Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

jibranahmad For me the movie did not grip me at any moment. I watched through the minutes and as half the movie passed I still patiently waited for it to pick up. The very beginning part was somewhat interesting, it was developing characters, a plot, and an idea. By somewhat the middle of the movie the plot and the characters were lost. The movie jumped onto details irreverent to anything in the beginning. Such tactic really does throw off viewers but is not completely wrong if you build up on the idea properly. Throughout the movie you had fillers, small lines that made the movie much longer, and further from helping to keep the audience engaged. I honestly was at the coastline of the movie the whole time, I knew the idea and where the plot and movie was going, but the movie did put an effort in tying the audience emotionally to the screen. In conclusion, the movie had too many irrelevant details, lines, very loosely tied together, with very unorganized plot. It very much tried to be a movie like "Inception" or "Fight Club" but in my view it did fail in that category.

hellraiser7 Whenever we are young we have lots of dreams, and make lots of promises to fulfill them. They can be a lot for things like flying a plane, going to a far off place, but the most common is mainly an emotional need which is love.this isn't so much a film it's more of an experience, there isn't really much of a plot which in reality is more of a setting. It's really a story concerned about it's three characters and the feelings they carry through the film.It all has the feel and setup similar to a Terence Malick film, like with his films they were all based on mood, emotion, and always had a poetic/journalistic sensibility to them which helps draw out a humanistic quality, just like this film. The film does have dialog in some places but not much of it, most of the film consists of narrative which feels journalistic and poetic since it all describes the feelings the characters feel at certain points or what they've been carrying within them but near say out loud.Even the background at times and music reflect their emotions, almost as if the world their in has a symbiotic connection to them and I'll admit it is just beautiful to see. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Hiroki and Sayuri are both in the isolated alternate world together, their in a classroom and both have shared an intimate moment together and then we see that there is sunlight that just surrounds them in the background, it was just beautiful that visual just metaphorically shows both love each other, it's reminiscent of that same visual between Darcy and Elesbeth in Joe Wright's "Pride and Prejudice".The theme throughout the whole film is mainly about promise of the heart, it centers in on three characters in particular who all have desires but as time has gone on they have denied it, which has made them go different but lonely directions but as we see no mater how much has changed they have never forgotten what they promised themselves. and we see how in different circumstances what they do to fulfill them.Hiroki and Syuri it's all about unspoken romance. For Hiroki, he's basically naive and brash, he's always a child at heart which is his great quality, he does have feelings for Sayuri but doesn't really discover or admit to them till unfortunately Sayuri is gone. I can easily feel the internal sadness he was going through when his best friend Sayuri is in a coma, the backgrounds he's in at the time really reflect it from his small apartment the use of gray and dark as he goes out.Sayuri is a girl that is rather shy but sweet, can play the violin beautifully which reflects the beauty within. We see she carries feelings of love for Hiroki but has trouble expressing it even when she spends time with him. I could feel even her sadness when we see the coma has put her into that alternate world which is a rather quiet and lonely place it really had that feeling of isolation where we saw the same town with no life much like the alternate world in the film "The Quiet Earth". In a way it gets at the common fear we all feel of being alone for the rest of our life.Both of them we see somehow have developed a psychic connection to one another and we see scenes when probably through the strength of their feelings are able to come together in that alternate world, the time they spend together is beautiful, we very much want them to find each other and stay with one another forever.Takuya we see is very much the one through the whole film that struggles the most. His persona sort of reflects my own in a way, he is sort of an introverted guy very much a brainy person but as we see has trouble expressing his feelings. Thsi doesn't make him cold which he's anything but however shy and in denial to admit what he really needs the most in life. But as the film goes further, despite all the different ways he exercises his denial, the wall he's built around himself crumbles when Hiroki and Sayuri come back into his life. But it's really one particular character he interacts with at times int he film (a shame there wasn't more scenes with the two) Maki his coworker and best friend a sweet soul is the one that breaks that wall completely. Both obviously desire each other, from the way they talk to each other as well as look at one another, there is one shot as both are talking Takuya briefly glances down at Maki's chest area, this doesn't make him a pervert mind you, it's just natural attraction is all Takuya's desire for her mentally has evolved into being more physical. It's a common thing as some of us who might at first be best friends with someone of the opposite sex depending on two deep things get begin to see them differently, as if our sense are opened up for the very first time.The place promised in their early days is the future and beyond.Rating: 4 stars

lyrast I've watched Makoto Shinkai's "The Place Promised In Our Early Days" a couple times now and the film is an absolute masterpiece, easily fulfilling the great promise he demonstrated in "Voices Of A Distant Star". And when I say masterpiece I'm talking about a brilliant director on the level of the legendary Miyazaki. No description I give can possibly replicate or do justice to the experience of watching this film. It has to be seen. I will be watching it again--and soon! Still, I'll mention a few of the things about "The Place Promised In Our Early Days" that impressed me.The setting is a Japan of a parallel world and that science-fiction concept is reasonably important in the development of the plot and the relationships between the three central characters: The gentle Hiroki, his much tougher but close friend Takuya, and Sayuri the girl who returns Hiroki's love. All three characters are well drawn and highly sympathetic and their complex relationship unfolds in the context of a coming conflict which tests their loyalty to each other and to their society. This coming war centres upon a great tower by which the Northern enemy {the Union} will attempt to destroy the U.S. controlled South by replacing it with another parallel universe causing the South simply to disappear. The creator of the tower was Sayuri's grandfather and somehow she is linked to its implementation. After writing a final love letter to Hiroki she falls into a coma and finds her consciousness trapped in a lonely and desolate parallel universe. This prevents the tower from becoming operative and it becomes unusable as a weapon. As long as she sleeps, the stalemate continues. Obviously Hiroki wishes to wake her but Takuya who works in the compound where Sayuri is kept feels the choice is between saving Sayuri or saving the world.That's an outline of the essentials of the plot but there is so much more to this film! It wrestles with significant and profound themes. The division between reality and dream is a constant motif. Is Sayuri actually in a dream universe when she sleeps or is she instead in a different reality? Is that desolate world a landscape of the terrible inner loneliness we all sometimes experience? Hiroki experiences the misery of loneliness when he finds the girl he loves so much--his soul mate--is taken from him. On a different level, Takuya {who in a different way} is also a soul-mate must decide if he is honour bound to refuse to help Hiroki and Sayuri. Informing these conflicts is the great overarching theme of Love and Sacrifice. Not simply the romantic love of Hiroki and Sayuri but the love which exists between comrades in arms, close friends, and the great social nexus which makes all such loves possible. In some ways the film can also be seen as a meditation on Time and memory; the need to give up something if one wishes to move on.The visuals in The Place Promised In Our Early Days are truly stunning, but not in the flamboyant manner of "Appleseed". Rather Shinkai's colour palette frequently uses highly evocative, psychologically ambient textures--sometimes nearly monochromatic in effect. For instance, the final scenes make very controlled and beautiful use of blue with violet overtones.The music score is perfectly evocative and very, very beautiful {How hard it is not to use those superlatives!}Without giving anything away, the ending has the bittersweet quality of "Voices Of A Distant Star: and the gently reflective short feature "She and Her Cat". Something of the sensitive, sweet, and melancholy beauty of this film is present in the opening lines of the closing end song:The white clouds are blurred in the faded blue. It's the color of that distant day. In the depths of my heart Lies a pain I hide from everyone.See this film! You've missed something if you haven't.

Lavar Burton Ah.. "the place promised in our early days... " - a phrase soaked in soft memories of naive, but blissful adolescence. Too bad the plot reads like that lame anniversary card you Dad gave your Mom last year. The animation is, of course, stellar - but the story? Well - let's see... what is a story anyway? What do clouds mean? Oh wait - if you're like me - who f***ing cares.After reading the "helpful" review on this, I gave this film a shot and watched it. I mean hey, I loved Spirited Away. It's not as though anime has to be along the lines of Fist Of The North Star for me to enjoy it. But oh my god, what a piece of s***! It's like one of those films where you keep thinking the plot is starting to get good, but it's not. In fact, the plot is "tricking you" into thinking it's going to get good, and then when you're interested again, it's like - "hehehe... got you sucker...", and then continues to unfold as lamely as you subconsciously assumed it would after the first 15 minutes.Nonetheless, out of respect for the talent it takes to make a finely animated film such as this - I have to give it far more than 1 star. But still, those 4 stars are for quality of workmanship alone, and NOT for an enjoyable film. But you don't have to take MY word for it... Go ahead, watch it. But I promise you, unless the question - "What do clouds mean?" appeals to you, then you will feel cheated out of the time you wasted watching this . Besides, you can always just go to the drugstore and read anniversary cards for free.