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Kidô senkan Nadeshiko: Prince of Darkness (1998)
A small taste of something different
After finishing the TV show for a second time, I decided to give this obscure yet polarizing follow-up a chance.
My appreciation of the Nadesico show mostly comes from the likeable cast and the humor, whether it arises from kooky homages to older science-fiction or from the cute character drama. Despite thouroughly enjoying the show, I have never been particularly impressed with the "serious" parts of the overarching story or the "main" characters. I think this makes me the perfect audience for this film.
Without getting into spoilers, the movie should not play well to an audience that is deeply involved in Akito and Yurika's story, yet will be completely inscrutable to anyone unfamiliar with the TV show. Nevertheless the story takes place a couple of years after the events of the show and more-or-less picks up where we left off.
On a technical level, there is little to fault the movie on. The soundtrack sounds familiar if unremarkable, but the animation is mostly very pleasing to the eye. The art style differs slightly from the show (and even more so from the manga) but the old character designs fit nicely into this new look. There are some visual references to the show and they do not clash with the rest of the film.
The movie's biggest detriments are its short running time (only 75 minutes without credits) and its confusing tone. There is a lack of development of the story -especially the ending- and characters -especially the new ones- and occasionally the pace makes the film unintelligible. Arguably, those criticisms apply to the show as well, but the stylish and "dark" Prince of Darkness cannot fall back on campy and cute moments to make itself more accessible to the viewer.
The film can be as dead-pan as Ruri, and viewers have to decide for themselves what should be taken seriously or what is tongue-in-cheek (or both). Certainly, making fun some of the drearier plot points would require a darker sense of humor than the show ever did. Most of the film is however faithful to the show approach's to parody and homage: it is simply taking from a wider range of influences beyond "Gekiganga". It is a shame that most of the new ideas are not fully explored, and that most characters only get a couple of scenes. The movie would make for an effective pilot to a new series, if nothing else.
Overall, I enjoyed the film as a glimpse into this universe's future, and as a higher budget and artsier take on the Nadesico formula. If you want to leave your memories of the show mostly intact, maybe stick to the Gekiganga OVA. This was a welcome -if ultimately incomplete- epilogue to the TV series that bettered my understanding and appreciation of the original ending.
Arthur, malédiction (2022)
Delightfully Horrendous
With this rating I am attempting to account for both the enjoyment provided by the film and its objective quality, which is nowhere near the illustrious standards of mediocrity.
This is one of those films that are so unintentionally funny, that you have to wonder if this wasn't the plan to begin with or a practical joke played on the cast and crew by writer/producer Luc Besson.
His involvement is the most shocking part. One can hardly imagine him sitting at his desk putting pen to paper and letting the words pour out on the page and not realizing what he is doing. Given the very repetitive dialogue and story structure, seemingly improvised lines and thin plotting, I have to assume that he only "wrote" a couple posted notes that he then stuck to the director's fridge.
Overall this a wonderful so-bad-it's-good film, because while the editing is tasteless and the acting atrocious -the actors cannot even pronounce words- it is very easy to follow and understand how the filmmakers are failing at what they are trying to accomplish. There are a couple of technical mistakes but -outside of the writing and acting- what makes the final product baffling are the creative decisions.
The very concept of the film is self-aggrandizing and the first half of the movie is a non-stop barrage of ad-libbing set to music. The movie is edited to the music's beat with an excessive amount of speedups and slowdowns which do not do much for the "scary" tone. The cast of teenagers get mowed down in mostly unrelated ways. One could easily edit out some of these characters from the final cut without impacting the story, which is not a good sign.
The ultimate conclusion is also nonsensical, and puts into question many of the events and character motivations. If I had to guess what the tone is supposed to be, it could charitably be interpreted as an Eli Roth-style genre send-off. I think this is going to be a Halloween staple for my friends and I going forward. If you enjoy terrible horror movies -or brilliant comedies- give this a try, the 90 minute running time just flew by.
Titane (2021)
Not taking advantage of your hold over the audience
Since there are not any other reviews yet, I will leave this one free of spoilers.
Having enjoyed the director's previous film Raw/Grave (2017), I was anticipating the release of Titane but was ultimately disappointed by the experience. As a fan of horror movies old and new, Grave managed to shock me during its more extreme scenes by having me engrossed in its story and characters. Titane has plenty of these kind of disturbing elements but is far less engaging.
The film is hard to fault on a technical or execution level. The weak link is the distracting, if restrained, use of below-average CGI for some effects. The performances are believable and mostly consistent given the outlandish material, at least in the French version. The most realized aspect of the movie is the cinematography, which is an blend of the colors of Nicolas Winding Refn and intense images of Michael Bay.
The similarities with Bay are reinforced by the content first few scenes, which led me to believe the movie would try to subvert the elements or vulgarity usually present his films. However it quickly falls out of this story-line and setting, leaving me to ponder what the goal of Titane actually is.
The movie simultaneously follows two story-lines which seem to belong to two different genres. The first one is highly fantastical and horrific, but is treated very seriously. This is where the influence of David Cronenberg's early body horror films is felt. The second one is dramatic and grounded in reality, yet requires a big suspension of disbelief from the audience. Essentially the movie uses the disturbing content of one story-line to distract from the least believable aspects of the other: this would be fine if the unlikely setting was used to reach interesting or strange situations and ideas.
During the viewing, I was most entertained with the film's few jabs at dark humor. My favorite scene in this vein actually occurs right before the main plot gets started, and from then on most of the humor disappears. I did not get much entertainment from the horrific content, which was not taken far enough and became obnoxious and numbing after a few scenes because of my lack of involvement in the story.
Overall, this movie mixes elements from Under the Skin (2013), Enki Bilal's work, Conenberg's Crash (1996) and France's own Martyrs (2008). I did not enjoy those last two either, because I did not care for what they were trying to accomplish. I am not sure what Titane is trying to accomplish, but maybe someone else can have some use from it.