"PostHuman" is a locally produced animated short film. In its five-minute runtime, it brings to mind Aeon Flux* and Akira. These are good influences for a movie to claim, and "PostHuman" makes the most of them. It's getting hard to discern a difference between animation and live-action, anymore (the best part of The Avengers was the computer-animated Hulk, which was based on a motion-capture performance by Mark Ruffalo, so how much of that credit should go to animators?) but a good rule of thumb is that animation should do things that live-action simply can't do. "PostHuman" is a work that, I think, would only work in animation, and it revels in the medium, with extreme violence, impossible camera angles, and the kind of buoyant female nudity that you can only find in adult animation.

It's just a segment of a larger story, a collection of action movie tropes arranged in a pleasing order for maximum audience stimulation, but "PostHuman" does make a very good case for someone to lay down the cash and turn the film into a feature-length extravaganza. The voice acting is the weakest link—it reeks of the kind of airy detachment that comes from a lack of conviction—but your ears aren't the center of attention here and neither is your brain; this thing is a feast for your eyes.

Find a NSFW trailer right here. "PostHuman" screens as part of a shortsfest package tomorrow night at SIFF Cinema at the Uptown. Find our excellent-if-I-do-say-so-myself SIFF guide online right here.

* By "Aeon Flux," I mean the very good cartoon that started on MTV's Liquid Television, but not the crappy-but-occasionally beautiful movie starring Charlize Theron.