Meitantei Conan Movie 10: Tantei-tachi no Requiem

Another great case featuring Shinichi Kudo aka Conan Edogawa. Although the case is a bit prolonged, its story and pace more than makes up for it. First off, a mysterious client asks for Mouri Kogoro (with Ran, Conan and detective boys) to meet at a hotel. There, they were given an electronic wrist strap as a vip entrance to a nearby theme park where they can ride anything for free - on condition that Mouri and Conan will stay and solve the case. It gets more interesting as the two meet up with Hattori and other detectives, only to discover that all of them are ... in the same predicament -- solve the case or the people they love will die! Its a fast-pace adventure as both conan, hattori, and mouri (he's serious for once, aww) race ahead of time to save their loved ones in the theme park.

This movie is probably the most questionable in the entire series. It's so questionable, I don't know if I can even call it a movie. It's more like a TV special made to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the franchise, but ended up being turned into a movie instead. As much as this movie may have its fans, Detective Conan: Requiem of the Detectives fails to impress as not only an anniversary film, but a film in general.

The only saving grace about this movie is its story, which has Conan and the other detectives try to solve a case for a client before they all ... explode. There is some semblance of a looming sense of dread, as every moment is leading closer and closer to death as the movie goes on. There are even a few decent character moments here and there. Of course, this is where the praise for this movie stops.

While the story itself is good, the execution is extremely lacking. Despite being under pressure to solve a case as soon as possible, the way the scenes are shot fail to capture that urgency. Everything feels so slow and plain that it eliminates any semblance of tension that the characters may be under right now. What also ruins this movie even more is its art and animation. The Detective Conan movies usually have a level of polish that puts them above the anime series. Here, there is no trace of quality or refining done to either the art or animation. It is, quite literary, an extended episode.

If this were a TV special, then I wouldn't mind it so much (then I wouldn't even need to review it). But this isn't just a movie; it's a movie celebrating the 10th anniversary of the series. When put into that context, what does it have going for it? What can you watch in this movie that you can literally see in any other movie? Heiji and Kaito Kid? They already have their own movies. Everyone is going to be killed if Conan doesn't solve the case? Try the Eleventh Striker. Requiem of the Detectives' main problem is how basic it all is; every other movie before and after it did the same things that this movie does but even better. It's almost like this movie only had the story to work with and just did whatever with everything else.

Before I end this review, I do want to stress that this only just me speaking and that my opinion may not apply for everyone else. These movies are like different flavors of ice cream. Some are like chocolate. Some are like strawberry. Some are even like pistachio. If I had to define Requiem of the Detectives as an ice cream flavor, it would be vanilla. Not French vanilla or vanilla bean; just basic vanilla. Some people like vanilla and that's okay. Even I'm morbidly curious what maple bacon ice cream tastes like. As such, Requiem of the Detectives will always be somebody else's favorite Detective Conan movie no matter what I think of it.