Yes it’s a movie, it’s an hour and twenty-six minutes long, it has a beginning, middle and an end. It’s a movie. Gen 13 is based on an early 90s Wildstorm Comic of the same name created by Jim Lee, Brandon Choi and J Scott Campbell. Besides the DC/Wildstorm crossover story Dreamwar, I know next to nothing about Gen 13 so I am reviewing this completely blind.
We open at night as a family station wagon is driving away from a military attack chopper. The chopper soon opens fire, forcing the car off road and crash. The family safely got out of the burning car before it explodes but are cornered by the chopper. The chopper guns down the mother which pisses off the father that he psychically hulks out; destroying the chopper telekinetically. The father hands over the baby girl to his son, telling him to run and take care of his sister. Soon after another attack chopper arrives and guns down the father; the young boy stands in shock as we cut to the opening credits. Cut to a college dorm room as a young woman, Caitlin Fairchild (voiced by Alicia Witt) wakes up screaming; scaring her roommate. Soon after Caitlin panics as she realizes that she’s gonna be late for school and quickly gets dress. A little bit later Caitlin arrives at the campus only to be approached by a special agent from the National Security Committee. The agent explains that the NSC is recruiting promising young talents for a program called Project Genesis. And Caitlin is one of those talents based on the reputation of her father. Caitlin takes a flyer from the agent and considers the offer. After class Caitlin returns to her dorm only to find it locked due to her roommate having some college sex time. Caitlin decide take up on the offer earlier and who can blame her. If you got sick and tired of your roommates constantly fucking strangers while you’re locked outside you would go off to a better place too.
Later Caitlin is taken by helicopter to the Phoenix Base in the middle of a desert. There she meets with one of the base’s instructors Helga Kleinman (voiced by Cloris Leachman). A little bit later Caitlin gets an accidental dog pile from Percival “Grunge” Chang (voiced by Red Hot Chili Pepper member Flea) who was running from getting a shot. She then meets with Roxanne “Roxy” Spaulding (voiced by Elizabeth Daily). Cut to a training session of a Matthew Callahan (voiced by the Joker himself Mark Hamill). In the middle of the sparring the instructor head-butts Matthew which made him rather piss that he telekinetically breaks the instructor’s leg. Soon after Matthew gets a call from an Ivana Baiul (voiced by Lauren Lane); she wants him to keep an eye on Caitlin believing she may have great Gen-Factor potential. Apparently Caitlin is a progeny of a rogue Gen 12 who was a member of Team 7. After a short montage we cut to Caitlin in a training with Sarah Rainmaker (voiced by () ); Sarah has her on the ropes but Caitlin soon recovers and fights back until she wins. Upon winning the fight she starts to get a painful headache which does go away soon after. Cut to Caitlin’s room as she’s studying until a gas enters through a vent rendering her unconscious. A couple of armed men enter the room and place Caitlin in an incubation tube. Among with the other children Caitlin is taken to a chamber where they are going under some kind of procedure of the genetic kind. Ivana is notified of an in-coming military aircraft with an I/O (Internal Operations) clearance. She recognized it that it’s John Lynch approaching to the base. Cut to topside as Lynch (voiced by John de Lancie) arrives at the base to investigate any illegal experiments on the children. Ivana insures him that there aren’t any experiments going on only strictly observational purposes and are fully prepare for anything when emergencies arise.
We cut to the little boy from the start of the movie running away from soldiers. The soldiers close in on the boy and baby but he slips into a river and is carried downstream into a waterfall. The boy survives the waterfall but losses his baby sister on the way down. The little boy is capture by the soldiers soon after. Caitlin wakes from as the scenes, apparently she been having dreams of that event for quite some time. Cut to next day as Caitlin, Roxy and Grunge are getting lunch; Caitlin starts feeling very nauseous but Lynch catches her before she collapses. Lynch talks to Caitlin for a bit about how he served with her father. Cut to Ivana and Matthew watching Lynch on a closed circuit monitor. She worries that Lynch may gather enough evidence to shut down the project but Matthew is confident that once these children become Gen-Active nothing can stop them. Later at Caitlin’s room she starts getting a headache this a lot worst then before; she then starts puking on the floor. Caitlin tries to contact anyone one on the intercom but gets no response and decides to leave her room to find the infirmary. She stumbles upon a room called Comcore One and spots a file of her father Alex Fairchild. Caitlin looks deeper into the file, noticing something superhuman about father until she gets spooked by Roxy and Grunge. Soon after an armed guard arrives at Comcore One; Caitlin tries to explain but the guard backhands her. Looks like somebody keeps his pimp hand strong, huh? Grunge tries to attack the guard but he’s quickly knock down and the guard draws his gun him and Roxy. Caitlin soon recovers looking rather piss off; the guard is about to shoot her but Caitlin quickly takes the gun away and straights up Falcon Punches him into the incubation chamber. Caitlin continues to be in pain this time she’s undergoing some transformation; gaining muscle mass and increasing in size while Roxy and Grunge stand in shock and awe. A little bit more armed guards show up to subdue Caitlin but leads to no prevail as she breaks free and takes out most of the guards.
Caitlin and the others make their leave before anymore guards arrive. Soon after Matthew arrives and reports to Ivana on the situation; suspecting that one of the children has gone Gen-Active. Ivana has the rest of the children incapacitated and collected while sending out armed forces to capture Caitlin. Cut to some guards searching the locker as Caitlin, Roxy and Grunge are hiding in the air vent. Just long enough for the guards to leave the locker room. While Caitlin changes to some better clothes (her outfit from the comics) a couple of guards spot an open vent leading to the locker room. One of the guards drops a grenade into the vent; Caitlin quickly moves Roxy and Grunge out of the way before the grenade goes off. Matthew and some armed guards arrive at the locker room to find Roxy and Grunge unconscious. Meanwhile Caitlin wakes up at outside of the base after being blown into a shaft leading outside. She soon gets spotted by two aircraft patrols and runs away at impressively high speed. The patrols make an attempt to capture her but break free destroying one of them. The second patrol opens fire on Caitlin as she runs away again. The patrol gives chase until Caitlin throws a huge rock at him taking him out indefinitely. But it’s not over just yet as a Helga appears in a mech firing rockets at her. After Helga runs out of rockets Caitlin jumps at her head-on, causes her to make a rough landing. Helga grabs a boulder to crush her but Caitlin grabs hold on the boulder; causing Helga to fall off a cliff and come sliding down at the side of a mountain. Caitlin goes to check on Helga only to find her bruised up but alive and unconscious. Caitlin soon starts to sense a great disturbance in the force as in she feels Roxy in great pain. Evidentially a person who’s Gen-Active can psychic sense other Gen-Actives.
Cut to Roxy and Grunge being tortured by Ivana who’s demanding to know if they work for Lynch but doesn’t get the answer she’s expecting. Ivana gets a call from the control room about an unidentified formation that just appear on radar; mostly Lynch making a raid on the base. She heads back to the control room while Matthew stays behind continuing the interrogation. However, it would appear that Matthew has other plans for Roxy and Grunge. As it turns out he had some involvement of making Caitlin manifest her power. So now he’s going keep torturing them until their powers manifest as well. Back at topside interceptor jets are sent out while Caitlin who’s inside the mech is attempting to get pass the security but doesn’t get very far. Armed guards open fire on the mech but Caitlin recovers and throws the damaged mech at the guards. A tank soon arrives to attack her but she immediately charge right at it to tackle it; causing the tank to fire at a few jets. Back at the interrogation chamber Matthew continues torturing Grunge with no results of any manifestation. Roxy provokes Matthew which makes him stop torturing Grunge. Matthew (now calling himself Threshold) puts Roxy in a telekinetically hold and proceeds to torture her psychically. This makes Grunge very angry that he becomes Gen-Active; molecularly bonding with the metal restraints and taking on their properties. Grunge quickly frees himself and takes out Threshold, able to save Roxy in time. Caitlin tries to sneak back into the base but gets cornered by Ivana’s men who are ready to kill her. Roxy and Grunge makes the save via throwing tools. Caitlin starts taking out some of the guards until Grunge joins bonding with a steel pillar. He takes a few guards very impressively but gets shot from behind by a tank. Caitlin throws a guard’s helmet into the barrel of the tank as Ivana orders to fire. This somehow causes the tank to explode.
Roxy meets up with Caitlin as Ivana appears from the wreckage revealing her cybernetic arm. A fight breaks out with Ivana having the advantage over Caitlin. Ivana has Caitlin on the ropes until the recovered Grunge bonds with her cybernetic arm and breaks it; forcing Ivana to retreat. While Caitlin and the others are finding a way off the base Lynch and his men have infiltrated the Phoenix Base. Caitlin and the others spot a helicopter pilot and persuade him to fly them out. They almost made it out until they come across a red light in form of Threshold as he gives his best Joker laugh. We even get a nice Scanners moment as Threshold makes the pilot’s head explode. He then destroys the helicopter causing the three of them to fall to their death. Luckily however, Roxy’s powers manifested just in time; able to control gravity to stop their fall. Threshold is pleased to these three to have become Gen-Active. Long story short Threshold wants them to join him to destroy the government who murder their parents (who were all Gen 12s) and create a better society. But the three of them all refused so now Threshold offers them death instead. He tries some more Scanner tricks by entering their minds but Caitlin managed to repel his mental attack. Caitlin goes to attack Threshold but he dodges out of the way and Force pushes her right into Grunge. Threshold sets his sights on Roxy as she uses her power to throw objects at him. Threshold retaliates with a telekinetic blast but Roxy blocks it with a gravity field. Cut back to the base as Lynch is informed that all the Gen 13 children are gone leaving no choice but to evacuate the base. Back outside Roxy continues to block Threshold’s attacks. Grunge bonds with a rock asked Caitlin to do a Fastball Special at Threshold; tackling him down to a wall. Grunge is about to attack Threshold but gets Force pushed into a lake. Threshold does a Psycho Crusher towards Caitlin and Roxy but Caitlin counters with a Shoryuken. Grunge recovers and blasts Threshold with water after bonding with it. Roxy encases Threshold in a water bubble; just long enough to wear him out as Caitlin gets the drop on him.
Shortly thereafter, Lynch arrives putting a stop to this fight. Threshold wants to kill the three but Lynch stops him; telling him Caitlin is his sister. So it turns out that Threshold was that little boy and Caitlin was that baby. And apparently Caitlin’s been having his dreams. Lynch explains that after Threshold was taken away he found Caitlin down river and hid her away. When the project was no longer popular he returned Caitlin to her uncle. Back at the base with all the Gen 13 children safely evacuated to another location, Ivana activates the self-destruct destroying the Phoenix Base. Caitlin and the rest aboard the aircraft to the escape the explosion; Threshold decides to stay behind. Caitlin goes after him but he Force pushes her away from the destruction while Roxy pulls her into the aircraft. Presumably Threshold dies by the falling rocks. After the destruction of the base Lynch proposes that Caitlin and the others have the potential to make a positive change to the world with their powers; the three of all agree to join him. The movie ends with Caitlin asking Lynch about her father and Matthew.
My Final Verdict: For an animated movie that was made way back in 2000 this is an impressive movie. The animation is in good quality, the voice acting is decent if not pretty good. The action scenes weren’t disappointed to say the least and the story is self-explanatory and contain for the most part.
So yeah I think I’m in the mood for another guilty pleasure superhero movie. Next time it’s Lightspeed, stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment