Reviewed by Aaron Haynes

Over the past year or so, Anders Borg has pretty much pioneered a brand-new newbie stereotype: The artistic-minded animation genius who hangs around in those screenshot threads in the Animation Gallery and participates in various tournaments, chain movies, and magazines, but a major solo release from them is conspicuously absent. The developments in the Animation Gallery during that time have made it possible for a director to come out of nowhere, hype their dream movie that looks certain to blow everything out of the water, and then float from small project to small project, creating detailed screenshots for "POST 'EM HERE" threads (that 900+ post one is still going), complex HMC animations for competitions, and otherwise drifting around forever while the project they started out on stays in limbo. Several names easily come to mind here: Jacob Adams, Rubin Ridley, Lizard, and the list just goes on and on. With Retaliation, Anders Borg at last joins the ranks of those who've followed through on their promise to deliver a real film, and while some glaring missteps exist, the experience lives up to the high expectations set by what we've seen from him previously.

Retaliation is one of those "one-word title" movies you keep waiting to see people start to run out of (looking in your direction, Lizard). It's your classic 3DMM revenge story, where the protagonist is horribly wronged and suffers a tragic development in his life at the hands of some lowlife assholes. What do the lowlife assholes want? We never know, and I imagine most of these kinds of movies would be surprised that you should ask. It seems that in the world of 3DMM dramas, evil people are always on standby for whenever someone's life seems to be going well. Retaliation manages to eschew this idea by also not explaining anything about our protagonist characters, breaking the revenge concept down to it's bare elements -- a life that's going well, a conflict of interest, a tragic occurrence, a fury-driven vengeance. The movie is presented with no dialogue and the elements to the story are crisp, powerful images that leave little confusion as to what's going on -- so much so that it's easy to call Retaliation shallow and meaningless. Violent naysayers: you don't have to look hard for added depth because it's all right there where you can see it.

Retaliation's major twist is that it stops where most revenge flicks really begin: during the actual carrying out of the protagonist's righteous vengeance. We are given the context for why this man wants to strike back at his wife's enemies, provided with an appropriate motive and buildup, and presented with one badass final shot that gives us leave to imagine what happens next. The look in the character's handmade eyes, the effect of his long hair, the dangerously quiet music paint in our minds a much more vivid image of what's going to happen next than Anders ever could have put together with animation. It's an interesting take on what's otherwise merely a well-made by-the-numbers drama, and the only reason it stumbles at all is not because of too little information, but too much.

Right after the murder takes place, we see a girl jump and run to the door to peek out. She sees three men leave the man's room. She goes in and finds his wife dead on the floor. She looks out the window and sees them leave the building. She then completely disappears from the story, and the man goes to prison for seven years when the cops arrive to find him at the scene of his wife's murder. First off, it's not logical that the cops would have immediately blamed him for the murder. He was in shock, had no gun, no motive, and was at work or on his way home when the murder took place. But on top of this, why were we shown the girl at all? For the framing to be properly effective, there would have to be no witnesses. The fact that she WAS a witness to the crime and the story forgets she is there indicates not that she was too scared to testify, but that the writing is sloppy. A few shots to show her watching the cops take him away and not saying anything would have fixed this. A few minor changes to the events with the man coming home would have fixed the other. Retaliation feels rushed and almost fatally flawed for two seemingly insignificant things. Suspension of disbelief is thrown right out the window when the plot doesn't make sense.

And yet I still find myself enjoying the movie. Apart from the crippling plot glitches, the direction is incredible, briskly moving us from one event to another and using some top-notch techniques to tell its story (the blue and red police lights were amazing; next time, though, copy and paste the fading pieces to keep them all in one scene, as the subliminal black scene cuts ruined the effect a little). The angles are fantastic, the scenery is breathtaking (Anders is a master with the expansion pack), and the music, although it cuts sharply instead of fading, is well-chosen and beautiful. The production values aren't just pretty and entertaining, they're actually used to tell the story, even if that story isn't completely airtight.

The film suffers as a whole from some sloppy plotting, but as a first outing it's remarkably immersive and well-made. Like Bruised or Yeti & Squidworth before it, Retaliation plays like a prelude to incredible things I know Anders will show us in the future, if he sticks with it and really pushes himself. The vision of this film, even if a bit distracted and muddled, is the mark of an artistic genius, especially at his age. And all artists have trouble focusing and refining their talent at first.

Critical Score: 75/100.
Personal Score: 85/100.