Gadget Trips: Mindscapes – 1995 – Japan
Gadget Trips: Mindscapes takes place in a desolate industrial city full of fancifully antiquated sci-fi technology. In a dreary hotel, people are subjected to a machine called the Sensorama which emits a hallucinatory array of kaleidoscopic lights and patterns. Ultimately, these people (and you, the viewer) go catatonic after 79 minutes of hypnotic imagery.
Gadget Trips is related to the video game Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure (1993). Since the film is a plotless exercise in psychedelia, the connection is mostly irrelevant. Essentially, Gadget Trips is a CGI animated feature length lava lamp. Unfortunately, its slow pacing and repetitive imagery are more agitating than mesmerizing. Archaic computer graphics of trains, sci-fi gizmos, non-descript people, gnarly trees, flowing liquid, and flashing lights are repeated exhaustively to a dense droning soundtrack. The effect is oppressive, which might be intentional considering Gadget Trips’ bleak atmosphere.
Rating: 2/10 Shrunken Heads. Can you survive the torturous boredom of Sensorama?
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