MOVIE REVIEW

Directions:
Choose any Filipino historical movies that was made from 2010 and onwards. Analyze the
historical film’s formal techniques and thematic content. Evaluate the historical accuracies of
events using the primary sources based from the film and come up with a sound conclusion in
different areas of focus. Refer to the following guide below in writing your review.

RPG METANOIA
  RPG: Metanoia is the future of Philippine cinema, in my
perspective. RPG: Metanoia, winner of the 36th Metro Manila Film
Festival's Third Best Picture award, is the Philippines' first full
length computer animated feature, as well as the first local film to
be created and screened in 3D. RPG: Metanoia is a thrilling,
emotional, technically stunning, and all-around fantastic film from
the Philippines.

 Nico, a young boy who is the best in his barkada at playing

MMORPG (massively multiplayer, online role-playing games),
especially the fantasy quest game Metanoia, is voiced by child star
Zaijan Jaranilla. Nico and his pals enter a Metanoia tournament one
summer, where the top players from around the world compete.
Nico, despite his unrivaled gaming abilities, loses the title. Nico's
loss, on the other hand, provides him with an excuse to play in the
real world rather than the virtual one, something his mother
(Eugene Domingo) has been urging him to do for months. Mayumi
(Mika dela Cruz), a tomboyish girl in Nico's neighborhood,
INTRODUCTIO happens to catch his eye and becomes his friend. Soon, she'll be
N teaching him and his buddies how much fun Pinoy games like
tumbang-preso, patintero, and sipa can be.

 There is still, however, a risk in using a game whose popularity is

limited to a particular niche as the film's main attraction. The
technicalities of the MMORPG, or Massively Multiplayer Online
Role-playing Game, which could be important to the appreciation
of the film's finer points, may be unfamiliar to the target
population. Thankfully, the film avoids getting bogged down in the
details of the gaming industry, focusing instead on the threat of
living vicariously through the near-perfect lives of computer-
created amplified personalities thriving in a world where the laws
may be violated. Rather than serving as a commentary of what may
be a transitory sensation in video gaming, as practically all films
based on video games do, it delves into the relationships between
gamer and game, and why such a bond, hardened by some
symbiosis in which both benefit from one another, thrives. In this
way, RPG Metanoia has the potential to be eternal, despite the fact
that its conceptual base may or may not be obsolete.

 Nico, 11, has a quiet existence except when he goes onto a role-
BODY
playing game and transforms into a hero in his own virtual world,
which is invaded by a terrible virus that also threatens the real
 world.

 Let's look at this movie on its own terms. It has the same aesthetic
as video game animated portions, but it's cleaner and more
polished. Some of you may have also noticed that the sequences
within Metanoia (the online environment) appear to be choppy. It
does, however, serve to create a visual distinction between the real
world and the virtual world. Luis made a great decision there.
Because more than half of the movie takes place online, they were
able to save a significant amount of rendering time. That is, in fact,
why this picture took five years to complete. I'd estimate that
rendering a single frame in their most complex scenes takes more
than twenty-four hours. However, this is dependent on how fast
their computers are.

 Comparisons to Pixar are unavoidable, though possibly unjust. It

was unavoidable since RPG Metanoia, as a computer animated 3D
film, looks and sounds amazingly similar to a Pixar film. If you
were as excited as I was when a Nipa Hut appeared in the aquarium
in Finding Nemo, you'll love the cavalcade of so very Pinoy
objects strewn about RPG: Metanoia, from a mouth-watering plate
of fried daing na bangus with rice to the affectionately depicted
sari-sari store adorned with snacks like Chippy and sachets of the
Milo. There's also a wonderful drive-thru/fly-thru sequence set in
an area that looks exactly like the Spanish-era town of Vigan and
many more beautiful, dazzling digital regions like floating hills and
enchanting woods in the virtual game world. In terms of sound
effects, RPG: Metanoia offers the most complex, rich sound effects
track I've heard in a local film. Nico's virtual meeting with steel-
tentacled animals and entities with light bulbs for heads in the
opening five minutes of the film is not only a sight to behold, but
also a delight for the ears. You'd believe you were seeing a big-
budget Hollywood adventure if you closed your eyes and only
listened to the sound effects and music. Kudos also go to composer
Gerard Salonga and the Filharmonika for the unique, stirring music
that made RPG: Metanoia throb and pulse with dynamic life from
beginning to end, setting a new standard for motion film
soundtrack in our country.
 You may access multiple servers from various nations in the game,
and you can go to those countries by visiting their servers. This
simply means that you may enter their territory and have direct
contact and impact on them, and in this example, colonize them,
without ever leaving your computer. Furthermore, when internet
games first became popular in the country, they quickly grew in
popularity. The film was compared to Ragnarok and RAN Online,
to mention a few, with the exception that it was exclusively
translated to accommodate the Filipino population. In the film, the
notion of Filipino culture and customs is conveyed in a
contemporary manner. The Philippine national costumes, barong
Tagalog and baro't Saya, are worn with a modern fashion statement
by both men and women. In place of the horse pulling the cab, a
Kalesa (horse and carriage) is depicted as mechanized conveyance.
Traditional Filipino weaponry can even be purchased from vending
machines. And the game's avatars are Filipino-inspired, including a
yo-yo-wielding hero who can blow enemies away with a flick of
the wrist, a character with guns and canons from the Spanish Era,
an arnis warrior with incredible strength and acrobatic skills, and
an albularyo, a witch doctor or folk healer who fights with his
magic. Furthermore, there is an avatar, specifically Sargo, which
has been compared to the X-Gambit Men's from Marvel Comics.
He fights with a stick and projects tremendous energy forces via it
or the stuff he clutches.

 In any case, a fantastic movie. For Filipino animation, it's a modest

step forward, but a tremendous leap forward. However, the legacy
of this picture will be evaluated not by how much money it makes
at the box office, but by how many full-length animated films are
produced after it. This film will open minds, with not just one
youngster in the audience thinking, "When I grow up, I want to be
an animator!" It will also open wallets with investors. We have to
think of how much money we can make with the merchandise.
  With all of these positive attributes, why would it be inappropriate
to compare the RPG to Pixar films, particularly in terms of
animation quality? It's all about the statistics. A typical Pixar film
costs $150 million to make and employs hundreds of artists. The
RPG's production budget hasn't been disclosed, but I'm guessing its
creators at Ambient Media, Thaumatrope, and Star Cinema spent
less than $2 million to get it to our screens. That's only a fraction of
a percent of the normal Pixar budget. And, unlike Pixar, which
employs hundreds of animators who work on their films for four
years or more, RPG Metanoia used only a few dozen animators
CONCLUSION
who meticulously created and rendered each frame of the film over
a four-year period. With all of these money, manpower, and
equipment constraints, RPG: Metanoia's animation and 3D effects
won't be as fluid and seamless as those seen in a normal Pixar film
like Up or Toy Story 3.

 Despite these challenges, RPG: Metanoia managed to match the

finest of Pixar in one area. It goes beyond simply a movie, like
Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo, and becomes something more, a
gift that boys and girls of all ages will enjoy for years to come.