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Black Widow (2021)
C'mon People This is a good flick!
I had a great time. Good script. Good Acting. Good Direction. What do you expect?
Metoroporisu (2001)
Great Art, Horrible voice acting, Just doesn't make sense.
Great art. The city is beautiful. Every shot is a prime example for great city rendering.
That's it, I have said all the good things about this movie.
Now, the rant: I am a big anime fan. But these days so many crap are out there that makes me value Miyazaki movie so much. At least he tell a good story. I want to like this movie. I really really hope it will be good. But at the end I was let down once again.
The director, Rintaro, have no sense of story telling. Almost every scene ended abruptly without any elaboration of what the purpose is. The fade in/out is really being abused here.
He could have use screen time to elaborate on the motives and background of various characters. Instead the film chose to explore everything in the world just a bit, then moved on to other areas. You think the story sucks? How about another far shot of some beautiful building in the mecha-city? About halfway through the movie suddenly everybody have a name. The robot is Fifi and Tima. Duh? Where that come from? Nothing make sense in this story. Who are the protagonists? Why do the police department send a COP to assist them in the story? Why does the old man reporter know so much about kung fu and computer engineering? What does the Dude Red want from the girl? Why make the girl robot at all? Who is Rocky? Why do Rocky hate robot? Did the robot rise up in rebellion at the end or not? The movie provide no answer to any of these questions. There are a lot of great ideas. I just wish the filmmaker will string them together into a story, instead of doing all the exposition in one stage where all the main character happen to stumble all into it. There you go, another samurai style scene with everyone laid down heroic dialogs without conveying any feeling in it.
Oh one last gripe: THe voice acting of Keiichi and the girl is just atrocious. I have no problem believing they are some relative of the producers who want to take a dip in the voice acting business.
Otomo is a great manga artist, but his script sufferers from a lack of logic and lousy pacing. You want an example of bad scene? How about the angry mob waiting to confront 1 robot cop QUIETLY? They actually waited several minutes for the leader to explain to Mr.Robocop why they are rebelling before going nuts. Also one must remember NOT to put security guard outside your captured robot girl's room, so that she can escape with the made in a jiffy.
Stop it Katsuhiro. Please draw more manga and let other more talented people write for anime movies.
Also what's up with the obsession for the wiping out city Gozilla style? Just when i was wondering if this will be yet another anime that ends with the totally annihilation of Mega Tokyo, there it happen again. I guess Otomo runs out of ideas to how to bring it on that he actually put inside the huge building a SELF DESTRUCT button for the main villain to access.
Brilliant.
Kamen Raidâ: The First (2005)
Yet another horrible "update" of the classic
Continuing Japaense movie industry's recent exploit of classic tokusatsu (casshar, Tetsujin 28), here comes the (yet another) remake of the Kamen rider series.
On the plus side, the cinematography is wonderful. there are quite a few brilliant ideas: Shocker is like a modern Costa Nostra, forcing converts into living a double life. A stable of potentials are kept in a secret hospital for later material. The 2 riders both performs questionable actions as criminals. The creepy agent from Shocker. The taking off of the mask. These are all ideas that could have made up a great script. But sadly the scrip-writer failed to deliver on this one.
This could be a great movie, if only the script didn't spent half of the running time on predictable romances by paper cutout characters and badly written cliché' ridden rumination about life,
On the other hand this movie offers plenty of unexplained plot lines that just fizzled out, and, Oh, unanswered questions:
1) Who got pick for conversion? Why? 2) Do the Inhumans have free will? Or not? What do they got in return for having their body altered? 3) How did Hongou Takeshi beat the need for blood transfusion? 4) WTF did Hongou do to earn him a BRAND NEW bike as a GIFT?
I did force myself to sit through it. But boy, it wasn't fun.
Suchîmubôi (2004)
Let's make that old old samurai movie.. again
Beautiful art.
OK that is out. Now for the problems: Like many many recent anime/sci-fi movie from Japan, Steamboy is filled with traditional Japanese stereotypes: The shogun, the princess, the young hot blood hero, the reserved ronin etc etc etc. Maybe the Japanese viewers really dig this structure, but i got tired of it long ago. Remember Final Fantasy movie? The script could have been easily penned by a 12 year old who has been watching nothing but samurai movie on Japanese TV rerun for the last decade. Once again, The beautifully rendered characters are paper cut out who behave as if they are plugged from one of the Kurosawa movies. Princess pout, hero screams, old man deliver sermon about love and courage and how to make the world a better place.
Thank God there are animated movies which go the other direction.
Miyasaki wrote marvelous scripts, about people who has to face real plausible dilemma, and who deal with them with courage and kindness. Laputa: castle in the sky has a similar steam punk background as Steamboy, yet it is a far superior movie, even without the flashy CG art.
I imagine during the productions Otomo has to face the suits in the financing department who demand their movie to be profitable. Steamboy has a feeling of being Disney-fied. Elements were deleted and added according to the Producers' list of "What the audience want".
Maybe Otomo should do a comic version of this story, with his own way of telling it.