Our review of the live action Attack On Titan is here.
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| "Care for a roll in the hay?" |
In 2013, the anime series Attack on Titan took both Japan and American by storm. The story,
about a world where humanity is besieged by giant man-eating people called
Titans, was exciting and suspenseful and everyone couldn’t get enough of it. What
set the anime apart from other series released at the time were the strong
horror elements to the plot and the excellent animation for the fight scenes. With
something this successful it was only a matter of time before the
powers-that-be decided to make a live action version. Unfortunately, most of
the live action anime adaptations have been less than stellar, and Attack on Titan has some of the same
issues as those other films.
Attack on Titan
has twenty-five episodes and that’s a lot of story to fit into a three hour
runtime. That being said, this film takes some liberties with the plot and
characterization from both the manga and the anime. Now, truth be told, I think
the story in the anime version drags quite a bit and has a lot of unnecessary
filler, especially in the middle arc. The film condenses the plot and
simplifies some of the characters’ motives and personality traits. For someone
who has never seen the anime, they probably won’t mind because the plot that is
depicted in the film isn’t bad. It does suffer from the overacting that plagues
much of Japanese cinema (which is part of their culture) but other than that
it’s not egregiously terrible. The plot does jump around a little bit, and the
beginning of the film is definitely clunky, but it finds its rhythm after about
thirty minutes.
Director Shinji Higuchi is one of Japan’s top special
effects artists, which explains why most of the look of the film is
excellent. Attack on Titan is essentially a horror/kaiju hybrid with giant
monster fights, tons of gore and a gritty environment. If you look at it from a
kaiju film perspective, it makes more sense as a whole because it has many of
the tropes from that genre of film. The Titans are real people with CGI
enhancements and they are incredibly frightening to see in action. The look of
ecstasy that they have on their face as they rip apart and devour humans is
unsettling to say the least, and their design and appearance is as Japanese as
it gets. When the humans fight back, they use a rappelling system that lets the
zip around in the air to out maneuver the Titans. Unfortunately, the CGI used
for this looks awkward because the physics are off—the characters just don’t
have enough weight to them for it to appear realistic. The backgrounds look
awesome though and the film captures the hellish backdrop of the anime
perfectly.
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| "My blade is sharp. Lick it." |
The worst part of this film is definitely the musical score.
ShirÅ Sagisu, most famous for his excellent work on the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, supplied the
music for Attack on Titan but his
style does not fit with the darker nature of the story. He has a very symphonic
and bombastic style which sounds similar to old-school Godzilla musical cues. It seriously does not jive with this film at
all and ends being extremely distracting at times. They should have stuck with Hiroyuki
Sawano’s work from the anime as it has a much darker and rock-tinged sound. His
music fits the mood perfectly, and it’s baffling as to why they didn’t have him
score the live action film.
Overall, I had high expectations for this adaptation and the
resulting movie fell short. Japan, for
the most part, does not do high budget action films well. I will say, this is one of the best looking
CGI-heavy films I have seen come out of Japan in recent years, and if you treat
it as a modern kaiju film, it becomes even more forgiving. All of those films
had guys in rubber suits so this is a marked improvement. To me, Attack
on Titan is meant to be a little campy since the premise is so insane and
in that regard this adaptation is a fun ride.
Just don’t expect it to be on par with the anime and you may enjoy it a little
more.
-Michelle Kisner
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