Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Four talented alien musicians are kidnapped by a record producer who disguises them as humans. Shep, a space pilot in love with bass player Stella, follows them to Earth. Reprogrammed to forget their real identities and renamed The Crescendolls, the group quickly becomes a huge success playing soulless corporate pop. At a concert, Shep manages to free all the musicians except Stella, and the band sets out to rediscover who they really are — and to rescue Stella.
Interstella 5555 is a genuinely singular artifact: a feature-length anime film with no dialogue, functioning as a continuous visual companion to Daft Punk's Discovery album. Its conception — anime legends Leiji Matsumoto illustrating an entire album as a coherent narrative — is one-of-a-kind and earns a top Novelty score. The plot is a serviceable but thin sci-fi rescue fable, elevated mainly by its musicality rather than narrative complexity. Acting is essentially non-applicable (no spoken performances), replaced by pantomimed animation that is expressive but uneven. The cinematography (in the anime sense) has lovely retro Matsumoto character design and some striking color work, though the animation quality is inconsistent. The ending delivers emotional satisfaction with a bittersweet sacrifice and a hopeful cosmic resolution that fits the album's arc well.