Movie reviews
I can't believe how many movies I've been to this year. And how many of them I want to write about.
Tomorrow, When The War Began
That was better than I expected. I loved the books when I was younger, but I didn't have especially high hopes for the movie, because, well, you just don't, sometimes. Because music rules me these days, I wasn't all that excited until I started hearing about the soundtrack and realised that all my favourite musicians were on it, but it was worth seeing for a lot more than that.
I will admit it took me a while to get into. A lot of the dialogue towards the start felt forced to me, and I got really distracted by the way Ellie's accent slipped towards sounding British sometimes. I was also bothered by the pains they went to with the script to make it clear that the kids were all still at school when some of the actors were so obviously too old to be. Funnily enough, even though Homer's first scene was way over the top, that's when it started to feel real to me. The early scenes in Hell were great, the flyover was great, and the eerie feeling when they came back to Ellie's place was nice too. I loved the moment when Ellie said the phone line was disconnected and they all pulled out their mobile phones simultaneously.
And from then on I have no complaints at all. The showgrounds scene was perfect and the scene in the backyard when Corrie's injured, that showed Ellie's transition from farm girl to guerille fighter perfectly. That's why she's our point of view character, because she's the one you want to be with in the war, because she can improvise explosives without even thinking about it. And then freak out about it later.
The scene where they find Chris is the most skillfully written and directed one in the whole piece. It's just Chris telling his own story and the others listening, but it walks the line between comedy and horror so perfectly. (My experience was coloured slightly by a noisy group behind me who laughed through the entire scene, even the bits where I was going D: Earlier, the first time Lee came on screen, one of them shouted "He's supposed to be hot!") All Chris's scenes are like that, really. The falling-asleep-on-watch scene and Ellie's reaction was magnificent. I guess Robyn finally deciding to pick up a gun and shoot doesn't really count as a Chris scene, but it was the only part of the whole thing that made me want to cry.
It does just perfectly capture the sense that these are teenagers, even when they're soldiers. (Ellie and Fi almost getting ambushed because they're talking about boys. Sigh.) The 'colonisation' theme could have been developed more, but there's time. The way they spend a lot of their time in their own houses or running down normal, suburban picket-fence streets while being hunted by enemy soldiers is eerie. The reasons for invasion have been tweaked a bit, I think; from memory, in the books it was because Australia is rich where the invading coalition was poor, whereas now it's about population, which is indeed more contemporary. But otherwise, it's as thematically rich as I remember.
Of course, at another level, the series is really just about Ellie blowing shit up.
(A note about music: I've heard criticism of the way the soundtrack was done, but aside from it being full of artists I love, I thought it was all well used. In particular, Missy Higgins' 'Steer' was great for the opening credits and Sarah Blasko's cover of 'Flame Trees' was a brilliant choice of the scene it was in.)
(Oh, and it didn't fit anywhere, but it seems like the entire point of Corrie's character is do die, you know?)
Evangelion 2.0
Oh, Hideaki Anno, you can troll me any time.
When the Rebuild project was first announced, I had reservations that it was going to be about trying to 'fix' Evangelion, and I don't want it fixed. I like my fucked up series. It probably sounds nasty to say, but a show with a mentally stable Shinji Ikari just isn't one I want to watch. But now I love them. Firstly, they're good just for the eyecandy. Visually they're spectacular. I don't think there was anything in 2.0 that I enjoyed quite as much as the way Ramiel was animated in 1.0, but some of it was still magnificent. Secondly, even if I don't like every bit of character development, it's still Hideaki Anno at the wheel, and I know I can trust him to throw me some screwed-up characters, some mindfuck experiences and some very cathartic ones. I trust that in this reboot, he'll give me an ending that makes as little sense as 25/26 and End of Evangelion. The only thing that could truly disappoint me about Rebuild would be an ending that I understand the first time I see it.
I could talk a lot about how the plot and characterisation have changed, but I don't think I will. As far as plot goes, it's mostly complaining that some of my favourite parts of the old series have been removed (the first two Asuka episodes, Touji as a pilot) but I understand why they had to go, and it's not as if they're really 'gone' because I still have the anime. I really enjoyed the addition of the aquarium trip! I snickered when they were flying in and saw that the pools make a sephiroth pattern of course, but at this point I think it's probably just a thematic repitition rather than a hint. But it was a nice, fun scene, and set up for all the character development we got this movie. I'm not sure if I completely like all the changes in characterisation, and so far I don't think there is any point to Mari, but I'll just roll with it and see what happens next.
Rebuild's interesting for the way that it does kind of rely on the audience already being familiar with the characters and the story, but it's also more enjoyable if you do. I'm not sure if it's completely necessary to have seen the series to understand the movies, but if you have, you know where all the jokes are. There were several really classic scenes that got a do-over in this movie; particularly the 'toothpick scene II' with Asuka and the elevator scene with Asuka and Rei. Kaji asking Shinji on a 'date' was also waaaaay more gay than I remember, but I love both versions. (Sidenote: I've even seen hardcore boob-loving het fanboys respond to that scene with "OH GAINAX NO, Shinji's soulmate is KAWORU!") Oh, and the 'newlyweds' scene at school, too. It's also full of some still images that have become so well known that 'iconic' doesn't seem to cover it. When Shinji turns his back on Gendo in Gendo's office, the familiarity is like a brick to the head.
I do like how this film had more of an emphasis on setting up the world that Evangelion takes place in. After fifteen years, there's a certain amount of updating the concepts that's necessary. You can't replace Shinji's walkman with an iPod, but it's 2015 and you haven't have him listen to a walkman all the time without explanation, either. I loved all the scenes of people just going about their lives in Tokyo-3, all the scenes of transport or of evacuations, or even just of the giant solar panels. And I love the way that despite everything that's different about the futuristic, post-second impact world (LOVE the visual of the annihilated Antarctica btw) it still looks and feels like modern-day Japan, too.
And finally, of course, there's the post-credits ending. I was a bit excited by the end of this movie, with one of those massive cathartic moments in Shinji going beserk and rescuing Rei, followed by Ritsuko announcing that this means THE END OF THE WORLD, and then credits.
Credits followed by Kaworu coming down from THE MOON, stabbing Shinji in the back and then saying "Shinji Ikari, this time I will make you happy. No matter what."
Aside from the fact that it relies completely on the audience knowing what happened 'last time' Shinji and Kaworu met, and how COMPLETELY FUCKING GAY IT IS, it's the funniest possible response to THE END OF THE WORLD. And, just, just, HIDEAKI ANNO KEEP TROLLING ME PLEASE. You know I never get sick of it. I'll take your implied two-movie-long apocalypse full of gay and more. Just don't. Ever. Change.
(Although I do have a few other things on my wishlist: some good Kaji/Misato because I love their dynamic and it's hot; everyone getting a bit more fucked up; and Kaji still uncovering the NERV conspiracy and getting shot - don't care if we don't get the whole history of NERV in the process, don't care if we never find out who shot him, I just want him to die the same way.)
Summer Wars
Having said that, Summer Wars was the best piece of anime I've seen in years. I don't really count Rebuild of Evangelion since it doesn't stand alone, but in the test of which one I would go to if I could only afford to see one anime movie this year, I would pick Summer Wars.
I wanted to see it because the trailers I'd seen made it seem like the second Digimon movie. And it is, but not in a way that makes me say "pffft, it was just like Digimon". The overall concept and plot were very similar, but thematically and emotionally it's so tight, everything is perfectly timed, the comedy and emotion are beautifully intertwined. I love everything about it and I don't think I can say more than that. This review says everything I want to and does it a lot better, so I won't rehash things. I'll just say that the plot is perfectly paced, you end up knowing and caring about everyone in the cast even though it's huge, they all have their roles to play, and it's a beautiful if uncritical take on the way 'online' and 'offline' worlds relate and interact.
Oh, and the animation is pretty good too.
Funny how I say 'Summer Wars is the best piece of anime in years' and write two paragraphs, yet I've edited this post three times now to add more about Evangelion.
This entry was originally posted at http://little-cloud.dreamwidth.org/12750.html.
Tomorrow, When The War Began
That was better than I expected. I loved the books when I was younger, but I didn't have especially high hopes for the movie, because, well, you just don't, sometimes. Because music rules me these days, I wasn't all that excited until I started hearing about the soundtrack and realised that all my favourite musicians were on it, but it was worth seeing for a lot more than that.
I will admit it took me a while to get into. A lot of the dialogue towards the start felt forced to me, and I got really distracted by the way Ellie's accent slipped towards sounding British sometimes. I was also bothered by the pains they went to with the script to make it clear that the kids were all still at school when some of the actors were so obviously too old to be. Funnily enough, even though Homer's first scene was way over the top, that's when it started to feel real to me. The early scenes in Hell were great, the flyover was great, and the eerie feeling when they came back to Ellie's place was nice too. I loved the moment when Ellie said the phone line was disconnected and they all pulled out their mobile phones simultaneously.
And from then on I have no complaints at all. The showgrounds scene was perfect and the scene in the backyard when Corrie's injured, that showed Ellie's transition from farm girl to guerille fighter perfectly. That's why she's our point of view character, because she's the one you want to be with in the war, because she can improvise explosives without even thinking about it. And then freak out about it later.
The scene where they find Chris is the most skillfully written and directed one in the whole piece. It's just Chris telling his own story and the others listening, but it walks the line between comedy and horror so perfectly. (My experience was coloured slightly by a noisy group behind me who laughed through the entire scene, even the bits where I was going D: Earlier, the first time Lee came on screen, one of them shouted "He's supposed to be hot!") All Chris's scenes are like that, really. The falling-asleep-on-watch scene and Ellie's reaction was magnificent. I guess Robyn finally deciding to pick up a gun and shoot doesn't really count as a Chris scene, but it was the only part of the whole thing that made me want to cry.
It does just perfectly capture the sense that these are teenagers, even when they're soldiers. (Ellie and Fi almost getting ambushed because they're talking about boys. Sigh.) The 'colonisation' theme could have been developed more, but there's time. The way they spend a lot of their time in their own houses or running down normal, suburban picket-fence streets while being hunted by enemy soldiers is eerie. The reasons for invasion have been tweaked a bit, I think; from memory, in the books it was because Australia is rich where the invading coalition was poor, whereas now it's about population, which is indeed more contemporary. But otherwise, it's as thematically rich as I remember.
Of course, at another level, the series is really just about Ellie blowing shit up.
(A note about music: I've heard criticism of the way the soundtrack was done, but aside from it being full of artists I love, I thought it was all well used. In particular, Missy Higgins' 'Steer' was great for the opening credits and Sarah Blasko's cover of 'Flame Trees' was a brilliant choice of the scene it was in.)
(Oh, and it didn't fit anywhere, but it seems like the entire point of Corrie's character is do die, you know?)
Evangelion 2.0
Oh, Hideaki Anno, you can troll me any time.
When the Rebuild project was first announced, I had reservations that it was going to be about trying to 'fix' Evangelion, and I don't want it fixed. I like my fucked up series. It probably sounds nasty to say, but a show with a mentally stable Shinji Ikari just isn't one I want to watch. But now I love them. Firstly, they're good just for the eyecandy. Visually they're spectacular. I don't think there was anything in 2.0 that I enjoyed quite as much as the way Ramiel was animated in 1.0, but some of it was still magnificent. Secondly, even if I don't like every bit of character development, it's still Hideaki Anno at the wheel, and I know I can trust him to throw me some screwed-up characters, some mindfuck experiences and some very cathartic ones. I trust that in this reboot, he'll give me an ending that makes as little sense as 25/26 and End of Evangelion. The only thing that could truly disappoint me about Rebuild would be an ending that I understand the first time I see it.
I could talk a lot about how the plot and characterisation have changed, but I don't think I will. As far as plot goes, it's mostly complaining that some of my favourite parts of the old series have been removed (the first two Asuka episodes, Touji as a pilot) but I understand why they had to go, and it's not as if they're really 'gone' because I still have the anime. I really enjoyed the addition of the aquarium trip! I snickered when they were flying in and saw that the pools make a sephiroth pattern of course, but at this point I think it's probably just a thematic repitition rather than a hint. But it was a nice, fun scene, and set up for all the character development we got this movie. I'm not sure if I completely like all the changes in characterisation, and so far I don't think there is any point to Mari, but I'll just roll with it and see what happens next.
Rebuild's interesting for the way that it does kind of rely on the audience already being familiar with the characters and the story, but it's also more enjoyable if you do. I'm not sure if it's completely necessary to have seen the series to understand the movies, but if you have, you know where all the jokes are. There were several really classic scenes that got a do-over in this movie; particularly the 'toothpick scene II' with Asuka and the elevator scene with Asuka and Rei. Kaji asking Shinji on a 'date' was also waaaaay more gay than I remember, but I love both versions. (Sidenote: I've even seen hardcore boob-loving het fanboys respond to that scene with "OH GAINAX NO, Shinji's soulmate is KAWORU!") Oh, and the 'newlyweds' scene at school, too. It's also full of some still images that have become so well known that 'iconic' doesn't seem to cover it. When Shinji turns his back on Gendo in Gendo's office, the familiarity is like a brick to the head.
I do like how this film had more of an emphasis on setting up the world that Evangelion takes place in. After fifteen years, there's a certain amount of updating the concepts that's necessary. You can't replace Shinji's walkman with an iPod, but it's 2015 and you haven't have him listen to a walkman all the time without explanation, either. I loved all the scenes of people just going about their lives in Tokyo-3, all the scenes of transport or of evacuations, or even just of the giant solar panels. And I love the way that despite everything that's different about the futuristic, post-second impact world (LOVE the visual of the annihilated Antarctica btw) it still looks and feels like modern-day Japan, too.
And finally, of course, there's the post-credits ending. I was a bit excited by the end of this movie, with one of those massive cathartic moments in Shinji going beserk and rescuing Rei, followed by Ritsuko announcing that this means THE END OF THE WORLD, and then credits.
Credits followed by Kaworu coming down from THE MOON, stabbing Shinji in the back and then saying "Shinji Ikari, this time I will make you happy. No matter what."
Aside from the fact that it relies completely on the audience knowing what happened 'last time' Shinji and Kaworu met, and how COMPLETELY FUCKING GAY IT IS, it's the funniest possible response to THE END OF THE WORLD. And, just, just, HIDEAKI ANNO KEEP TROLLING ME PLEASE. You know I never get sick of it. I'll take your implied two-movie-long apocalypse full of gay and more. Just don't. Ever. Change.
(Although I do have a few other things on my wishlist: some good Kaji/Misato because I love their dynamic and it's hot; everyone getting a bit more fucked up; and Kaji still uncovering the NERV conspiracy and getting shot - don't care if we don't get the whole history of NERV in the process, don't care if we never find out who shot him, I just want him to die the same way.)
Summer Wars
Having said that, Summer Wars was the best piece of anime I've seen in years. I don't really count Rebuild of Evangelion since it doesn't stand alone, but in the test of which one I would go to if I could only afford to see one anime movie this year, I would pick Summer Wars.
I wanted to see it because the trailers I'd seen made it seem like the second Digimon movie. And it is, but not in a way that makes me say "pffft, it was just like Digimon". The overall concept and plot were very similar, but thematically and emotionally it's so tight, everything is perfectly timed, the comedy and emotion are beautifully intertwined. I love everything about it and I don't think I can say more than that. This review says everything I want to and does it a lot better, so I won't rehash things. I'll just say that the plot is perfectly paced, you end up knowing and caring about everyone in the cast even though it's huge, they all have their roles to play, and it's a beautiful if uncritical take on the way 'online' and 'offline' worlds relate and interact.
Oh, and the animation is pretty good too.
Funny how I say 'Summer Wars is the best piece of anime in years' and write two paragraphs, yet I've edited this post three times now to add more about Evangelion.
This entry was originally posted at http://little-cloud.dreamwidth.org/12750.html.