A pretty bad adaptation of one of the greatest manga arcs of all time. I do think adapting this arc as a movie trilogy provides more positives than negatives. Although it would suffer from some cut content (which in turn would affect the characterization and thematic depth) due to not being able to adapt everything in comparison to a TV series that has more time, it would be able to reach the extremely high artistic standards of the manga.
Berserk has some of the greatest art in any comic book, which makes it one of the hardest manga to adapt properly (also in part because of other aspects, like how it uses the comic medium to its full potential). A TV anime would not be able to do it justice because of the limited budgets and extremely tight schedules that plague a lot of shows in the industry. The budget, resources, and schedule of a movie would be able to emulate the ridiculous standards set by the manga to a much larger degree than a TV series. Unfortunately, the movie fails here and in many other parts too.
Right from the start, the film is littered with janky and bad CGI in a mediocre battle scene that showcases many of the other issues to come. CGI is used a lot in this film and it does not fit well at all with the 2D animation (which by itself is relatively decent). This in itself is pretty disappointing considering the art is one of the biggest strengths of the Berserk manga. The movie fails largely in the animation and a lot of the visuals, not living up to the transcendently dark yet beautiful atmosphere of the manga. Although, an apparent strength in this movie is the background art, which is pretty good most of the time.
As mentioned before, although some depth could be lost by reducing this arc to a movie trilogy because of cut content, this can be saved by some rewriting and making each film around 2 hours. The runtime of this film sends a bad sign as when removing the theme song, the preview of the next movie, and credits it’s less than 70 minutes. This issue is reflected in the terrible pacing, and an egregious amount of cut content that removes almost all the characterization, thematic depth, and subtlety that make this manga so amazing. If this is your first time getting into this series, these fantastically written characters like Casca, Guts, and Griffith will seem stale and boring to you.
This film also weirdly prioritizes a lot of action scenes and trivial scenes that are largely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. In turn, largely skipping a lot of the character-building moments and dialogues (until the last 15-20 minutes) that make Berserk so beloved. Important parts like Guts backstory are skimmed through in an uncreative and poorly directed 30-second nightmare sequence (where if you were new to this series you wouldn’t get it at all). Speaking about the directing, IT’S ASS. It seems this director has a pretty limited idea about what makes the source material so beloved based on a lot of decisions in this movie. Even with the running time being bad, the film itself could have probably been a lot better if it were handed off to somebody more experienced.
If you want to get into Berserk just read the manga because this series will not get a great adaptation anytime soon. It’s one of the best dark fantasy series in fiction. The 1997 TV anime adaptation of the golden age arc is pretty good, the only issues are some cut content (although it’s mostly minor and nowhere near as bad as this movie) and a limited budget which could be seen in the animation being stiff at times.
