Kaena: The Prophecy

PG-13

Released Jun 4, 2003

1h 25m

Fantasy

Adventure

Animation

List

7%

30 Reviews

Tomatometer

43%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

A village faces destruction when a gigantic plant that reaches to the sky starts dying. Compelled by a mysterious force, Kaena (Kirsten Dunst), a rebellious teenager, defies the elders and travels up the giant plant to find out why it is dying.

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Critics Consensus

Though Kaena: The Prophecy is visually inventive, its story is incoherent, derivative, and dull.

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Max H

Not very good. I really liked the concept and world building, which would've worked for a video game rather than a movie. But with the execution as is, it falls incredibly flat. The plot goes nowhere, the characters aren't very interesting, nothing exciting really happens, and the climax is disappointingly forced and the ending was flat. The animation looked like that of a PS1 cutscene (for an animation project made on a $25 million budget, I'd expect more). Some of the creature designs were cool looking though the human characters looked pretty hideous. The voice acting is pretty decent. Overall I found this to be a mediocre animated film. 4/10

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/06/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Clearly a dated CGI animation I can live with that. But the story is a bit all over the place.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/02/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Kind of a lifeless, dull anime with an overly convoluted plot.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

harry r

The first thing I would say is that you should NEVER go by what the critics say about a film. The only good critics of the moves were Siskel and Ebert and when Siskel died Ebert became more of a typical reviewer. Although, they supposedly did not talk often before reviewing a movie, I think they had some good influence over each other because you could count on their reviews being fairly if not very accurate. From what little reviews I could find it is obvious that none of the critics understood this movie and compared it to movies that were NOT really similar. What do you expect from small minded critics. Movie did not do well because it is a very dark movie. You can read up on all the negative criticism in the other post, of which I agree with some of them, so I will concentrate on the good. The main character has a dream that drives her through the story. She overcomes obstacles to find what the dream means which she finds is not exactly what she had hoped for. Still, she continues because her people depend on her whether they know it or not. It takes a very realistic approach to how reality might react to someone like this. It is not the best story line, nor does it follow through with the most enticing events to the end. But it is still worth watching once. I think it will grow on you as it did me.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Science-fiction animation with impressive visuals superimposed on a videogame-grade storyline and many unnecessary, "accidental" sexy poses.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Charming little sci-fi fantasy film about a girl who leads her people to a new world.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

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Chris Delaporte

Director

Pascal Pinon

Director

Kirsten Dunst

Kaena

Richard Harris

Opaz

Anjelica Huston

Queen of the Selenites

Keith David

Voxem

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CANNES: "Da Vinci Code" Director and Cast Speak

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John McMurtrie

San Francisco Chronicle

The monsters are derivative, the attempts at humor are mostly feeble and the story, in the end, lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.

Rated: 1/4

Aug 6, 2004

Full Review

Janice Page

Boston Globe

Derivative and aimless filmmaking by directors and 'writers' who know only how to craft eye candy.

Rated: 1/4

Aug 1, 2004

Full Review

Angela Shah

Dallas Morning News

Simplistic writing and one-dimensional characters do in this animation film.

Rated: C

Jul 15, 2004

Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

A pretty terrible movie with a nonsensical plot...

Apr 29, 2009

Full Review

James O'Ehley

Sci-Fi Movie Page

Has a more genuine SF premise behind it than most of today's so-called sci-fi offerings . . .

Dec 7, 2004

Full Review

Jules Brenner

Filmcritic.com

send your 15 year old to see it first and then prepare you for it

Rated: 2/5

Sep 22, 2004

Full Review

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Synopsis

A village faces destruction when a gigantic plant that reaches to the sky starts dying. Compelled by a mysterious force, Kaena (Kirsten Dunst), a rebellious teenager, defies the elders and travels up the giant plant to find out why it is dying.

Director: Chris Delaporte, Pascal Pinon
Screenwriter: Chris Delaporte, Tarik Hamdine
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Production Co: Chaman Productions, Studio Canal
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Animation
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 4, 2003, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2012
Box Office (Gross USA): $7.7K
Runtime: 1h 25m

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