As mandated by some unjustly respected code of anime storytelling, Origin explores a world hundreds of years after civilization fell, but the cataclysm wasn’t wrought by nuclear war, disease, aliens, or mole people. No, the human race was nearly destroyed by plants. Giant dragon-shaped plants that hatched on the moon, to be precise. Some 300 years later, the human race lives in uneasy coexistence with the dangerous forests that sprung up all over the planet. The unimaginatively named Neutral City lies on the border between the forest and mankind’s meager attempt at rebuilding civilization, and it’s here that an energetic teenager named Agito stumbles across something strange in a warren of ruined skyscrapers.

Origin is an ecological action flick shamelessly patterned after Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä and Castle in the Sky, so it’s no surprise that Agito’s discovery is a Mysterious Girl. Her name is Toola, and she’s sealed inside a huge cryogenic chamber (alongside the decayed corpses of less fortunate sleepers). Upon awakening, she’s quickly accepted by Agito’s friends and family, but the forest’s silent, half-human priests and public-relations nymphs issue dire warnings about Toola. The leaders of Neutral City don’t take any action, because they’re neutral. They live free or don’t.

Now Origin needs some villains, and since this is a movie about man’s inhumanity toward nature, those villains are the Ragna military, a steam-tech army from a city where everything is industrialized and the air stinks and mothers don’t kiss their children goodnight or whatever. Neutral City is soon visited by a contingent of Ragnan forces led by Shunack, a silver-haired officer who also awoke from a cryogenic slumber. He needs Toola to help him revive Istok, a device that Toola’s scientist father crafted before the big ol’ plant apocalypse. Shunack promises that Istok will let humans reclaim their world, but, as viewers who’ve seen more than a dozen movies in our lifetimes, we know he's not telling the whole truth.

Boring girl of mystery falls for unremarkable action-hero boy in ANIME STORY SHOCKER!

Origin invites all sorts of comparisons to the now-forgotten Green Legend Ran. Both movies are obvious eco-fantasy stories that tiresomely imitate Studio Ghibli. Both movies have silver-haired characters with special powers, though in Origin’s case the silver hair is found on those granted superhuman abilities by the forest. And both movies are dull to the core. Origin might be worse about it, because there’s absolutely nothing to surprise viewers. Will Toola be swept up in Shunack’s schemes and change her mind when it’s almost too late? Will Agito use the powers of the forest to turn into an anime superhero and save Toola? Will Shunack have a semi-tragic secret and be redeemed in the end? The answers are all yes, and not in remotely interesting ways.

There’s something offensive about Origin’s blandness. It seems to know just how horribly cliché-stricken it is, and it doesn’t even bother trying. Just about every supporting character, from Agito’s upbeat village-girl admirer to Shunack’s suspecting military sidekick, is presented as only a halfhearted stereotype. The film even attempts some post-apocalyptic version of Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke, setting up Ragna against the forest’s dragon-plants. But then it decides on an even more generic climax that sees the Ragnan army and Neutral City menaced by Shunack’s reawakened Ishtok machine. The only intriguing idea lies in how creepy the forest actually is: it’s personified by bizarre, vegetable-elf girls, and the humans who use the forest’s powers run the risk of turning into immobile tree-people. Origin doesn’t bother exploring this, though. The forest is mostly good (but scary!), the big mean factory-army civilization is mostly bad (but manipulated!), and this movie isn’t going anywhere new or entertaining.

Gonzo threw a bunch of money into their first theatrical release, so Origin has some particularly gorgeous scenery in the crushed cityscapes of Agito’s home village. Director Keiichi Sugiyama prefers tense action to storylines, and some early scenes are stunning: Toola and Agito escape a flood, Agito and his friend bungee-dive into a ruined skyscraper, and Toola gingerly steps across the ladder to visit Agito’s half-plant father.

Yes, it wouldn't be a Gonzo anime without some awkward rendering.

Yet the film forgets about a lot of its own world. The glimpses we have of the forest are mundane, and the potenially interesting Ragnan capital of Tria City is shown only in a few scenes. Origin’s sharp looks also degrade as Gonzo trots out mediocre CG walking tanks and other war machines, and the marriage of ugly rendered robots and traditional animation has already aged poorly. The characters, designed by Boogiepop Phantom’s Kouji Ogata, are inconsistently animated. At best, they could pass for Ghibli-movie extras.

Most of the Japanese voice cast gets through Origin well enough, and FUNimation’s dub isn’t bad. Carrie Savage does her best with Toola’s textbook heroine and Chris Patton isn’t forced into too many embarrassing heroic screams. They’ve been in better productions, of course, and the same goes for the rest of the dub crew. The original DVD release of Origin is relatively spare, but later versions and the Blu-Ray release add a making-of feature and other extras, most of which are just as boring as the film itself.

Origin: Spirits of the Past doesn’t self-destruct as fabulously as most of Gonzo’s other works, and yet it’s still a drab little hack-job that never does anything beyond occasionally looking good. Considering how often anime reuses Studio Ghibli’s ideas, there’s no excuse for Origin doing it so artlessly. Gonzo might have a good feature film somewhere in its depths, but this isn’t it.