there is far too much dialogue throughout, there is more to this than I initially expected. If you are going to see it in a cinema, though, it is probably best to watch the earlier programmes first.