It is historic, no question. Literally created for the sole purpose of showing that actors could be synthetically created from polygon building computer animation rather than CGI "costuming" as done in things like TRON. This was the first step to fully integrated CGI characters like those seen in THE PHANTOM MENACE and FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN.

But, aside from its historic significance, there is truly nothing much here to see. It's a technology display, nothing more.

Major blind spot for years. Finally saw it and can say, without question, the best movie of 1951. Fucking great.

If I was going on the visual beauty and the thematic context of creation, it would get 5 stars.

If I was going with characters doing laughably stupid things - REPEATEDLY - for clearly no other reason than obvious setups for horror, I would give it 1 star.

So I'll meet it in the middle and give it 3 stars but, jfc, does this movie waste practically all of its characters.

There are a lot of people who don't particularly like Ruby Keeler and I can certainly see why. In the acting department, she's pretty bad. As a singer, thin and nasally. And as a dancer, well, she certainly knew how to dance, tap dancing especially, but she was pretty graceless at it.

And yet...

I find her cinematic ineptitude endearing in a sweet way. For whatever reason, I always like seeing her in a movie. Like, you see her performing in this next to Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers and you think, "Oh my god, how adorable, she's trying to keep up." That kind of thing.