Sep 5, 2019
"Weathering with you" is a plate of spaghetti with very questionable ingredients that seems to be there for the sake of looking good, and despite it's grand presentation complete with truffles and gold plate, you can tell that the presentation is only there to hide it's many flaws, the half-cooked linguine, the hastily cooked sauce and the utter arrogance you can sense from the kitchen, expecting you to forgive all those flaws because of the restaurant's prestige.
I gave the film a rating of 6 despite my many complaints with it, and it is only because anything lower than that would be a disservice to everything
...
that the film does right: The art, the voice acting, the sound and most of the story.
Story: 3/10
Like many of other Shinkai's works, I felt that he has done superbly to set up the loose ends, the questions to be answered, but once again he never really tied them up. Watching the movie, I was anticipating a resolution to many of the character's difficulties and reasoning.
At the end of the film, I walked out with a lot of questions, and the only answer that I could come up with is that Shinkai never really cared about resolving the side plots, as long as the main plot could have an ending then there would be no reason to complain. But that is not, or should not be the case, and as a result this heavily compromised the characters too, which I would talk about later.
Another thing is that the story didn't deviate much from Shinkai's other works. Any more details would be spoilers so I'll leave it at that.
Art: 10/10
As expected from a Shinkai film, even if everything else falls apart, at least your eyes would still bleed rainbows. There's not much else to say about it, it's just brilliant as always.
Sound: 8/10
The soundtrack was rather bland save for a few scenes. RADWIMPS had a far more memorable soundtrack for Kimi no Na wa, as this one had many samesies songs that feels like it's reused, but it actually isn't. However on my second rewatch I came to appreciate the BGM a lot more. The non-vocalized music fits every scene perfectly.
Sound effects were on point. Find a good theater to watch this as a public premiere would not do it justice.
Voice acting was very well done, no corners were cut. Not much else to say about it apart from that it's good.
Character: 3/10
I get that the show had a very limited runtime to it, and therefore a full exposition isn't really possible. However, the film packed so much into the characters but yet completely fail to flesh them out. Much of the backstories were nothing more than a single sentence, the rationale behind each character's actions depends so much on a shallow motive that makes it very hard to empathize with them. A lot of the character's difficulties turned out to be not much of one at all since the convenience factor kicks in, and the characters never really seemed to be bothered by their many limitations, very little of their actions were done to circumvent them.
The message that the romance at the end of the film sends is very dangerous. Again, any details would be spoilers, so I'll use this quote from another show I watched that I fully agree with after watching the ending:
"The kind of thinking that as long you and your own are happy then you don't care about other people is...horrifying...it was like the movie was jam-packed with people's egoism."
The characters are a model of the good old "as long as we are in love the world can go to hell" trope towards the end to an extreme level. And if people feel "inspired" by the message in the end, I think we are doomed as a society.
The last but definitely the least point of the characters to me is probably personal, but it feels like the romance is utterly shallow. The budding romance felt premature and the lengths that our MC goes for it feels extreme for how short this relationship lasted, it just feels unreal. But of course, it's the "power of love", which is a trope I can never sympathize with.
The film would've been an easy 8/10 if not for the last act putting a really bitter taste in my mouth, but the ending doesn't bring everything else down to an unwatchable level, hence the generous 6/10 despite the many complaints I've had.
Should you watch it? Yes, absolutely. Bring your whole family, your new date, your children along. It's fantastically friendly for all situations and ages, and a complete film if you don't mind the details. But if you really think about the film in a more in depth level, you will be bugged by it's many shortcomings.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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