Adjective:
Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.
Yep, I’m once again exploring the direction of Mamoru Oshii and this time, it’s based around the Japanese novel series by Hiroshi Mori that follows the journeys and tribulations of a group of young fighter pilots involved in dogfight warfare, set in an alternate historical period, but it is never mentioned what year or century it takes place. I assume it would be in the near future, due to some notices of technological advances.
The plot involves ace pilot Yūichi Kannami is reassigned to Area 262 after the deaths of three pilots and bond with the other piloting corps, the chief mechanic, and the base’s CO. There is also a subplot with the mystery that is Kildren and they are humanoids genetically designed to live eternally in adolescence and one of these people in Area 262 happens to be one of them but I’m not going to reveal who it is. Also there is a master pilot fighter who goes by “The Teacher” and this is, by far, the biggest threat to the main characters despite it not being more important enough.
Now it’s time for a HybridMedia fun fact: The Japanese dub version both feature actresses Rinko Kikuchi & Chiaki Kuriyama and I happen to know there is a movie “Six-degrees” like connection with them. As in, Rinko Kikuchi played the deaf girl in “Babel”, a movie which stars Brad Pitt, who was in “Inglorious Basterds”, directed by Quentin Tarantino and he did “Kill Bill” and yet…..there are double connections. Production I.G. did the anime sequence in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Chiaki Kuriyama played Gogo Yubari. Isn’t learning fun?
(crickets chirping......)
But…….both the Japanese and English dubs sounded like they were either drifting off to sleep at some parts, especially from both actors that played Yūichi Kannami. It is very slow-paced and if you wondering about any dogfight scenes, they exist but I felt like I missed an interesting part of the movie and only see the ones not worth mentioning. Also, the CGI is really not a good idea (in my opinion, of course). It felt more liked a computer game rather than a movie and Production I.G. is no stranger with CGI, counting the opening of GiTS: Stand Alone Complex, 1st season & GiTS2: Innocence but the animation is still standard.
Now, I get some people call this movie “pretentious and slow”, and they are….
Well, they are 50/50 on this.
FINAL VERDICT: Despite some good dogfight scenes, I completely lost interest in some parts of this movie. It’s just average quality in terms of storytelling and characters but I wasn’t expecting GiTS quality but I think they tried too hard with what they got and it backfired and disappointed.
