009 Re:Cyborg

As a large fan of the Cyborg 009 series, this movie felt like a personal offense. The movie is a darker, 'realistic' reimagining on the series and its characters. This isn't inherently a bad thing, of course, but it comes off as following the current trend of gritty remakes instead of trying to understand its source material.

The plot is confusing whether you are familiar with the show or not. It might help to be acquainted with the characters and their backstories beforehand, but the movie doesn't even try to explain its own universe. What little there is of the story is given through large, boring ... exposition with nothing visually interesting happening on the screen. Questions constantly asked throughout the film are only ever answered with a character shrugging their shoulders, then are never addressed again. All of this is topped with a near comically vague ending.

The art is a strange hybrid of CGI and 2D, which makes for a lot of blank staring and jerky movement. The animation is at its best when there's a lot of action going on screen - but considering RE's love for characters talking to one another about the scarce plot, satisfying fights are few and far between.

As far as sound goes, this is one of the only things I don't have any real qualms with. It wasn't memorable or anything, but it wasn't terrible and at least upped the hype a little at certain points in the film.

As far as the characters go in this movie, they themselves are not bad. What is bad, however, is their treatment. Jet has been turned into an extreme asshole with far worse of an attitude than we've ever seen before, and has lost his defining physical features. Francoise meanwhile has been shoehorned into a sex symbol being the series only main female character, complete with a pointless, uncomfortably long scene of her in lingerie making out with Joe. There's not much to say about the other characters, as they didn't get much screen time.

All in all, I'm giving this movie a 1 for all around poor story, poor animation, and poor characters. Perhaps watch it if you're looking for something hilariously bad and confusing, but otherwise I recommend you skip it entirely.

Let me first point out that the old series was incredibly corny and flunky by today's standards. However, at its time of airing it had a lot of relevance, mainly due to the historical context of the Cold War and political climate, something this movie failed to include when adapting it for the current generation. Buildings being bombed in the name of God... it sure does seem like a subject that could make a point of modern terrorism and politics, but instead it turns into a pseudo-philosophical quest to search for God.

The villain of the movie is illogical on every level. While the series ... had a running theme of questioning religion and often exposing them as frauds, this story instead decides to portray God as a real tangible thing, and not just as a tool used by humans to control the masses. I do not dislike it for being different, I am calling it out for going against the main themes of the franchise to the point that it might as well have been called something else.

I like the new designs of the characters, it is a shame they weren't given more time to shine. I'm aware that they could not have fleshed them all out on such limited time, but I believe they still could have made them work together more often, rather than just make Joe the Tom Cruise of the team.

It had a few action-scenes of note that I enjoyed, though they are few and far between, and finally the ending is nonsensical cop-out. If you're a fan, or have high demands of this, please skip it.

Good animation and a beautiful soundtrack ruined by nonsensical ramblings on the nature of God and religion, which I'm not quite sure the scriptwriter knew anything about.

The animation is good for CG animation. It's Production I.G., after all. Faces were a bit wonky at times, especially Francoise's, but nothing really all that bad.

The music is fantastic, and by far the best part of the movie. It was done by Kenji Kawai, who is well known for his work on Ghost in the Shell and Fate/Stay Night, so the high quality comes at no surprise. On the flip side, the voice work was fine. Nothing really ... stuck out to me, though.

The worst part of this whole movie were the characters and story. The story was utterly bizarre. I think it was supposed to be some kind of commentary on religion, but at best it comes across as pretentious garbage written by an edgy teenager, and as borderline offensive at worst. Ultimately, all of it seems entirely irrelevant to a story about cyborg spy-heroes. Characters are almost entirely non-existent. They merely exist to spout more nonsense and make the plot progress. Cardboard boxes have vastly more personality than these pieces of garbage.

Don't bother watching this movie and just look the soundtrack up on Youtube or something instead. That's a significantly better use of your time, trust me.