Japanese visual artist’s turgid stab at filmmaking looks lousy, too

In the post-Pokemon era in which we all reside, one is accustomed to battles between bizarre mutant cartoon characters.

So there isn’t much surprising about the creatures that pop out of the backpacks of the grade-school students in “Jellyfish Eyes”; the children themselves take it mostly as a matter of course that, by virtue of being Japanese in the 21st century, they will at some point be visited by tiny creatures with superpowers. The movie is not a cartoon but live action with digital beasties, and it looks so bad you wish it were all animated.

The story is about a boy, Masashi (Takuto Sueoka), who is befriended by a pale jellyfish-like thing just large enough to fit into a bookbag. At first Masashi assumes this is a singular phenomenon, but then his classmates reveal that not only do they have their own pets, they control them with their smartphones.

There’s more: All of this is being watched over by a cadre of teen scientist-wizards working for a large agency. They seek to harness the negative energy of adolescents, which is apparently the most powerful energy source in the world. It is important that the creatures fight each other for this energy to be released.

“Jellyfish Eyes” is the brainchild of one of the world’s most profitable visual artists, Takashi Murakami, the guru of the “Superflat” theory of Japanese pop art (along with his exhibition work, he has designed for Louis Vuitton and Kanye West). So it rates more than a passing glance, and you can certainly see ideas straining to make themselves known beneath the bubblegum surface.

As a director, Murakami plays around with the disaster imagery that has run through Japanese film since “Godzilla” first soaked up nuclear energy (Masashi’s father died in the Fukushima tsunami, a flashback sequence that delivers some isolated chills), and there’s a constant critique of the kind of commercial movie that “Jellyfish Eyes” seems to embody.

That might have something to do with why this film flopped in Japan in 2013, as audiences have a tendency to get turned off by movies critical of their own existence.

Whatever theories Murakami has perfected in his visual art, he’s miscalculated in his feature-filmmaking dabble. The drabness of the video image wouldn’t pass muster in public-access TV, and there’s no way a pro would let something like this run on for 103 minutes. Pikachu was never so long-winded.

“Jellyfish Eyes”(2 stars)

One of the world’s most profitable visual artists, Takashi Murakami, fashions this odd blend of live action and computer-generated creatures, as a schoolboy discovers that all the kids have weird beasties as friends. The movie looks bad and drags on, even as Murakami tries to make some high-minded points. In Japanese, with English subtitles.

Rating: Not rated; probably PG for subject matter

Showing: Grand Illusion