Dec 14, 2014
This is not a review because I don't want to spend any time doing research on this "anime" movie, I just want to share with you why this movie is bad on so many levels after my second viewing, just to make the 2 hours I wasted on this thing worth something.
The first time I heard about this movie in 2012 I thought this is nothing but Toei wants to monetize on Urobuchi's fame after he wrote the massive hit Madoka, it's okay, this happens from time to time, as long as he got a competent team to help him refine the script as he
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is not a good screenwriter but a novel author first. Two years later I still want to see this movie just to follow Urobuchi's new career in anime and see if they can make 3D anything more than bearable. Turns out you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Let's start with the worst aspect of the movie: Writing. Urobuchi is not a competent screenwriter. He may had written some good novels in the past but that does not mean he can adopt to a different type of writing. The massive hit Madoka made him famous but that's because he had a team of talents from Shaft to help him write the screenplay that is suitable for the TV anime format. And this time who can guide him to write a screenplay for a movie? No one. Director Seiji Mizushima is not someone who can ordinate with Urobuchi, who is self-center and just wants to put long boring exposition, stupid plot twist and pretentious reference in his story. You can't give this man too much freedom.
I don't care if there is any tragedy or people got killed. What I really care is that you don't spend almost two-third of the screen time on characters just talking to each other and only use dialog to help world-building and character development. I would have been okay with the obviously over-sexiualized character design of all the female characters if they actually have "character". Even the heroine is just another typical damsel in distress tsundere who always need help from our hero who is as genetic as possible but this time he plays guitar. If you want good character interaction or interesting world-building, you wouldn't find any because almost everything is presented in dialog. After they destroy a nest of huge bugs, they stop and stand still to talk for 5 minutes, when they are in a transport getting to where the plot need them to, the movie spends 10 minutes on characters talking, after the hero saved the tsundere from genetic as hell street scumbags, they spend another 10 minutes talking. No, this time even better, when they reach the next plot point, we actually get 10 minutes of screen time devoted to the tsundere running up several staircase to get to the top of the building just to install a camera while having a conversation about nothing with the hero. I don't know, I found that scene so stupid that I walked out of the theatre.
I could go on about the horrible writing, but right now I feel tired just to think about the movie. If you are one of those youtubers that make long reviews you will have quite a material on your hand. Let's talk about the visual.
There is still a lot to improve in 3D. Everyone looks and moves like a puppet, combined with the horrible writing and weak characters you are just not going to pay attention to what the screen is happening, but I guess this is why them design their female character in this way? The action scene is fast-paced but other than looking nice there is little going on beneath the surface. There is only a few hard-drawn animation littered in everywhere but only make the 3D looks even worst in comparison, but for this "anime" movie I feel happy just to see they are not extincted and still superior than CG.
Do not expect too much from the voice acting, the characters themselves are generic as hell so the voice actors do not have much to work with from the start.
This is not even a good action flick that the trailer wants you to believe in the first place. It's just Urobuchi at his worst.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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