Sunday, July 27, 2014

Gatchaman (2013)

Look at that title, taking up the screen like it was proud of the source material (I won't mention other movies that have tiny little title screens, lame).  So I'm not a huge Gatchaman fan, but I do quite enjoy the original series.  I can even watch Battle of the Planets occasionally.  But I don't care if they make changes in the source material for a live action adaption.

This one starts out pretty good.  It has Galactor coming to destroy humanity, and the "Receptors" being the only hope of said humanity.  It looks pretty dour, all things considered, that's for sure.
Tokyo is attacked (not by a giant mechanical turtle, sadly) but what looks strongly like a war wheel.  Science Ninja Team Gatchaman is sent in to stop Galactor and it's machine.  This is a pretty good action sequence, only marred slightly by the use of "Bullet Time" crap.  We also get introduced to our heroes via title cards.  This all happens in broad daylight, which is cool.
So we have Ryu (sadly, no bird names), Ken, Jinpei, Jun and... Condor George?  Whaaaa...?  Sure, his card says George, but it sounds to me like the cast is still saying Joe the entire movie.  Interesting... in the cartoon his original name was George.  Learn something new every day.
So Jun loves Ken, but he's a stick in the mud, what with being a stoic leader and all.  I can see his point, but this is why the girls usually like the sullen bad boys.  Unfortunately after the exciting 24 minute battle, we get a lot of talking and flashbacks.  I think some of this could have been done with another action scene, because it really slows the movie down.
 Eventually it gets going again, and we get to see the God Phoenix in action.  It looks a bit different, but pretty cool.  They get to use it for the final assault on Galactor and Berge Katse.  Plus the satellite weapon is going to be used to destroy five major cities of the world.  Good thing the humans invented it.
The final battle is pretty good.  There's more going on with Berge Katse than I've mentioned, but you'll have to watch for yourself.  The movie is just under 110 minutes, but really could have used one more action scene.  And REALLY could have ditched the final after credits scene... talk about predictable.

2 comments:

C. Elam said...

"Joji", with "Jo" being a shortened form. It sounds similar to "George" (in fact, that's how Spectreman handled it), but different names. I wouldn't be surprised if subtitles gave it as "George" though.

X7 said...

that's kind of what I thought. One more action sequence and I could really recommend it.