| Lupin's first theatrical adventure
of the 1990's, Farewell to Nostradamus
is sadly a fairly forgettable movie and a poor
way to christen in voice actor Kanichi Kurita,
who takes over as Lupin for the first time. It's
not Kurita's talents that attract scorn
in this movie, though, but instead the writing
that features some pretty weak development of
both the story and its cast of characters. The
music and animation both fare much better, in
fact the latter is quite impressive, but they
are hardly enough to save the movie from its haphazard
script that Hiroshi Kashiwabara and Toshiya Ito
drafted.
For a quick summation of the plot,
the movie opens with a nuclear submarine exploding
in the middle of the ocean. News of the disaster
quickly spreads while a new religious cult, dubbed
the Nostradamus sect, announces that the event
had been foretold by the 16th century prophet
Michael Nostradamus. Shortly after this revelation,
terrorists attack an airliner in route to the
US. As it turns out, a small girl named Julia,
who is the daughter of presidential candidate
Douglas, is one of the passengers onboard, and
under the watch of Fujiko. Coincidentally, also
aboard the jet are master thieves Lupin and Jigen,
both fresh from a recent heist. To complicate
matters, the young girl manages to take a small
doll that Lupin was carrying, which was being
used to smuggle a diamond. Thankfully, it's
not long before the terrorists are defeated by
Lupin and Jigen, but Julia ends up getting kidnapped
in the confusion while the airplane, now evacuated,
explodes. Strangely enough, it later becomes clear
that this was another prophecy that was related
by the Nostradamus sect. Eager to get back his
diamond and save Julia, who is worth 50 million
dollars, Lupin once again joins forces with Fujiko
and Goemon to try and rescue the girl and uncover
what connection the Nostradamus sect might have
with the recent events.
On paper the plot certainly looks
promising, but in execution it quickly develops
into a train wreck of underdeveloped concepts
that hold little excitement due to predictability.
The movie plays out like a mystery, as the audience
tries to uncover what relation all of these events
might have with each other. Unfortunately, the
movie makes it overtly clear from nearly frame
one that the Nostradamus sect are the ones fulfilling
their own prophecies. Now normally this would
seem like an early plot point that would lead
up to a bigger reveal. Sadly, this larger plot
point never comes, and for all intensive purposes
the bulk of this “mystery” ends up
going unanswered. Why does the Nostradamus sect
want Douglas out of the presidential race? What
is the cause of the breakup in the higher ranks
of the sect? Why do they want Nostradamus'
original book of prophecies, and for that matter
why does Douglas have it? These questions, which
seem like they should make up a large part of
the story, go unaddressed without even a hint
that the writing team felt they were important.
In fact, the writing in general
feels sloppy and rushed, with odd things to note
such as Lupin breaking out of his prison cell,
when under capture from the Nostradamus sect,
without any explanation about when or how he did
it. To make matters worse, the writing team seems
to struggle to even make the fight sequences enjoyable,
let alone make sense. Jigen's gunfight with
Chris, second in command of the Nostradamus sect,
is a perfect example of the staff's ineptness
in structuring an action sequence. Now I realize,
as Jigen points out, that machine guns have low
accuracy, but it's not bad enough to burn
through an entire clip of bullets and not hit
someone who is slowly advancing with their entire
body exposed. The sequence is clearly intended
to make Jigen look cool as he casually walks toward
his opponent while bullets barely miss him, but
the scene is so ludicrous that it's hard
not to laugh. The ensuing showdown is also confusing
as Jigen holds the unarmed Chris at gunpoint,
not saying anything, for roughly 10 seconds (that
seems like they stretch on forever) before a henchmen
pops out of the nearby helicopter and throws a
grenade. The sequence is unquestionably awkward,
as if they had intended to write further dialogue
for the face off or, if this were a live action
movie, as if the henchmen missed his cue and come
on too late.
That's probably enough dissecting
of the more minute points in the movie, though,
as the story does have one saving grace, which
is the climax. It really is a spectacular sequence,
as the giant tower collapses while Lupin and Chris
fight inside. The following escape scene is also
well done along with riveting. Does it save the
story as a whole? Hardly, but at least it gives
the movie a lengthy sequence that's worth
looking forward to.
Still, strong characters can save
a weak story, and there is likely a fair bit of
interest in how the characters are handled in
this Lupin outing, both familiar and new. Unfortunately,
there isn't much praise to give to the feature
in this area either. Of the recurring cast, most
of them are treated well and act fairly in character,
although there are still problems to be had. Overall,
Lupin, Fujiko and Jigen are the three best represented,
although they generally lack the level of chemistry
displayed in the better Lupin movies. Sadly, the
other two regulars don't fare nearly as
well. Goemon, for example, feels very lazily worked
into this film and doesn't do much of anything
of interest. He just appears on cue in this movie,
as he is spotted randomly wandering the streets
of the US, looking for the Lost Prophecies of
Nostradamus, while Lupin happens to drive by.
Furthermore, why is Goemon even looking for the
prophecies? What is his interest? It's something
that's never touched on, or even questioned
in the movie. Zenigata also doesn't fare
much better here, only managing to act as the
comic relief while having zero impact on the plot.
He does invent a “Lupin Detector”
in this movie, but it never really factors into
the story in any significant way. In fact, the
movie probably would have worked far better had
he been written out altogether. Of course I wouldn't
suggest it, after all what's a Lupin film
without Zenigata? However, the writers should
have at least put forth an effort to make his
character work better in the movie without feeling
tacked on as a “requirement”.
In terms of the new characters,
there isn't much of interest here. Julia
is probably the most notable in the film, but
she is the stereotypical spoiled child character
who turns around to be more appreciative by the
movie's closure. It's predictable,
to say the least, but she does end up being serviceable
to the plot, even if the ending sequence, where
Lupin asks her if she is might end up being “Lupin
the 4th” after saving him the diamond, is
a little hard to stomach. The Maria character
is another of the new cast who sticks out, although
for all the wrong reasons. By the movie's
end she comes off as a fairly eccentric and poorly
underdeveloped character. She goes from disagreeing
with her husband over how to handle the kidnapping
of their daughter, to publicly denouncing him
to ruin his presidential dreams, to finally joining
the Nostradamus sect, the latter of which seems
completely random. Predictably, Maria's
joining of the cult leads to her being used as
a gun point hostage just before the climax. There
also appears to be some desire on her part to
run for president. I say this because she offered
this idea when learning of the terrorists'
demands, but becomes a very memorable point as
the Nostradamus sect leader makes the same exact
suggestion to her later in the film. It seems
like it would be a very important plot point,
considering that the writing made the effort to
bring it up twice, yet it never goes anywhere.
During my third viewing of the film, I drifted
off in a parallel direction about how great it
would have been had the sect and the kidnapping
were actually something orchestrated by Maria
in an effort to secure the presidency. It certainly
would have given the film a more memorable villain,
as opposed to the generic muscle-bound henchmen
Chris and the head of the Sect: Rhisely; furthermore,
the very slight foreshadowing would have made
the sudden plot twist work, while also adding
some needed replay value. But, alas, no such luck.
In does bring to light that the actual villains
here are very forgettable though, not to mention
extremely underdeveloped. The movie plays them
off as mysterious characters at first, but sadly
it never goes in and explains them later as expected,
and they only end up being hollow and stereotypical
adversaries for everyone's favorite thief.
Of course, Farewell to Nostradamus
is not the type of film that one can get away
with not mentioning the voice acting, considering
this was the first Lupin movie to feature Kanichi
Kurita in the title role, after Yasuo Yamada had
passed away. To his credit, Kurita does a fine
job, and in fact it's fairly hard to distinguish
him from the late Yamada, although there are still
points during the film where he doesn't
quite pull it off with as much enthusiasm as his
predecessor. To that point, the entire cast sounds
a little uninterested at some point during the
movie, and their portrayal feels more forced than
other films. Nothing specific to scorn, of course,
but the casts' interaction amongst themselves
no longer holds the same level of interest from
the viewer as it had during Yamada's days,
which could also be due to the fact that the writing
isn't as creative as in earlier films either.
In regards to the film's
score, it's conducted by longtime series
veteran Yuji Ohno, who does a decent job here.
His soundtrack isn't something that makes
a very good stand alone experience, nor does it
muster up any noteworthy themes during the film
itself (even the title song is completely unmemorable),
but none of the themes stand out as being unpleasant
or not fitting the scene either. Of course that's
hardly much of a complement toward Ono's
work, but it's really the strongest praise
I can muster for a soundtrack that is mostly transparent
during the movie itself.
On a final note, the animation
displayed in Farewell to Nostradamus
is, without doubt, one of the better aspects of
the picture. The movie defiantly has a more US
styled approach to the animation at times, although
the overall look is still clearly Japanese. Some
credit should be given for the level of detail
placed into the drawings, though, particularly
during the disaster sequence at the movie's
climax. In fact, backgrounds in general are well
designed, while the new characters are definitely
distinct in terms of appearance. In fact, the
only real blemish on the animation is some of
the facial features, which occasionally get over
exaggerated in a Tex Avery-ish style
that seems out of place in the Lupin series.
All in all, the biggest praise
one can give Farewell to Nostradamus
is that it's not a film to evoke any strong
dissent from the viewer. Most people, be them
fans of the characters or newcomers to the series,
will likely feel indifferent about the picture,
while the movie itself is nothing more than a
forgettable escapade for the world's “most
famous thief.”
|
(2.5/5)
