Movies I've Seen: Summer Wars

Ah, Summer Wars, movie that combines science fiction with warm, funny romantic comedy with suprising skill.

The premise of Summer Wars is thus: an awkward computer nerd called Kenji Koiso is roped into accompanying Natsuki Shinohara, the most popular girl in school, to her grandmother's birthday party/family reunion as her date, and, as it's revealled, her faux fiance.

There he meets her large, extended family and has to duck about to ensure no one twigs to his and Natsuki's con. BUT, in the midst of this schenangians, a sentient and aggressive computer virus attacks the massive social network that controls most of Japan, who frames Kenji for his hijinxs.

Directed by the spectacular the Girl Who Leapt Through Time's Mamoru Hosoda, the interplay between the characters, both in the real world and in the CGI world of the Oz network, is really well done, and the animation is spectacular.

The villain of the piece, the AI called LoveMachine, is a really good bad guy in that he manages to come off as intimidating even before he actually starts to get into the heavy stuff, though he comes across as being more of a spiteful prick than a program though, which I guess makes sense. Him being self aware and junk.

My only real major complaint is that Natsuki doesn't really have THAT much to actually do. Admittedly she does play a larger part towards the end of the movie, but as is the case with a lot of movies such a large cast of characters, she doesn't really get that much screentime once the plot gets moving.

All in all, I'd give it about 8 out of 10, and do reccommend that you track it down if you can.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time too, that movie is AWESOME.