[LoweGear]

So I know that this is only the first of three planned movies for Hathaway's Flash, but honestly as far as story this is probably the weakest Gundam movie I've ever seen, even below Narrative. It can pretty much be summed up as a 90 minute Prologue, the kind of stuff you normally see done in the first 30 minutes of a movie. I mean sure, I give props to the movie for being so lavishly detailed, very atmospheric at times which definitely sells the world these characters move in, but it doesn't hide the fact that a lot of the things the movie chooses to focus on could've been compressed or cut out entirely. Basically, I would sum up the movie as "inefficient", with too much padding, and the story that's there is just mostly name drops and mysterious-acting vague intentions that for the most part don't make sense even with knowledge of prior Universal Century series.

Since Char's Counterattack I've never really seen Hathaway as a very sympathetic character, and unfortunately the movie does nothing to change that. Frankly, none of the characters really made me sympathize with them, with the only one being close to me caring for was Kenneth Sleg, who at least has his act together and is easy enough to understand.

As far as the mech battles there are actually only two of them, with the main standout of the movie being the Raid on Davao. They definitely put a lot of effort that entire sequence, with the ground-level view of the action and the darkness interspersed by lighting making it feel like you're watching a modern kaiju disaster movie, and it's probably the most visceral portrayal of what a mobile suit battle looks like from a person's perspective from the ground. On the other hand, the ocean battle between the Xi and the Penelope really did not impress much, namely because most of the battle takes place at night with an attempt at realistic lighting over the ocean. The result is that it's really hard to actually appreciate most of the details due to the darkness, with the only good part being their very first saber clash, when you finally see both Gundams in their glory lit up by their beam sabers. I do give props to how they portrayed the Penelope though, which actually had this alien-like quality to it especially with the glow and distinct noise of its Minovsky Flight System. Just kinda sad though that it's difficult to appreciate the mecha in this show when most of the time you can't even see them properly.

Animation-wise, this is imho the best-looking Gundam movie so far, with a LOT of effort put into environmental detail and character animation. The mobile suit battles are animated well too and make good use of 3D CGI with some scenes even seamlessly integrating both 2D and 3D animation, but sadly the setting of the combat sequences as mentioned does kinda dull the mecha combat.

So overall, as a standalone movie, I rather rank it quite low among the various original Gundam movies in existence, because it's essentially a movie that'll require the sequels to effectively give meaning to its rather odd position as a very long and extended prologue, unlike the other Gundam movies that were able to stand on their own two feet as full-length theatrical features.

Also, Jollibee.