Tim O'neill's Reviews > City of Illusion

My impression was basically the same as the first. The world was richly imagined and beautifully designed, and I wasn’t too surprised considering all her experiënce designing worlds for Disney. The story, insofar as it connected to the world, e.g. the different cities’ megantics and their secrets, was interesting, but nothing was as intriguing in this volume as the way the characters solved the riddles in City of Secrets. I never felt much attachment to the characters or connected with their motivations—I had been hoping that with the world-building out of the way, the focus might move more to the characters this time around, but I didn’t observe that. I think in animation, one could get caught up in the lumbering robots and spinning gears and not worry about that too much, but in static form, I needed a more well rounded experiënce.

All that said, it wasn’t particularly designed for a middle-aged man, and my 8yo son loved it. Sure, he’s down for anything with giänt mechs, but that dœsn’t mean that the author didn’t exploit a certain segment of sociëty’s need for giänt “robot” fights—yes, even if they’re not technically robots.

And I would definitely watch the movie—maybe Ghibli, altho this one has a villain, which isn’t really their speed. And all the turning gears and inventions make me think Aardman, but pretty much all the comedy would have to be added. What about Henry Selick? Or whatever part of Dreamworks made How to Train Your Dragon but wasn’t involved with Shrek? Or, you know, Ying’s old corporate overlords at Disney/Pixar would be fine, I suppose.