Before I begin this review, I’d like to apologise that
I haven’t posted any reviews for the last two weeks. I have had some important
exams on and decided not to write any reviews until they were over. I’ll
release two extra reviews to make up for the two weeks that I missed. Anyway,
let’s get to it.
Liquid Rising is a really niche documentary, to say the
least. Funded by online pay-what-you-want donations, it tells us about the
members of Team Liquid, arguably the biggest non-Korean professional Starcraft
2 team. Their lives in Team Liquid, their tournament careers, and their
personality are all shown in detail here, through a bunch of cut-up interviews
with all the Team Liquid members and other big Starcraft community
personalities. I’m going to say right now that if you are against the prospect
of gaming being considered a sport, you’ll find no enjoyment here. In fact,
unless you already have some level of interest in Starcraft and E-sports, you
probably won’t find anything to like here at all.
A major problem with Liquid Rising is that it doesn’t really
know who it’s appealing to. The interviewees consistently use terminology
exclusive to Starcraft and E-sports without ever explaining a single one of
these words, which would suggest that the audience is the people that are already
invested in the professional Starcraft scene. However, it primarily explains
things that this audience would already know. You learn about the relationships
the players have with each other, and a few interesting and moving stories are
told, but a lot of time is spent going over where each player won or lost and
how good they are altogether. If you’re only a casual Starcraft watcher, or
have just come into the scene, most of the contents of this documentary would
be new to you, and it would be a great way to learn about Team Liquid’s
players. Otherwise you’re spending about 50% of the time waiting for something that
you don’t already know to be said.
When viewed simply as a film, Liquid Rising is extraordinarily
uninteresting. The Director, Michael Krukar, is an amateur photographer and
cinematographer, and it shows. 80% of the time we’re just looking at the
interviewee sitting in a chair. The rest of the scenes are bits of footage from
tournaments and special events and so on (the majority of which wasn’t filmed
by the director, I would assume). This makes it very visually uninteresting. It
would have been cool to have seen more actual Starcraft gameplay too. Seeing
the final push of a tournament-winning game as the interviewees talk about it
would have been fun, for instance (if I recall correctly, they do actually do
this once).
The soundtrack is a selection of indie techno and
electronica (likely just what the director listens to). It fits in well with
the subject matter, as techno is a pretty thematically appropriate genre to
E-sports. It’s nice to see them supporting some independent musicians, too.
If you have no interest in Starcraft or E-sports, there is
no reason at all for you to watch this. If you’re curious, you may have a
little trouble understanding what they’re talking about, but can at least have
fun learning about the personalities involved in the scene. If you’re somebody
who questions the legitimacy of E-sports (unfortunately, there’s a lot of you
out there), have a quick look to see if this changes your mind, but there’s no
reason for you to watch all of it. If you’re looking for an interestingly
structured or well shot documentary, you’re going to be severely disappointed
(just go watch Senna). However, if you are a part of the Starcraft community,
by all means give this a watch. You’ll learn a few new things about some of
your favourite players, and won’t be bored (most of the time).
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