Based on the big Shonen Jump series, My Hero Academia, comes its third theatrical outing. And from the title, World Heroes Mission, one would assume it should be more global in scale... thats not really the case for the most part.
The main plot is set around a mysterious terrorist organization named "Humarise" with plans to rid the world of the series staple ability "Quirks" and their users with the use of bombs set up around the world. The main trio from the series, Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, and Shoto Todoroki come along with their classmates, divided into teams with other professional heroes from both their home in Japan and around the globe to stop Humarise. However, Midoriya and the movies original main character, Rody Soul, get caught up into an incident that the police of the country of Otheon declare Midoriya a criminal!
Said incident, where briefcases get swapped, where I believe even the script of the movie gets swapped, as instead of a world sprawling action rescue mission, we mostly get a second act that goes about as a buddy roadtrip with Midoriya and Rody. And there's nothing wrong with that, I personally find it does the original character alot of service. Roy is a very entertaining character and even endearing, a very expressive person with a cute little bird mascot like being called Pino. But it does come at a cost of anything substantial for the "world" part of the movie.
Every once in a while we get to see the other heroes in action, including alot of the cast from the series, Ochaco, Froppy, Fatgum, Endeavor, Hawks, etc and they and their scenes are entirely just for action set pieces, not even anything for the movie exclusive heroes (Including a paper thin Pharoah looking guy, I really wanted to know more about him, but got nothing).
Same can be said about the villains too. I don't if I just didn't pay attention enough or something, but if it wasn't for this nice little booklet I got at the theater, I wouldn't even have known any names whatsoever expect for the main villain, but honestly most of the villains might have been left entirely nameless cause there's no development for them at all, Rody got all of that, even Bakugo and Todoroki get get nothing except fights.
At the very least the movie treats you to very spectacular action scenes, not too many down time moments for the first and third acts of the film. Personally I found that Bakugos fight in the third was pretty brutal, I halfway expected him to get help midway through, while Todoroki doesn't really have anything different to display from what has been shown in the anime and manga. And Midoriyas fight was, to put it as basic as I can, rubber banding himself at the main villain. But yeah, the animation was pretty top notch for the majority of the film, with a very fun and entertaining chase scene at the beginning.
But I really have to put more into how disappointed I was with the set up. There was so much with Rody and the fictional city of Otheon and despite how much I liked Rody, there was nothing substantial from the rest of the world or other original heroes and villains that I have to wonder why was the movie even called "World Heroes Mission?"
Even Midoriya was pretty flat and bland in this movie.
At least to go alot with the animation, the music was pretty good, though mostly slight remixes of themes from the anime (Yes, You Say Run is played in the final fight too), and I personally saw the English dub, for anyone like myself that enjoys the dub, its well done here too.
Overall:
+ Good Animation
+ Good action scenes, especially Bakugos fight and the first acts chase scene.
+ Rody Soul is very enjoyable character that's easy to care about.
- Doesn't live up to the title, almost feels misleading.
- Villains are basically nameless nobodies to get beaten up.
- Original world heroes get nothing in this movie.
- Everyone that wasn't Rody was either just there for action scenes or don't get any development.
