Origin: Spirit of the Past

There’s little of substance for anime fans in this diligently drawn but humourless and stale post-apocalyptic eco-yarn from Japanese studio Gonzo. A poetic opening scene sees boisterous young Agito race one of his cohorts through the remains of a once bustling cityscape. It’s known as Neutral City, a dilapidated safe haven that stands between the warring factions of a haunted forest on one side and a military stockade on the other.

Mixing sharp CG backdrops – pumping pistons and future war machines – with cartoony hand-drawn characters, the film covers similar eco-parable terrain to Miyazaki’s ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’ (1984) as well as forthcoming Pixar charmer ‘Wall-E’, but with the grace and heart of neither. Awkward allusions to consumerism, military dictatorship in times of strife and the need for environmental caution lead to a final showdown in the belly of a volcano which should be epic. It’s not.