Tokyo OnlyPic

C-

Directed by Riichiro Mashima

Disappointing in every way imaginable, Riichiro Mashima's "Tokyo OnlyPic" is a mishmash of animation and live action sporting spoofs that completely fails to capitalize on the richness of the material it intends to skewer, serving rather as a perfect example of why successful shorts often shouldn't be expanded into full length films.

The premise of "Tokyo OnlyPic" is to present a series of wacky sports events taking place at an alternative global summer games, the "Tokyo OnlyPics. The events range from human bowling game called "Humanism" to a game called "Brancer," where participants on a swing compete to see how far they can catapult their shoes off their feet.There's not much more to explain about the plot than that, so I won't force myself to extend the sypnosis any further.

I didn't expect to be blown away by "Tokyo OnlyPic," based mostly on my prior knowledge of its rather gimmicky premise, but I did at least expect to be amused by it. Unfortunately, this was not to be as "Tokyo OnlyPic" was for the most part a snoozer. A few segments, notably the OnlyPic opening ceremonies, Bill Plympton's "Luv Race", and the "1000 Character SMS Race," I found to be truly funny but the rest of the "Tokyo OnlyPic" events, however, varied from mildly amusing to just plain stupid. At 117 minutes, the film is far too long for what is essentially a one trick pony and the humor, although sometime effective, mostly elicited yawns rather than laughs from the usually enthusiastic Fantasia crowd. The badness of "Tokyo OnlyPic" really boils down to the fact that you can't just toss a bunch a loosely related and mediocre vignettes onto the screen and expect it to form a cohesive or even acceptable whole to come out. I highly doubt "Tokyo Oylimpic" will ever be widely available in North America but if it ever is, do yourself a favor and skip it.