How come I haven’t heard of Futurikon? They deserve the same level of hype currently showered on Pixar. Dragon Hunters the movie (it’s based on a TV series) makes an extremely good movie for kids (and adults), because it’s animation in its purest form. It’s just one step behind Pixar, if you compare storytelling and general animation competency. I spent the first ten minutes alone wondering if they’d used 3D animation, or one of those stop-animation techniques in Corpse Bride. It looked that good.

Directed by Guillaume Ivernel and Arthur Gwak, who also wrote the movie as well as the TV series, Dragon Hunters is unforgettable as a film because one thing jumps out at you: it takes place in a futuristic but medieval world of ruins and floating debris/land masses. There isn’t anything that isn’t constantly moving or slowly passing by. It looks like space, but it isn’t; things defy gravity but not really. The broken up masses of earth seem to have their own pull of gravity, so even though they are floating around, characters have no problem walking on them upright. This constant movement has a lightheadedness about it, inducing a state of awe and foolish bewilderment, and Gwak milks it all and gives it a brand of innocence with – I kid you not – floating bunnies and sheep. In fact, it reminds me a little of marshmallows for some really weird, unexplained reason.

But what’s the fun watching a film that doesn’t feature anything other than floating objects? Gwak balances this innocence with an impending doom of the world, and spends three quarters of the film building up a threat that is the world gobbler. This isn’t some evil planet leeching onto another’s life source like in the Fantastic 4 movie – this gobbler is alive, breathing, currently in a legendary periodic sleep, and huge. And I mean bigger-than-Godzilla, taking-up-60-of-the-65-feet-screen huge. See, the main characters of the story are – you guessed it – dragon hunters, and their task is to put this menace to sleep forever. The problem is, they’re swindlers pretending to be dragon hunters, and the journey to the gobbler’s lair is a swindling attempt gone wrong. Uh oh.

Dragon Hunters is a solid adventure with delightful humour thrown in for good measure. Though the film is as simple as having characters go from point A to point B in search of the monster of monsters, the journey makes for a very enjoyable and sometimes threatening ride. If you can’t remember the last time you were told a good story, well, this is your opportunity.

(First published at InCinemas)