"Samurai Jack" is a very unusual cartoon. It has a unique style influenced by American animation, Japanese anime, and Kung Fu movies. If you’ve never seen it you’ll have a tough time getting an accurate idea of what it’s really like, but I’ll describe it as best I can. First, you should know that the show had to grow on me. I watched it because of the big deal some of my friends made and wasn’t very impressed. I thought maybe I had just caught a poor episode so I gave it another chance and it was OK. Eventually I became fond of it and even reached the point of wanting to own the series on TVD.

 

The animation uses a lot of sharp angles. It’s very smooth but uses a lot of different editing techniques you would expect from the influences I’ve already named: partial animation in an otherwise static frame, multiple frames showing simultaneous action or a single action repeated, various frame speeds, some disproportionate (almost impressionistic) characterizations, and alternation between detailed backgrounds and simplistic or stylized ones.

 

The sound design will probably be what makes or breaks this show for many viewers. There is often very little dialogue, so for much of a half hour episode you’ll hear only music and sound effects. The episodes are not always action packed, so though you sometimes get the energetic music there are sometimes long segments that are quiet or soft. Once I got used to that I found it very serene and relaxing (it’s great for watching in bed because it puts me to sleep if I let it), but I can see how some viewers would just get bored.

 

The characters are sometimes silly which remains its biggest downfall for me. The talking dogs in the pilot, for example, are a little too goofy, and some of the characters speaking unintelligibly gets to be annoying. I guess it’s a matter of trying to keep the show from being too grim (the series could easily become that) by throwing in some silliness. While it keeps some of the individual episodes from being as good as they could be, it doesn’t spoil the whole series.

 

Despite some of the other poor characters, Jack is the fuel that keeps the show moving. He’s the meek, thoughtful, compassionate hero of epic poems. Though his abilities are sometimes a little too unbelievable, he doesn’t come through the tough battles unscathed. His perseverance in the face of being battered and bruised is what makes him admirable.

 

Now that you know something about what the show’s style is, let me tell you a little about the story. Aku is a shape-shifting magician. He hungers for power and has aspirations to rule the world. He is so powerful that only a magic sword forged by monks can stop him. Jack’s father stopped him the first time imprisoning him in the wasteland his destruction created.

 

When Aku escapes his imprisonment Jack's mother sends Jack to lands around the globe, training so that he will be able to take up the magic sword, hidden all this time in a monastery, and stop the villain. Just as Jack proves that he can best Aku, the evil wizard casts a spell that flings the Samurai into the distant future.

 

In this new time Aku has had time to regain his strength, and since no one else has had the power to oppose him he has even been able to reach out into the galaxy to rule other worlds. Planet Earth is now full of all sorts of strange creatures. Jack must find a way to return to his own time to stop Aku’s reign before it can begin.

 

Jack observes Aku’s tyranny in his travels and cannot ignore the suffering he sees despite his urgency to return which leads him into many smaller adventures.

 

The movie is comprised of the first three episodes of the series. It reveals Jack's past, the conflicts with Aku, and the set-up of the predicament of Jack being placed out of his own time. It's enough to give a new viewer a taste of the series so that you can determine if the style and story are something you can get into.