Psycho-Pass Movie

Summary: I'm a huge fan of Psycho-Pass as a franchise, and believe that it embodies what it means to be a great anime. So it comes as no surprise that I not only watched this movie, but also enjoyed it quite a bit. However, I also strongly believe that Psycho-Pass' strength lies in not its beautiful art nor its amazing soundtracks (both of which are fantastic), but rather on its philosophical explorations and thoughtful plot/character development. As a result, even though I did greatly enjoy this movie, as a fan and honest critic I have to give it a less-than-stellar rating. Now in more depth:

- ... Art: As mentioned in other reviews, the art is nothing short of fantastic. From the initial guerrilla scenes to the final showdown (to avoid spoilers), little can be said to detract from the artwork and animation.

- Sound: The music and OST for the movie are both excellent, and the ending is a thrill for old Psycho-Pass fans. Again, nothing much to criticize here, but nothing much to gush over either.

- Character: This was one of the low points of the movie, particularly in comparison to standard set by the other Psycho-Pass seasons. Unlike in the other two seasons, Akane doesn't really develop at all in the movie, and the denouement where she inevitably has a "showdown" with the Sybil System (no Psycho-Pass story would be complete without one) is disappointing, if only because it shows how shallow the whole theme behind the movie was. (More on this in the Story section.) The only upside in the character department is that Ginoza finally gets some closure, which was great to watch, but otherwise nothing is resolved. Makishima is provided a 10-second appearance just for the fangirl screams, and our protagonists (by whom I mean Akane and Kogami) end the movie at about the same point they started it. As a side note: why the !#$% does Shimotsuki still exist? I haven't been this pissed off at an anime character since the infamous Nina of Code Geass.

- Story: Ah, the story. I'll discuss both the plot and the whole premise of the movie here, since in Psycho-Pass they're often one and the same. In short, it was a pretty awful execution of a potentially interesting idea. The Sybil System, with some improvements and elbow-twisting from Akane, has been functioning more or less well in almighty Nippon, so inevitably we have the question of what happened to the rest of the world. This movie starts to answer that: well, the rest of the world was kind of destroyed. At least, the world as we know it today. Lawlessness and war are the fixtures of the day, and humans have reverted to living in a sort of tribal society.

So what is the benevolent Sybil System to do but to export itself to save the rest of the world? (Hint: white man's burden, Washington Consensus) We see the System exported to southeast Asia, and the consequences that follow; how they go about dealing with the "aboriginals" and imposing law on such a society. Some of the ideas, as with others in Psycho-Pass, are quite interesting (i.e. the collars), and the premise itself is quite interesting. But unfortunately, this is about as much praise I can give, for the rest of the movie's execution is sub-par.

What could have been a fascinating exploration of how the Sybil System deals with the challenges of assimilating a "rabid" population and of the process of building a society from essentially scratch is instead turned into a typical military coup d'etat in which (*spoilers ahead*) the ultimate bad guy turns out to be (surprise!) a criminally asymptomatic puppet of the Sybil System. Hey, it's not like we've seen that as the climax of pretty much every season right? And Akane (surprise!) uses talk-no-jutsu with increasingly strained logic to get the Sybil System to back down. A job well done!


All in all, this movie is, of course, something of a must-watch for Psycho-Pass fans; I mean, if you were raving as hard as I was about the TV seasons, then you probably didn't even read this review before watching it. But simply as a piece of the art form that is anime, and more so as a successor of the Psycho-Pass franchise, this movie was something of a disappointment.

Nice eye candy, but NOT as good as the original series! Not even close.

I know that movies can never be quite as deep as shows due to the time constraints, but the Psycho-Pass movie was a big step down from the original series and I'm still trying to determine whether it damaged the series as a whole in my eyes.

**spoiler zone**

Let's start with the most important aspect -- story. There were two things that I really enjoyed here. One was the initial few minutes of the story, with foreign terrorists attacking Sybil-controlled Japan which I thought was just really cool. The second main thing was ... the idea of Sybil attempting to expand outside of Japan, and the setting of the movie outside of Japan. I thought it added a new angle to the whole Sybil thing that wasn't explored in the original, which was a nice touch.

As for the bad, well, I'd say most of the issues were in the latter half of the movie. Possibly the worst part was the ending, where Akane discusses morality with the Sibyl body-double version of Chairman Hang. It was a repeat of the ending of season 1, but less novel and somehow infinitely less interesting: Akane convinces the soulless Sibyl system (yes, again) to alter its way of thinking through a few generic arguments you'd hear in an Ethics 101 class. This whole theme of Akane being such a pure and righteous waifu that Sibyl itself has to change itself to meet her standards is/was kind of interesting in the first run, but left a bad taste in my mouth in the movie not just because of the deja vu but because of the nature of the argument itself:

Sibyl: We had to start taking over this country because people are in a civil war, so we kinda installed a puppet government through this fake dictator body thing.
Akane: People want to decide stuff for themselves!
Sibyl: Oh, we never heard that one before even though we're made up of thousands of human brains... let's change the plan.

While the original series struck a more careful balance to evaluate the pros/cons of Sibyl, this movie focused much more heavily on the cons making it less realistic and more... generic I suppose. The philosophy just wasn't there this time.

The movie also dropped the ball when it came to characters. It wasn't so much the members of the original Unit 1 that were the problem, as they pretty much stayed the same. It was the lack of decent villains, most noticeably the lack of Makishima Shougo (except for the hallucination scene) that really made me realize how important he was to the original Psycho Pass. And if Sibyl itself can be considered a character (I personally think so), I think the aforementioned issue I had with the ending subtracted a lot of brownie points from this score as well.

Having criticized the movie enough, I want to give a round a applause to Yoshikazu Iwanami for an excellent job at the soundtrack. And to the animators at Production IG, some scenes looked amazing and you drew Akane really well (And I'm not just saying that because of the two -- yes, two! -- prolonged scenes of her in the bathroom) but there were definitely some choppy moments that were noticeable. And yes, I know it's not their fault, it's obvious that the team was rushed near the end of this movie.

Enjoyment? 6. Despite being an action movie, I always felt that Psycho Pass shined the most with its philosophy and ability to explore interesting dilemmas that aren't available in other shows. As a result, I feel like we got style over substance.

I felt bad about giving the movie a 5 after giving the original show a 9, but it had to be done. Psycho pass season 1 was THAT much better, even accounting for its significantly longer runtime. Maybe they should have kept the setting in Japan, as the scope of this movie was probably too big for its length and it resulted in a sloppy story and ending.

In one word: meh. If I said that season 2 was disappointing because it was just like watching a rerun, this one is disappointing because it's nothing like the original Psycho-Pass. It's more like your standard American action movie, they just need to add Bruce Willis to the voice cast for perfection.

The movie explains that Japan is the only functioning country in the world, due to the Sybil system, and the rest of the world is just one big warzone with no functioning governments. Japan is leading an effort to stabilize the region by having Sybil remotely manage foreign countries as well, starting with the ... South East Asian Union, which was in the middle of a bloody civil war. After a terrorist attack in Japan, which appears to have originated in the SEAU, and with a possible sighting of the escaped enforcer Shinya Kougami in the area, inspector Akane Tsunemori heads to the SEAU to asset how Sybil manages the area, who is behind the terrorist attack in Japan and hopefully catch Kougami while at it.
Whether it sounds interesting or not, from the point where Tsunemori arrives in the SEAU there's hardly anything in the movie similar to Psycho-Pass, apart form the occasional mention - it's basically just a war between a ruling junta and guerilla fighters, just explosions and guns. We've all seen dozens if not hundreds of movies exactly like that.

Anyway, if you're just looking for the casual "let's watch people kill each other" movie, go ahead, or you might as well just watch "Die Hard" again. If you're looking for anything unique, you won't find it here.

Art - Same as the TV anime so it gets the same score. Sound is excellent, especially if you have a 5.1 system.

Aaa, Psycho-Pass... Once a great doesn't mean it can get a legacy.

After a whole week of pondering whether to see Psycho-Pass movie, I finally gave in the urge and actually enjoyed the first half of it. While it may have been driven by my bias since I like the prospect of the original protagonist returning in the spotlight, soon, in the latter half, it was crushed by an anticlimactic conclusion.

Given Psycho-Pass already embracing their fallen grace, from the great season one to the poorly-written sequel, I was foolish to think that the movie would serve as a holy gargle to wash out the bad taste ... of the season 2. And yeah, like aforementioned I did enjoyed the first half and literally got bored on the latter parts.

So I'll start the points to my review in my usual format.

The story wasn't bad nor it was any good either. Though a "mediocre" term is simply an insult as well. Frankly, the story had given the movie a good drive.

Enters Shamballa, a newly-made cage for those who had just adapted the Sybil System. With its inferior function compared to the original, misfits and the rule of the systeml itself wasn't stabilized in the said country.

Then comes Kougami, in his recurring main role. This is why I'm always telling my friends that without Kougami, Psycho-Pass can never be such a bad-ass title. He now staged a guerilla faction opposing the Sybil as always. With his drive for his self-defined justice, he opted to act on his proven instincts to help the minority live another day.

Finally, Akane. The notion of having Kougami and Akane in one movie was mouthwatering, but unfortunately, their reunion was bland and as far as I'm concerned, really unconvincing. With hopes of arresting her admired model, Akane sets off to Shamballa to start of her investigation but it seems like the ever-calculated Sybil System had already seen through her intentions from the very start and purposely let go of her so that she won't pose a dent to their plans.

Thus, the fateful reunion emerges and Kougami showed her the real situation of the country and so on and so on...

Now we point on the focal minus of the movie and that is the villains.

By now, we all know that Sybil System is a mass of Zero crime-coeffiecient brains, so the movie took a slightly different approach to their previous portrait of bad guys. Coming on this movie is a bunch of foreign mercenaries, which were totally honed as veterans on the warfields only to turn like idiots in the last part of the film. Aside from the big gorilla boss, who posed lethal threat to Kougami's hand-to-hand combat, the bunch who were pretty much intensified from their initial appearance were reduced to mincemeat without even resisting in the end and it was such a major turn-off.

Another was this Colonel who initially appeared like an obedient dog turned out he is the mastermind of all. He was a waste of character development as he never acted like a real villain. The textbooked aspect of his has never left an impression and like any of the other villains, he was simply shot in the end, splattered his insides and that's it.

The only villain worth mentioning is the ever-charismatic Makishima Shougo who appeared as Kougami's delusion. In the midst of their discourse, Makishima has indeed labelled Kougami as a bloodhound, only driven by his own view of justice. That itself served as a salvation for the majority of the bad dialogues and it was enough for me to tolerate the rest of the show.

In the end, it was Akane's "Talk-no-jutsu" that finished the squabble. It was good at the least I think, one of the few worth mentioning. After all, Akane was written as the type to adhere the law and maintain it as fair as it can be.

Ending this review, while the movie has indeed showed glimpses of greatness, it was all because Kougami was included in the cast. Imagine the movie without him and it will certainly, turn into one of the most forgettable films ever made.

Still, with Kougami's tenacity towards finding his peace or perhaps, his resting place remains unsolved, there's still so much to expect from his character. With him still lurking outside the cage, I think it's safe to expect a third season years from now. Whether we see Akane finally arresting him, or he becomes the biggest villain the System has ever face yet faced, I'm still hoping that Psycho-Pass can redeem themselves into one of the greats.

The animation, characters, story and sound direction were all great for this movie. But, half of the characters are supposed to be fluent English speakers and they just are not. Characters need translation devices to go from English to Japanese or back again... but the English speakers are painfully not fluent. I couldn't deliver lines in Japanese either. Who thought this was a good idea?

The most broken and monotone lines you could imagine break immersion completely. This movie plummeted in my eyes from an 8 or 9 right down to a 6.

I have to say this is one of the few times that ... I'd want someone to do a dub. Japanese voice actors are usually better (and the lines in Japanese are good) but this movie is nearly unwatchable.

If you can get past the godawful English voice acting you'll find a good sequel to the first season of Psycho Pass.

[Update]- Watched the Dub. It's much better. This is really an exception that proves the rule.

Sequels are a very efficient way to promote a series that the audience seems to have in a special part of their hearts. However, when one must undertake the role of creating a sequel, he has to reconsider what made the series popular, capitalize on that and try to bring more depth into the universe. Unfortunately, the vast majority seem to fall into the trap of Michaelbayanism. That is to take your first movie and create a sequel that lacks the shine of the original or is thematically weak and terrible in almost all categories except production most of the times. Nonetheless, there are some ... cases where the sequels are better than the originals ever wish to be. Such a case is Captain America: Winter Soldier which was superior to its typical, generic prequel. Another case is Terminator 2 which grabbed the charm of the original and multiplied the badassery and cool factor by 5 while having a pretty solid story to hold it from being like schlock action films such as the ones that followed it.

But to my disappointment, Psycho-Pass the Movie is closer to the former than the latter one.

The story and characters are just average. The setting is your typical futuristic dystopia but in another country in which a villain for selfish purposes tries to bypass the system and get recognition. Sounds familiar? Akane is the main protagonist again and thankfully she is closer to how she was during season 1 but more mature and far from the way she was portrayed in Season 2 which was a huge mess. But, still, Mika is the condescending ignorant fool that she was in Season 2 and she makes me want to shoot her face with a machine gun remorselessly. Thankfully, she only has 2 minutes of screen time, praise the Lord, Production IG did right. But to my dismay, the plot plays so typically and by the numbers that you feel this movie is overall not something to ponder a lot about. It does not also help that all the interesting theme exploration from season 1 is not quite there. Thus, the content of the movie can be nothing more than mediocre and that affected also the characters. And do not get me started with Kogami Shinya who does absolutely nothing in the movie than say quotes and boring talk and fights. If he was not in the movie nothing would have changed.

Production-wise, it is Production IG. Almost all the works they have done have great audiovisuals to accompany them (some exception on my list are the abunai sisters and eden of the east). EGOIST is one of my favorite groups in anime music and their music is eargasm to the core and they have Guilty Crown to prove how good their songs are, which were too good for the show itself.

Overall, this movie is like cheap ice-cream you will find in the fridges at your local supermarket. You know they are decent but they cannot beat the deliciousness and smoothness of fresh italian gelato. In terms of standing, it is less good than the original but far better than the mess the second season was which makes it a decent but otherwise forgettable watch.

Overall: 6.66/10 (I wish this score was not true).

Alternative Recommendations:
Ghost in the Shell (1995) for its great thematic information and its well-choreographed fight scenes.
Ghost in the Shell SAC which shows how re-adaptations or re-imaginations of original material should be done.

Terrible.

Not that terrible but still terrible. This is why I hate anime films especially already having a backstory behind it. They don't know whether they should develop their existing characters further or shoehorn new ones. Case in point, the black guy antagonist is basically discount Shogo Makishima except he preaches a different line of shit, I am not sure why they have to reference western literature so many times.

Nothing happens here, basically, Sibyl has been introduced into another country, literally ask the same exact question as the first season.

You thought they were going to explore how a dictatorship can take advantage of Sibyl ... System? No. Nothing, basically, same conclusion as last time. "IF IT WORKS DON'T FIX IT", I am not sure what to say here, the concept is to keep everyone emotionally stable as a fundamental perception of criminality is just really stupid. Stress from work overwhelming you?

Time to take a happy pill or die. I am deviating and digressing but the point is, if you are just going to show how it literally works every time and people are happy over it, what is the morally grey question being asked here? Repressing individuality is dismissed yet again as only the minority of them complains about which I find highly questionable if that is the case in this world, then whatever complains you have against the system should be dismissed because most people in this world have zero problems against it.

On the flimsy story and characters, in which finally, Akane and Kougami reunite, only to literally exchange words about how no character development has happened to each of them, apparently she thinks Kougami helping to overthrow a dictatorship is breaking the law, I have no idea how her brain works but I will accept it as her being a rigid bureaucrat and thinking that the Sibyl System as flawless. It was as intimate as it got as the backbone (characters) of what made Psycho Pass work has been replaced by this dictator subplot with an extremely unsatisfying conclusion with a bunch of characters no one cares about.