Video games movies are a hard bunch. How do you take a video game and translate it into live action? Will you take the risk of having a gigantic budget to achieve this goal by not only trying to make the movie look like the game but staying true to it's source or will you just half-ass the entire game by turning the movie that based of that certain property into a bunch of nothing? These are the questions that always linger to gamers and audiences whenever studios, either from Hollywood or international countries, decides on making movies based on games. The problem? They have no idea how to translate something that was great in a game into a film and even those who admit that it is a common problem to movie based games, they still f*ck it up when making a movie that tries too hard on being like the game. While they are several movies like Wreck-It Ralph! Prince of Persia and DOA: Dead or Alive (yes, that film based on a fighting game filled with bouncing boob physics) proving that games can be translated well into film, the majority like DOOM, Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, Postal, Far Cry, House of the Dead, Bloodrayne and all those unnecessary Resident Evil movies gives the genre an awful reputation. However, when you make an animated adaptation based off a game, it could get mixed results but work a lot better than live-action. Again, that's because animation is full of possibilities for any kind of project that can be limitless if you execute it correctly and this is something that almost works for animated movies based on video games like Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie or Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike, which allows filmmaker and animators to make a unique adaptation while still staying true to the spirit of the games that were based off.
This is where Bayonetta: Bloody Fate comes in and to find out whenever this film lives up to the spirit of the games or not.
For those who had never heard of Bayonetta or watched the TV spots for it's Wii U sequel Bayonetta 2 while still not having a clue on who she is, let me tell you the backstory. Bayonetta is a third-person hack and slash action game that was published by SEGA for the PS3 & XBOX 360 while being developed by Platinum Games (originally known as Clover Studios before CAPCOM shut down the studio due to Okami's poor sales for the PS2 and the studio was founded by Hideki Kamiya, Keiji Inafune and Atsushi Inaba) and the game acts as a spiritual successor to Devil May Cry since Hideki Kamiya not only directed Bayonetta but also he was responsible for Devil May Cry. It follows the story of Bayonetta, a sexy, seductive and charming witch who fights angels while trying to discover her secret origin behind the downfall of the Umbran Witches and the Lumen Sages and meeting up with some friends that might know more about Bayonetta than her own self. Let me get this out of the way and say that I love Bayonetta. No, scratch that, I just ADORE Bayonetta. Not only is the game fun but it contains one of the best female characters in gaming history. She is sexualized but doesn't bother her because she enjoys being sexy and takes sh*t from no one, she has a dark but wicked personality and a good sense of humor. Plus, she can release a can a whoop-ass with her hair as a magic weapon that allows her to release demons from Inferno and use the demons against the army of angels that swarm in her path. The game is also challenging but fun to play, the combat makes Devil May Cry dropped it's jaw with it's incredibly fast paced combos, the voice acting is wonderfully solid (that Joe Pesci impression that Chick Venerra makes is spot on as Enzo), the music is bloody amazing and the story, while crazy as hell, is still a really good story filled with very interesting lore of the Umbran Witches and Lumen Sages. The game was so damn impressive that it got a sequel to the Wii U due to poor sales in the US release for Bayonetta, SEGA dropping the rights to the franchise without giving any form of support and Nintendo greatly helping funding the sequel to Platinum Games.
Imagine my surprise when a Bayonetta anime film was announced back in 2013 and boy, did fans went crazy for this. Who wouldn't be hyped considering Fuminori Kizaki (the director behind AFRO SAMURAI) is helming the film while Gonzo is behind the task of bringing Bayonetta to full colored form. As for me, I wasn't hyped but I was truly excited to see Bayonetta back in a new way and in an anime no less. I sat down, watched it and after it was over... It just kinda ended. By all means, it wasn't a horrible film but the amount of potential of Bayonetta combined with animation was sorta lost in this adaptation and it marks my biggest problem with the movie but I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start at the beginning shall we?
The story in Bloody Fate is just like in the games but with little differences. It still centers around Bayonetta on searching for her answers of the past while dealing with other characters like Luka, a young journalist who has connections with Bayonetta due to him thinking that she killed her father when she was found at the bottom of the lake, Jeanne, an Umbran Witch that may have connections to her past and Balder, a powerful man who's conjuring up some mischievous plan to resurrect a great goddess in order to change the universe. The good thing about the story is that for those who never played Bayonetta can easily watch this film and understand the whole plot of the film without being required to play the game. That said though, the big problem is that the film's story is handled like a freaking mess with the film literally spoiling the big twists at the beginning of the damn movie. I get that fans of the game won't be bothered by this but for the common viewer that has never heard of or played Bayonetta, it is a big glaring problem when a story doesn't take it's time in developing the story and it's twists properly by instantly throwing it to our faces. For example, the scene in The Gates of Hell showed Enzo telling Bayonetta and the audiences that Balder might be up to something really bad that stupidly gives away the surprise connection between Bayonetta and Balder. Also, some of the changes in the characters are really bothering to me like again with Balder. While the other characters including Bayonetta are perfectly translated into film, the way the film handles Balder is one of the biggest screw ups in the film. To explain why I find this bothersome, I have to go into big spoiler territory into Bayonetta 1 & 2 to explain why:
For me, I find Balder to be an engaging sympathetic villain that may have started out as an evil bad guy in the first game but with Bayonetta 2, it reveals a lot more of Balder that we thought was impossible to execute but it did and worked. Balder is a man that not only was claimed as a great Lumen Sage among his clan but he was a man who wanted to have a family with the love of his life at her side, who's revealed to be Rosa, Bayonetta's mother and one day, they did by giving birth to a child by giving her the name Cereza, Bayonetta's original name from the first game. However, fate begins to turn ugly when the Umbran Elder, discovering the truth behind the relationship between Rosa, Balder and their child while also being furious about the truth, forbids them from having the child due to the laws of the Umbran and the Lumens that they are forbidden to express love or have any kind of relationship in order to keep the balance of the light and darkness at bay. For this, both Rosa and Balder are charged with treason and imprisoned while their child is forbidden to learn the arts of combat of the Umbran clan while being separated from her mother. Balder expressed great hatred against both the clans for destroying their connections and this triggers the events of "The Witch Hunts" when the spirit Loptr, who is later revealed to be a split spirit from "The Eyes of the World" jewels and was the split personality of Loki (good) and Balder (evil), he let Loptr possess his body and thus, the massacre of the clans began with Rosa getting killed in the process while Balder suffers as his malevolent spirit using his body destroys everything he hold dears while he does nothing but watch and grief. In the end of Bayonetta 2 where both Bayonetta and a young Balder defeat Loptr, Balder sacrifices his own body by getting the spirit of Loptr back in his body to prevent him on destroying the past yet again while apologizing to Bayonetta for not being there for her when needed and asked her to call him "Daddy" one last time before his pure soul becomes corrupted once more. This whole summary is why I like Balder cause he is a villain but I can understand his torment and suffering of not seeing her own daughter because that chance of happiness was taken from him and in the end, he gets the chance to fight alongside her daughter one last time before fading away with Loptr being inside his soul. This backstory could have provided so much for this more but instead, the movie decides to make him the generic "the world is terrible and must be destroyed to be reborn a better place while being blinded from his own loved one" stereotypical villian and did I mention that his final battle is beyond weak? He gets killed off very quickly for 3 minutes and that's it! That's the biggest waste of potential I've seen for a villain since M.Bison from the Street Fighter The Movie.
Speaking of action and animation, Bloody Fate is a mixed bag. When the animation and action gets good, it gets really good with animation being extremely fluid with tiny visual details during the flashy battles that stays true to the spirit of the game's maniacal action and the animation manages to translate the look of the game perfectly with little changes done to the character designs since director Fuminori Kizaki and character designer Ai Yokoyama are fans of the games and did an aoutstanding job at executing the feel and look of Bayonetta wonderfully. However, when the action stops and we get back to the main plot, the animation gets a huge downgrade with backgrounds, while looking very nice, barely having substance to bring the world to life. There's barely people in the whole film minus the scenes on the train, the news footage and the highway sequence but that's really about it and while the character designs look nice, the models themselves don't really seem very life-like since most of the models just stand around while objects move around the background and the CG looks very off at times cause it doesn't really go well with the hand-drawn animation during various sequences of action. Reason? It's because GONZO is infamous for having budget issues and adding CG to every show or movie they worked on and while not all of GONZO's projects are a mess (Romeo X Juliet, Gankutsuo: The Count of Monte Cristo, Welcome to the NHK and AFRO SAMURAI are my favorites work from GONZO), they tend to get screwed over their own budget constraints that results into badly unfinished animated sequences (like for example; Samurai 7, where one episode showcases creepy looking unfinished character models dancing creepily like ghosts and it looked like a nightmare). While Bayonetta: Bloody Fate looks better than GONZO'S other projects and a better control over it's budget, it still contains some animation misfires that prevent this film from achieving animation perfection status. Also, the movie misses the mark on making more animated sequences with Bayonetta fighting the big 4 angels and I kid you not, there is no epic battles with Fortitudo, Temperatina, Iustitia and Sapientia but instead, reduced to pointless cameos that are never mentioned again. Really film?! You're gonna pass the chance at making unique action sequences for these 4 boss angels that provided one of the best boss battles in gaming history and only provide them cameos for Fortitudo and Temperatina?! What were they thinking!
Now for the grand finale of Bloody Fate: The dub by Funimation. I'm happy to report that the dub for Bloody Fate is pretty good with Funimation getting the entire cast to dub the film including Helena Taylor as Bayonetta, Grey DeLisle as Jeanne, John Kassir as Enzo, Dave Fennoy as Rodin, Yuri Lowenthal as Luka, Joy Jillian as Cereza and J. Grant Albrecth as Balder with the entire cast obviously having a blast with minor faults that goes to Joy Jillian and J. Grant Albrecth sounding very off in their roles since in the games, both of these actors gave wonderful performances that sounded distinct and unique. Also, Patrick Seitz and Dave Fennoy's perfomances as Fortitudo and Temperatina are OK but I wished they speaked in that menacing angelic language instead of hearing it in English. Also, Richard Epcar's voice narration in the beginning was pretty cool, so kudos.
Overall, Bayonetta: Bloody Fate is a disappointment for fans of the game expecting a new ambitious take on the game but it is an enjoyable adaptation that manages to capture the charm and relentless action that made Bayonetta awesome to play. GONZO and Fuminori Kizaki deserves lots of credits for trying their damnest to make a solid adaption of the game and If you're a fan of the games or just curious, Bloody Fate deserves just one watch but at least it gives us a glimpse look on more possibilities for a Bayonetta anime film or series if any animation studio in Japan wants to take at another stab on this seductive witch.
