Reviewed by Ben Lee

This review contains major spoilers.

"Retaliation". Now that sounds like an interesting title. It's rather open-ended and could mean anything. What I didn't expect was the movie to end in such a sudden note, before the "retaliation" happened. And I certainly didn't expect it to be completely open-ended! What the hell?! Seriously, nearly everything here, right in this movie, does not make sense. Yes, I am slightly exaggerating my point here, but there are too many holes in the story! I feel so disappointed, especially since, judging from the animations, I know that Anders Borg could do so much better. If you're the director or a fan of the movie, I'd advise you not to read the next three paragraphs as it contains some rather harsh critisisms...

The first thirty seconds were OK. So the guy leaves work. And then a trio enters presumably his house and kills his partner. That's the first plot-hole. Why? I thought this would be answered later on in the movie, but we still don't know by the end of it! Are we suppose to use our imaginations or what? Let's try that... So the killers want to kill his partner because...the guy owed some money? Or perhaps he killed a friend of the killers? Or maybe because he kidnapped his dog! Or pet unicorn! Yes, I am getting incredibly silly here, but ugh, you can see that it does not work. Leaving it unanswered is far too open-ended and there are millions of possibilities why the killers choose to kill THAT particular woman, and not some other random person on the street.

Now, after the killers have done their job, they escape. We then see a girl looking out from the window. With a little flashback, we definitely see that she saw the murderers. She is a witness. Woo, now the killers can be brought to justice? Oh, but wait! The guy comes home (I liked the touch that he saw the door was open) and sees his partner dead. And then, guess what, he gets locked up in jail! Huh?! How?! We have one WITNESS who saw the REAL killers, the guy has NO weapon in possession and there does not seem to be ANY reason why the guy would kill someone he presumably loves. Oh, are we suppose to use our imaginations again to fill the huge hole? Fine. So somehow he was framed. Well, he could have SOMEHOW confessed? Well, I know this is a long shot, but maybe, just MAYBE, everyone has been brainwashed by aliens on Mars to think that the guy was the killer all along! I know I am getting ridiculous, but I'm trying to make my point.

And after all that mayhem, seven years later, he's out of prison. His hair has grown long (another nice touch there) and he has this evil look on him, wanting revenge. Then the credits come up. It's the end of the movie and many questions haven't been answered and the title, "Retaliation", hasn't come into play yet. We don't see any "retaliation". The only retaliation we see is the title. Ohh, I get it, we use our imagination again? Perhaps the [insert millions of variations on how the man could get revenge here]... No, it doesn't work. The movie ends in a slight cliffhanger, sure, but with so many plot-holes unanswered, I can't make any sense out of it, sorry.

In the four paragraphs above, I have slagged the story off completely. But, believe it or not, I did see some good things in it. If you want to spend five minutes watching some brilliant visuals 3DMM can do, you should have a look here. The obvious point which everyone seems to make is the animations. They are wonderful, definitely a plus in a drama. The camera angles are great too, capturing some of the suspense, along with some decent enough selected music. And then there are a couple of neat touches expected in these type of movies. I've mentioned a couple as I went through the story. But dramas are meant to be solid in plot. This wasn't. This was too open-ended with countless variations of what could have happened. And that is a bad thing.

Score: 50/100