天下制覇

 

I used to like you, UFO Table.

Been a while since I covered a movie. Or Rakkyo. Or UFOTable. I blame it on their newfound love of CGI, exposition, and wide angle shots from far away. Probably overcompensation for Coyote Ragtime. Anyway…

Impressions:

Not a stellar start. First there was the CGI bombardment, partially literally, then trying to introduce Seo and her power was… well, it began with her having a vision of a guy being hit by a car, complete with giblets raining down all around her, so then she stammered out to stop him and change the future. At this point, we’ve established her power and that she’s awkward. Just have Mikiya wander in to get her panties wet and scene over, right? Of course not. There were still nearly five bloody minutes left of it. From there, we jump into the brain and self-narration of Bomberman for… about six or seven more minutes of talking to the camera.

So here we are, twenty minutes in, and we’ve established… Seo exists, and some guy’s bombing things. I guess that Shiki’s after him because bombs are bad, but nobody really seems that into it for any reason besides, again, bombs are bad. As for what characters actually did, it can pretty much be summarized as “moved from point A to point B to give/listen to exposition.” There was a brief dynamic can throwing moment, and fifty damned minutes in Shiki simply jumped out of an explosion and then a moment later cut the future which was symbolized as licorice and plot concluded. With another thirty minutes to go. The final twenty minutes were spent in the future (no longer made of licorice) and Bomberman hanging out with Shiki’s daughter in what cannot possibly be a healthy relationship.

So basically, it was 80 minutes of rambling about the future. Nothing really driving it. Just “a couple people have magic future eyes, so let’s talk about it.” Well, more like probably 40 minutes of rambling about the future and 40 minutes of directionless padding. Minority Report it ain’t. Seo and Mikiya may as well have not existed at all and in fact did completely disappear from the last quarter of the movie. Even Shiki did nothing but cut one piece of licorice and spout off the same insipid dumbness about the future not being set. If you were hoping to see Shiki cut things (besides licorice), magical battles, magical anything, or any manner of excitement, you’re not getting it. I guess that still makes it a better tagline than the last ‘epilogue’ this series had, but that was just 20 minutes of unanimated heads in the rain. This one mainly surpassed that with the occasional shot of the ceiling.

And yes, I know there was another bloody 30 minutes of ‘bonus’ stuff included with the BRD. I’m exerting Aroduc Privilege to not care.