Skip to main content



Rating: 3.8/5
Review: "Attack on Titan movie review"

"A big budget Japanese film that is full of exciting visuals but skims on characters' development."

I am not a fan of Attack on Titan however I read the first few volume of the popular manga. The manga is action-packed and tense enough with lots of characters' deaths. The film, noticeably has a few major changes, is fortunately as action-packed but with its short runtime of 1 hour and 38 minutes, its characters' development is undercooked. In the end, ignore the awkward characters' development and you will get one of Japan's most visually interesting films.

The story: It starts slow before punching straight into the destruction and gore. The opening scene establishes the relationship among Eren (Haruma Miura), Mikasa (Kiko Mizuhara) and Armin (Kanata Hongo). It comes a bit cheesy with the music but overall, the scene did its job. When the destruction, it is a spectacle. The Titans are cleverly a mix of human suit and CGI. The huge set pieces throughout the film look visually good albeit some cheap-looking scenes. I have enough knowledge to know some of the changes such as the popular character Levi being replaced by a new character. The setting is true to the source material however as I recall, the setting for the climax is different (It is shot in the ruin outside the wall). The injected humour falls flat. Acting wise is alright for most cast. They have a lot of emotions to portray except looking glum. Some tend to overact and some are awkward. Music is a little off at times but it is serviceable during the set pieces.

Overall: It received overwhelming negative reviews from the fans that the filmmakers had to defend the film's creative changes. I think it would fare better with general audience who are looking for a big budget Japanese movie packed with good visuals and action. I enjoyed it as I didn't think too much about the creative differences. Is it worth to catch it in cinema? If you like watching a big budget film on big screen. As a two-parter film, I am not sure how this will end as the manga is currently ongoing.

There is a special preview for part 2 in the middle of the ending credit.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rating: 4.5/5 Review: "Man of Steel movie review" With all the hype from the trailers, I must say this is what it looks to be expected. I have to say that this is the biggest and epic superhero movie yet. This treats destructions like child's play. It is also the most explosive superhero movie. There are so much explosions that they could literally make you exhausted from watching all those. Although this is directed by Zack Snyder, this does not have much of his trademark except the visuals. His slo-mo trademark is not featured. Instead, the action is rapid fast. Man of Steel is a good entertainment with exciting action scenes and visuals but at the same, a somehow touching human drama. The story: We get an extended opening scene on Krypton where Kal-El is just born. However the planet is going to be destroyed with General Zod adding to the problem. To save Kal-El, he has to be sent to another planet known as Earth. What is interesting about the movie that it do...
Rating: 3.4/5 Review: "The Spirit of Ramayana" (103 minutes) "A passable Thai horror movie with an interesting concept but weak execution." As a low-budget horror movie, it has enough entertainment values. In the recent years, there are a few strong Thai horror movies with decent production values and there are many mediocre low-budget horror movies. The Spirit of Ramayana is somewhat in the middle. It may not look that polished but its themes and concept are intriguing enough. The story: The narrative is straight forward however its editing made the movie look messy and disjointed. It is a simple story about Mintra, a young dancer who is rejected for the main role because she cannot pull off an evil and sensual side. However, a spirit helps her to unleash her dark side. On paper, it sounds like a supernatural Black Swan. It lacks the emotional depth of Black Swan as the director seems only interested in churning out cheap scares. As the plot develops fur...
Rating: 3.5/5 Review: "The Exchange" (90 minutes) "A decent fast-paced Thai heist thriller that is marred by weak action choreography and shoddy editing"  It's a low-key movie. You can hardly find information about this online when you type in its English title. Perhaps you will have better luck finding information in Thai. My curiosity piqued when I couldn't find any English review on it. Should I take the risk in watching an unknown movie? I finally decided that it wouldn't hurt buying a cheap ticket (US$2.50) to experience it. I actually enjoyed the movie but not the experience. Sure the movie has its own flaws but it is not as distracting as the badly dubbed Khmer language. The dub is emotionless and does not fit the tone of the characters. I know Thai and Khmer are two different languages but I couldn't help by being distracted with the bad lip sync throughout the whole movie. On the other hand, the movie is fast-paced enough to hol...