Ricky's Battle Shock (A GI Joe Animation) (2009) - By Josh Samford

Film Reviews: Ricky's Battle Shock (A GI Joe Animation) (2009) - By Josh Samford
Posted on Thursday, July 02, 2009 @ 05:05:05 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

You really can't write a review for a piece of animation like this without of course mentioning Robot Chicken. For those of you somehow left in the dark, Robot Chicken is that program on Cartoon Network that features a plethora of comedic wit all brought upon the audience by way of older action figures. You have Star Wars, GI Joe, Barbie, My Little Pony, etc. all brought to life with stop animation and some additional animation in order to create some pretty strange and often disturbing sequences that never the less leave the audience laughing. Well, director/animator Lee Hardcastle takes the idea and runs in a different direction with it. With a bit of pitch black humor, some ballsy exploitation inspired violence and animation that may actually be bette than Seth Green's labor of love - Ricky's Battle Shock is a good look at a filmmaker with a lot of promise. Clocking in at six minutesin length, you really can't do much better in your free time. Plus, it's free, so you'd better watch it you lazy bums.

Told with GI Joe figures and animated in stop-motion, Ricky's Battle Shock tells the story of a young man home from the war - who always wanted to go to the moon. To tell too much would be to spoil the short, but essentially you can be guaranteed to feel something by the end of the brief animation. The story itself is all over the place, at first making you wonder if you're just watching a random series of scenes that never connect - however, the short ultimately ties everything together in a tight little bow that makes you stop and re-examine everything that came before it. It's so surprisingly well thought out for such a project. You would likely expect to come into it and just see a few GI Joe figures farting on one another, then somehow hacking each other to bits - as that's the sort of thing a slob like me would probably attempt. Hardcastlle delivers an intriguing story that displays a knack for craftsmanship... as well as some animated gore, so my hat is off to the man!

Look out for some intestines, a head explosion, some semen and some well handled digital effects on top of all the stop motion. The mix of the different concepts takes the short in new areas, and like I said, might even push it past Robot Chicken in some regards. However, I will give the Adult Swim crew some credit for having more money to create better sets. However, I have to say that Hardcastle and his crew certainly are on par in terms of originality and even greater in the arts of storytelling. You can check out the film on dailymotion or go to Hardcastle's website at MissingHead.co.uk. Give the flick a look, if you're reading Rogue Cinema, I'm sure you're the type who will both get it and be impressed with it's coolness. Also, sometimes you just want to see an action figure disembowled. That might just be me though.