The Handmade Character has been hyped quite a bit, that's for sure. The danger in that, as everyone knows, is it can wreck a movie. It comes pretty close, but it seems Ben has skirted most of it. This is the first Ben Rice flick I've seen. Sorry Ben, haven't quite been able to finish Deputy. I'm working on it, but... In the meantime, this should help you out. The Handmade Character is a solid effort by Ben, at least as far as visuals go. HMC suffers from the lack of a solid plot and uneven emotions, while still being visually compelling. If there is one, I didn't get it. I'd like to think, though, that it was because there wasn't much of a solid plot to begin with. HMC is based on the sudden appearance of an HMC in the pre-made character world. For some reason, he is a god. Maybe because he can change, maybe because he's different, but whatever it is, it just so happens that he becomes... famous? So the HMC goes out into the world and is asked to do all sorts of things and is stared at, and stuff. Then he gets fed up with it and decides to go home. I missed what was wrong with the other world, and why everyone wanted him there in the first place. This rendered the closing monologue pointless and out of nowhere. Something I'd like to see in Ben's future is a well fleshed out script and plot. I'd like to see what he does with it. Ben's getting better here, from what I've seen of his last efforts. HMC doesn't have too many panning scenes in comparison with still shots. The action all happens in still shots. Ben does show a lot of promise with the cinematic effects he uses. Many panned scenes are well executed, and done properly. Some were done by people other than Ben, but they didn't completely stick out. The great reviews have been from people putting so much emphasis on visuals and improvement. I, as you can tell, do not focus on visuals nearly as much as others, but they still are a great thing to have. It's the visuals on this movie that are the star of the show. Sure, the HMC itself is not as smoothly composed as it might have been, and his animations don't stand up to character animators like Goro (ahh! Haven't reviewed one of Goro's yet!), but he shows remarkable progress and promise. Ben has taken into his young hands an ambitious project of making a movie with a HMC star, and come out mostly scathe free. To be fair, some of the scenery was created by other directors, but Ben has managed to make it so it's hard to tell the difference, so I applaud him. The dialogue was, in a word, uneven. There were some quiet parts, some loud parts, but far less popping than Deputy. Ben's use of voice actors was good, though there probably could have been some better acting from some of them. I'm not going to name them, because I didn't keep score. The music had me scratching my head a bit. It seemed a bit overblown for the plot that was in place. Lord of the Rings definitely didn't fit in. I think Ben could have done with some more subtle, appropriate music to back up the lacklustre plot. The Hand Made Character is a great improvement from Ben Rice's previous efforts. He shows great potential, and I'm looking forward to seeing him mature. HMC is not without some big faults, especially in the story-aspect. This movie could have been much better, but I look forward to what's to come. Review by Andrew Salter.