| Feeling in the mood to watch
some Japanese cinema in... well the cinemas,
I attended the US DVD debut screening for
Yukihiko Tsutsumi's final entry in the 20th
Century Boys series. The total attendance,
me and my girlfriend included, was scarcely
even 20 people, as the theater was quite dead
although we were impressed by someone who
drove all the way from Seattle to San Francisco
to attend. Circumstances aside, how does this
film stack up? Not too well. It's not a bad
movie, but is so tepid and loaded with problems
at the character and story level that it could
hardly be considered good cinema either.
In terms of plot, the film
picks up two years after the events of 20th
Century Boys 2: The Last Hope (2009)
following a virus secretly released by "Friend"
that kills billions of people world wide.
With the Earth in ruins, "Friend"
is elected to the highest office as he constructs
a new Tokyo and creates a Global Defense Army.
Bored with his success, "Friend"
plans to just destroy mankind via an even
deadlier virus and an even more powerful bomb
hidden in a giant robot. Kenji Endo, having
survived the original blast on "Bloody
New Years", emerges as he and his growing
following of supporters attempt to stop the
plan from succeeding.
The story concludes the overall
theme of the trilogy, and also finally reveals
the identity of "Friend" during
the climax. The plot itself, though, is a
little hard to review from a critical standpoint.
Much like the other two movies, its not quite
serious enough to be taken seriously, yet
at the same time fails as a parody or at humor
in general. Some films walk this fine line
effectively, being slightly odd but work as
a serious drama. Redemption does not,
being too silly for its own good while lacking
a sense of fun or popcorn level entertainment
needed for its approach to work. The story
does a lot of homage to Japanese entertainment,
from name dropping Godzilla to featuring uniforms
straight out of Ultraman
(1967), but not to a degree to even give it
a pass there from genre fans.
The true weakness of this film,
though, are the characters. Simply put, there
are too many of them. This was a problem with
20th
Century Boys 2: The Last Hope (2009),
but is even worse here as the cast balloons
from featuring almost everyone from the previous
two films who didn't die (or miraculously
survived from previously assumed deaths).
Some films can pull off a huge cast, with
a perfect example being the Lord of the
Rings series that builds to a climax as
it goes on, but this one fails miserably at
it. To be fair, there are efforts to develop
the characters, mostly Kenji, Kanna, and "Friend".
Sadly, none of this development really resonates
with the audience, although at least there
is a genuine attempt done with the Kanna character
but sadly she is mostly sidelined into doing
a concert while the real action is going on.
In the end, its hard to care about any of
the cast.
The larger problem with the
characters, though, is simply that there are
so many that it gets hard to keep track of
them. Clearly the filmmakers became aware
of this problem as well, because there is
a ton of recap footage to help jog the audience's
memory as to who a character is, to the point
where it becomes a little ludicrous. The best
example of this is Number 13. Frankly speaking,
this character never should have been brought
back, being an assassin in the previous movie
that was hardly seen. Yet he returns here,
and Otcho seems well familiar with him while
the audience does not. He then vanishes after
being reintroduced, only to pull an all too
cliché kamikaze run toward the end.
Pointless, and he is just one of many characters
that could have easily been cut from this
film to help develop others and keep the audience
focused on the characters they truly should
be paying attention to. Speaking of, the final
arc for the Yoshitsune character here is just
horrible. Stop reading now if you want to
avoid spoilers... stopped? Good, anyway the
character is set up as a red herring for the
true identity of "Friend". Out of
the blue, the character starts sympathizing
with "Friend" and starts acting
strange, awkwardly vanishing to arouse audience
suspicion after another character muses that
it might be him. Its extremely out of character
from what we know of him so far, and crazy
that he would suddenly start to sympathize
with him as he does. Even worse is that the
audience more or less knows its not him because
we see the back of "Friend" without
his mask at the start of the movie and he
has different hair than Yoshitsune. So its
pointless on top of being poorly written.
Okay, so the character aspect
is done poorly, but oddly enough the acting
itself manages to be decent despite this.
There are a couple of bad moments, in particular
from "Friend" dissenters who suddenly
turn on their ruler with over dramatic and
frankly hammy acting. The main cast is mostly
solid in what they have to work with, aside
from Kenji's embarrassing "crying for
three days" scene. Airi Taira, who plays
Kanna, deserves particular praise as she really
tries to give some emotional depth to her
character... but sadly the writing fails to
back that performance up.
So the film does a lot wrong,
but what does it do right? Well two things,
the first of which is the musical score by
Ryomei Shirai. Shirai's work here is fairly
commendable, giving energy to some scenes
and overall heightening the mood. The theme
for "Friend", which would likely
make for a horrible stand alone experience
due to its shrill nature, is fairly unnerving
when it plays as the character is on screen.
The other positive aspect of
the production are the amazing special effects.
Suffice to say, this is probably one of the
best looking Toho movies to date. The new
Tokyo is jaw dropping, as are the sweeping
shots across the landscape. The robot, whose
impressive city destruction scenes are sure
to please kaiju fans, along with the UFOs
are also superb. Granted, there are a few
uneven shots in the movie, but they are few
and far between and mostly this film could
pass for a bigger budgeted Hollywood production
from a special effects standpoint.
Overall, science fiction fans
might enjoy elements of this film, but as
a whole package its lackluster. The movie
does bring special effects to a level that
they can compare with the international market,
but the writing fails to the point where it's
impossible to see the movie competing on that
same level. So genre fans might enjoy it,
but at best the film does little to warrant
watching it more than once.
|
(2.5/5)
