Great show, terrible movie: just about the worst movie I have ever seen, in fact. The frequent slow-mos and double/triple/multiple takes break up the flow of the movie: The most horrid example of this being the scene where the rust bucket blows up: Any weight that event had was destroyed by the multi-take, which ironically is an effect used to heighten the thrill of an event.
Furthermore, the movie tried too hard to imitate the show, keeping in the ridiculously long pre-fight dialog(as seen in the first scene), transformations disconnected from the setting(which is something used to reduce production costs of a series overall anyways, due to the frequency of the event... this reason does not apply here), skipping events that deal with allies(the plumbers getting locked up)/belittling alternative heroes(the police never putting up a fight) in favor of rushing to the main character's role(Something that is done in a cartoon series due to the fact that each episode usually has to be a complete story in and of itself, and due to time constraints must focus on the main character, whom the show is about, to further the plot). All of these things are passable in an animated show, either due to restraints or because the medium allows for it to be a neutral or positive attribute, but do not have any place in a live action film, even one made for TV and based on an animated series.
Then there is the issue of foreshadowing, or the lack there-of. Nearly every revelation in the movie seemed to be something pulled out of the writer's ass as he went along, not something that was being led up to, or heaven forbid something that makes sense and explains other aspects of the movie.
Special effects: they fucking suck. Every laser effect, energy ball, crystal spike, ball of fire, every last one of those things were computer animation, and every last piece of it seemed horribly disconnected from what was actually happening in the scene. Why not use a real laser(as in a laser pointer) for Max's wrench, and perform a practical burn effect on the photo it hit? Why not coordinate the acting and special effect generation to make CG projectiles seem more like they are really the cause of what happens in the scene? Why not display some fucking recoil for god's sake!? The CG effects seemed tacked on, like a last minute addition by the editing department(which needs to be burned to the ground, BTW), not like an integral part of the film, which they are.
Humor needs work. There are a few good jokes, but they are few and far in between, and seem to be more the work of the actors than the writers(Max looking for the right garage remote to open the gate at the chem lab gave me a good chuckle). The rest of the humor just seemed retarded and forced.
The director and writers of Ben Ten: Race Against Time treated this as though it were a just another episode, and a bad one at that. Precise control cannot be exercised when producing a live action film, and you need to work with what the actors, and the unexpected dish out to create a movie. At least in this instance, Cartoon Network has shown that they do not know this, and cared too little to improve when faced with bad results. I watched most of the movie, but stopped watching 10 minutes before the end; I have a great tolerance for temporary incompetence, and I tend to hold out in hopes of finding diamond in the rough. Such hope was not warranted, here.
-Prime 2.0
