As soon as I heard the anime that almost everyone knows was going to be a live-action movie, I was not excited. Yes, it was going to define whether or not the anime live-action movie genre was going to be a hit or a flop. To be honest I heard some pretty good reviews on it. Never looked into it nor did I want to spoil anything for me, I was happy to see it was getting anything higher than an eight. I was wrong.
To be completely honest, the movie's beginning was very great, it was suppose to do what every movie forgets to do: get me pumped for what's next. It delivered well and the action scene where she jumps off the roof and into a room in the building she jumped off of while invisible was so well thought out. I like the way you could sort of see her in the shot, firing at terrorists trying to kill the president of whatever country he's from. Well after that, that's the only praise I can give it.
The rest of the movie is some cliche plot point about the main character being a born robotic human, how she never knew her real parents nor knows how it feels to be human. Although, that would sound great for this movie, they just shove it in your face constantly with no reason at all. She kills something that begs mercy and she feels like she should cry about it. You are a robot, you should not feel much at all, although you have a human brain, but that still doesn't matter since you have no original feeling of a human. I know it was to bring out her character and create something for you to relate to her or feel something with her, but I would have found those kind of scenes better if she grew the humanity instead of already have the idea of it. For example: in the beginning she feels no remorse for the people she killed because she says "I was programmed to kill" as characters try to talk to her about feeling human and she starts to think on all the missions she was in and remembers the people she killed that begged her mercy. Then later she puts down the gun when she is told to kill someone who claims to be innocent. A but cliche to say the least, but at least it would have been more interesting.
Besides that, Scarlett's character as the Major was too blank to begin with. "But StarterPack, That's what her character is suppose to be, which is taken from the anime!" I know, but in the anime, she looked like she had some emotion to her and the illusions she encountered felt like she was human, although fully synthetic. When you watch Scarlett in this movie, she just has the same angry blank look, when you look at her "want" in this movie, she wants to be human, and with that look on her face, you can't see that she really wants it.
And don't get me started on how the movie tries to take the concept of robotic humanity. I know the movie suppose to reflect on what it would be like to be fully robotic and how you can lose humanity, but they just take it can shove it in anyone's face that walks by. There are other stories, such as Dues Ex, that tell that part of the story well, but this one just doesn't know what it's suppose to be.
Moving on, the one thing I hated while watching this movie was how they show you something new or give you some assumption without telling you why it's there. I mean, Major is given her real memories before she was made into a super soldier and the next scene is her going to her believed-to-be-mother without giving you a reason why. They didn't even build up to it by showing us inserting the memories and seeing what her mother was, just next scene she's going to her mom's!
It just leaves you asking why most of the time and how most things happen in the plot. When she was given her memories, she doesn't even use it. At least I don't think. She even goes to her original home she "Ran Away" to and she's there not knowing anything there and showing us touching things on her burnt home, making us believe she remembers. I just don't get that. "Well, you just haven't seen the original anime!" Okay, when you watch a Marvel movie, do you expect to see something you already have seen or maybe know what everything is going to happen in this one movie? No, they try to avoid that by altering the plot to fit the movie setting and make it both understandable to new fans and not in-your-face for the long time fans. This movie doesn't take much to thought on the story of the original nor do they really have an idea where to place the plot.
They kind of made everything feel as if it was rushed, everything went by too quickly and too much has already happened. I can't imagine returning from the bathroom watching the movie, might feel like you traveled an hour through time. It just seems like everyone was focused on how much they should make the Major sexier, showing off her swimming all sexy-like and her taking off her clothes, giving every guy a *** tease. I really don't understand how this develops her character.
Besides all I've said, the movie looked great and true to the source material in terms of looks. I appreciate the (I believe) the original company who produced the original series to work on this with the director. I thought they would have made this a full American movie, not involving anyone from Japan or the original artists/writers. I would also say that the movie had some missed opportunities, such as the scene when Batou gets his new tactical eyes. When he finally gets them installed, he tells Major "Say something nice to me," a line that I think would have been better said throughout the film. It would have been a famous one if they actually used it better.
There were even people that weren't even given enough screentime like the all-human Togusa or the guy with the sniper rifle and the cord extending into his eye. I want to know who the hell that was! Who was that? He looks like a cool character!
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this somewhat review. I think I missed somethings on here about the movie that I disliked, but I think I made my opinion here. What did you think of the movie? Anything to debate with me about? Well, I would rete this game a 6 out of 10 because it had some potential to it. 'Til next time...
Play More Games
Don't you need to be Naked doing this?