X.O. Genesis

Subtitled A Spaz Opera, this is a squelching analogue stop motion animation. It's apparently meant to reclaim the genre, but it's hard to be certain from what. Though in truth it might be a 'from whom', given how unpopular the Star Wars prequels were.

From New Zealand, it's based on the work of artist James Robinson, all towering paint and things found in skips. Metatextual commentary is scratched on the screen, but we'll start with the star field and low tone and a missile-strewn battlecruiser entering the frame from above the camera. The music by Teenwolf and Chris Knox isn't quite John Williams, sort of glitchy and noisy and messy when it's not being the kind of "warped circus pop" that supports Sleater Kinney and Guitarwolf in concert.

There are some good visuals; a tin can landing craft recalls that European film about swapping labels and politics that ends with lots of explosions, beeping mis-spelled robot people and space badguys and a star battle that's halfway between Luke's trench run and a game of Galaga or Gradius. There's a monster in a volcano, a war planet, binary radio chatter and cities destroyed, things hovering in space and at the end synthesis - three makes a rainbow.

The technorganic environments recall the television show Lexx, the bad guys appear to draw from the same influences as the Reavers of Serenity (and Firefly), and the good guys are a bit airy and Fifth Element. There's not much new here, however, and what there is might have been better deployed in other directions. New Zealand is now developing form for epic battles between good and evil, but animated shorts are possibly not the best place for it. There's plenty of inventiveness on display, little T-shirts with humourous messages, 'upcycled' electrical components and pen and ink buildings, but it's originality in service of homage, derivative more than it is diverting.

The Millennium Falcon and the Nostromo both gave us space ships that weren't clean, felt lived in, but this is as if their carpet bunnies and belly button fluff were given a movie of their own. If in the approximation of dialogue one heard "bogies at twelve o'clock" it wouldn't be space fighters you thought of first. This is messy, entertaining in its crudity, but not one to seek out; this isn't the film you're looking for.