Movie Review #45 - Akira
Jul. 15th, 2007 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2Just for a change, I have seen the source material for an adapted film before I saw the film and I am glad that I did - but I still like this movie. Given that this movie is based on some 2000 pages of writing (manga-ing?), it naturally simplifies its source material but, in doing so, it doesn't lose the core of the original story.
First check of the watch - watch? what watch?
It is powerful and vivid and another post-apocalyptic tale that impressed me with its tone and vision. Overall, it is a fairly bleak tale of one version of the planet's future but the redeeming values are some very old-fashioned ones - love, loyalty, duty to others and so on.
Tetsuo's transition from somewhat erratic and impulsive petty criminal and gang member to ravening destroyer of the world is remarkable - so subtle and gradual at first but then more bizarre and gross as time goes on. The loyalty of his friends, especially Kaneda, is all that (almost) saves him. Just before you think that it becomes too trite, know that the ending is bleak and destructive despite all their best efforts.
Dream sequences are funny things in animation - because you can do absolutely anything, it is, ironically, hard to make them believable and yet one of the highlights of this movie are the increasingly vivid and twisted visions/hallucinations that Tetsuo experiences as he changes.
The setup for "What is Akira?" is just as well done as in the manga and the entire reveal sequence and subsequent battle is a heart-thumping action set piece.
Great movie that paid respect to its source material whilst becoming its own creation.
First check of the watch - watch? what watch?
It is powerful and vivid and another post-apocalyptic tale that impressed me with its tone and vision. Overall, it is a fairly bleak tale of one version of the planet's future but the redeeming values are some very old-fashioned ones - love, loyalty, duty to others and so on.
Tetsuo's transition from somewhat erratic and impulsive petty criminal and gang member to ravening destroyer of the world is remarkable - so subtle and gradual at first but then more bizarre and gross as time goes on. The loyalty of his friends, especially Kaneda, is all that (almost) saves him. Just before you think that it becomes too trite, know that the ending is bleak and destructive despite all their best efforts.
Dream sequences are funny things in animation - because you can do absolutely anything, it is, ironically, hard to make them believable and yet one of the highlights of this movie are the increasingly vivid and twisted visions/hallucinations that Tetsuo experiences as he changes.
The setup for "What is Akira?" is just as well done as in the manga and the entire reveal sequence and subsequent battle is a heart-thumping action set piece.
Great movie that paid respect to its source material whilst becoming its own creation.
