Summer Wars (***1/2)

Hollywood may be churning out more animated films than ever, but still hasn’t sold Americans on the idea that they don’t need to be family films. (The grown-up oriented, US film My Dog Tulip managed to make about $200,000, or nearly 1/2000 of what Toy Story 3 did.) But the Japanese have no such reservations and made a big hit out of this. Not that it’s altogether serious. In a perfect world, it would have captured the same audience that went to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, although the fantasy element is more of a sci-fi thing here. (The version I watched was dubbed very competently, though I didn’t recognize the actors’ names.)

The main character, Kenji, is the sort of nerdy boy who’s often the hero of this type of story. He’s a math expert with no romantic skills who earns some money as a “code monkey” working for the giant computer network Oz. (Think Facebook on steroids.) Of course, there’s a pretty, popular girl, Natsuki, who recruits Kenji for an errand. That turns out to involve taking a train to Nagano, a less-populous area where Natsuki’s family is about to celebrate her great-grandmother’s 90th birthday. All goes well until Kenji’s math wizardry accidentally unleashes a malevolent computer program (Love Machine) that threatens to foul up the family holiday, much of the world’s Internet connection, and worse.

Who is behind this malfeasance? Kenji? Natsuki’s bad-boy uncle? The United States military? And who will be able to stop it? Maybe Kenji. Maybe great-grandma, who humorously wields her rotary phone and list of contacts going back 60 or 70 years. In a world where the electronic infrastructure has gone haywire, the low-tech wizard rules. And when you can’t play computer games, you can always play cards, like the Japanese favorite koi-koi, which is woven into the plot. Alas, only a little is done with the idea of our over-reliance on technology.

The whimsical plot is perfect for animation. The villain’s avatar kind of reminded me of one from the TV show South Park, though the artistry is much better, and the humor is less vicious. The hand-drawn style helps gives the film a warm feel that is well-suited to the story. While the idea of the geek saving the day is fairly familiar turf, the originality lies in Natsuki’s truly colorful clan, who are sometimes at odds, but ultimately come together when the chips are, literally, down.

IMDB link

viewed 1/27/11 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 1/28/11