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So did anyone see this last night on fathom events? If so, maybe you can help me out here.
You see when it comes to fighting games Tekken ranks in the mid range on my list. I haven't played many of them although my partner Enetirnel has hooked me up with a demo of 5 as well as full games of 4, tag team and even that Nina Williams spin off Death by Degrees. Honestly the last time I played any Tekken game was the second one back in the day and I may re-visit some of them on psn down the road.
So this written review is merely from someone who used to play those fighting games casually, and is just coming into the series again with a fresh perspective of the characters. I don't remember much about each plot from the games, but as I'm told from the writer, during the developer interview at the end, that shouldn't be a problem.
Okay, here it goes. I'm not sure what to make of this. A lot of the characters have names I can't even remember so I'll have to IMDB that ****.
Watching this movie and being reminded of Degeneration I was quickly pulled away by the inconsistent lip syncing issues that the RE CGI movie had. Now was this intended to be just an English dub (I'm aware this CGI film has a Japanese cast) or were they trying to make lip syncs for both? I'm not sure. At times though it makes me feel spoiled that people like Kojima have products recently that cater to both ala MGS4. But that's a minor thing as I've watched plenty of off-dubs in my time.
As far as the main characters are concerned I think it would best be described as the equivalent to watching a RE CGI movie starring Ashley Graham and Manuella Hidalgo or a FFVII movie with Cait Sith and Yuffie. Don't get me wrong. It's not like I'm saying supporting characters can't come into their own. I'm sure there's plenty of story to pull from those characters. Doesn't mean you should make a whole movie about it. This was explained in that post credit interview as something to do with having the weak characters grow stronger through the course of the film, but honestly I don't really see that happening as our protagonists kind of take a step back to allow for other characters to fight in the climatic battle. Point is you had this chance to delve into a variety of Tekken characters and you chose Ling Xiao and Alisa Bosconovitch as your protagonists for their compelling and evolving strength and absolutely nothing to do with fan service and teen angst?
Well I certainly hope that multitude of below the waist shots weren't a factor for revealing more about them. Hahahaha.....
...
But yeah, a lot of the film is centered on those two, and back and fourth between being spies and being girls with crushes. Who's the guy they have a crush on? Shinji Mikamiya who turns out to be from what I was told a new character that exits in a ***** way. Yeah not sure how myself since he's immortal and the like. Didn't really make sense to me.
Nina and Anna Williams. Pulling the same sibling back and fourth with dialogue that has to end with them emphasizing eachother's names. "Oh yeah NEEEENAH" "Yeah AHHHHNAAAAH". Only one opening fight between them and that's it. They brush over the aftermath of any future fight between them.
Then you have this teacher who is very creepy. Not sure of his name or what purpose he serves in the movie other than attempted comic relief. Part of me thinks he's coming on a bit too strong.
A panda that gets a lot of laughs for doing things whacky and out of place for a panada. At least I didn't make a kung-fu panda joke.
Then there's Jin and Kazuya. Or am I getting that wrong? Yeah these two guys who have some quarrel and are behind the scenes until they pop in at the end and fight Heihachi who was thought dead and shockingly ambiguously dies yet again again. Then they fight each other while turning into Goliath looking gargoyles and one of them loses....not sure which one because they look similar and the fights are too close up but if I had to guess.....the good one?
Alisa is a cyborg or whatever and gets demolished for no real reason. She doesn't even do it while fighting. Jin puts her on standby and instead of having her move to the side or something Kazuya just destroys her. One magic tear from Ling Xiao however and she pulls the "johnny 5 is alive" cliche' and fist rockets Heihachi's molten lava monster form that appears out of nowhere. And we all learn that moral about how fighting is wrong. Like Pokemon the first movie it's back to that stupid piece of irony that a game focused primarily on fighting is telling us how wrong it is.
So the only character we can confirm dead is Shinji Mikamiya. Everyone else does their thing and the film just seems to end with the implication of a tournament.... You know, the kind of thing that would make for a movie based on a fighting game. Kinda what it should have been.
So like Degeneration I think it's safe to say that despite their intentions only the die hard fans might get who these people are and know enough background history to piece together what agendas each one have.
For a movie goer like me who barely remembers any of the games I can tell you this is a solid 4/10 for me. And it may sound biased but I'd rank Degeneration over this for the following reasons.
1. Leon and Claire were the protagonists of RE2 and as such are suited well to star in a movie together. They aren't side characters.
2. Based on the movie alone the plot takes time to flashback to scenes and give you explanations on things like the T-virus, Raccoon City, etc. Only drawback was the Tricell ending that we can walk out of as simply a cliffhanger even though a die hard fan like myself still feel that after RE5 that ending with tricell made no impact on the game and might as well have been cut.
3. It has the basic elements to work since the RE games are inspired by horror movies. People fighting zombies. Okay. A handful of characters fighting might be interesting if we knew what the whole thing was about. You see fight scenes really only work when you care about what's at stake what what the characters stand to lose. It helps you root for one and hope the other is defeated. Since I didn't know these characters or what any of them were fighting for it was hard to see what they stood to lose. I mean it's not like characters are thrust into the situarion. Most of them make a willing effort to seek out a confrontation. Question is why? I couldn't care about any of them so all the battles were meaningless from a movie standpoint. They're just cool to Tekken fans because they're tekken characters. Heihachi is cool because he's Heihachi and not because of what he contributes to the film.
That's why I give it a low score. But maybe someone has a different opinion they'd like to share? Or perhaps you agree? Let me know what you think. I was going to follow the games anyway, but if this movie was to get moviegoers to also take an interest in the games it didn't do a good job. The people I saw the movie with wanted to play Halo afterwards.
I will say this though. Audiences coming out of the film were saying things like "I wish so and so were in it" and here's the thing. Fighting games like this have a lot of characters. Chances are a good deal of them won't make it in the movie, and even if they did they wouldn't be nearly characterized as well as others. You need solid protagonists and antagonists. The problem with this movie as stated above was a poor choice in unveiling both.
You see when it comes to fighting games Tekken ranks in the mid range on my list. I haven't played many of them although my partner Enetirnel has hooked me up with a demo of 5 as well as full games of 4, tag team and even that Nina Williams spin off Death by Degrees. Honestly the last time I played any Tekken game was the second one back in the day and I may re-visit some of them on psn down the road.
So this written review is merely from someone who used to play those fighting games casually, and is just coming into the series again with a fresh perspective of the characters. I don't remember much about each plot from the games, but as I'm told from the writer, during the developer interview at the end, that shouldn't be a problem.
Okay, here it goes. I'm not sure what to make of this. A lot of the characters have names I can't even remember so I'll have to IMDB that ****.
Watching this movie and being reminded of Degeneration I was quickly pulled away by the inconsistent lip syncing issues that the RE CGI movie had. Now was this intended to be just an English dub (I'm aware this CGI film has a Japanese cast) or were they trying to make lip syncs for both? I'm not sure. At times though it makes me feel spoiled that people like Kojima have products recently that cater to both ala MGS4. But that's a minor thing as I've watched plenty of off-dubs in my time.
As far as the main characters are concerned I think it would best be described as the equivalent to watching a RE CGI movie starring Ashley Graham and Manuella Hidalgo or a FFVII movie with Cait Sith and Yuffie. Don't get me wrong. It's not like I'm saying supporting characters can't come into their own. I'm sure there's plenty of story to pull from those characters. Doesn't mean you should make a whole movie about it. This was explained in that post credit interview as something to do with having the weak characters grow stronger through the course of the film, but honestly I don't really see that happening as our protagonists kind of take a step back to allow for other characters to fight in the climatic battle. Point is you had this chance to delve into a variety of Tekken characters and you chose Ling Xiao and Alisa Bosconovitch as your protagonists for their compelling and evolving strength and absolutely nothing to do with fan service and teen angst?
Well I certainly hope that multitude of below the waist shots weren't a factor for revealing more about them. Hahahaha.....
...
But yeah, a lot of the film is centered on those two, and back and fourth between being spies and being girls with crushes. Who's the guy they have a crush on? Shinji Mikamiya who turns out to be from what I was told a new character that exits in a ***** way. Yeah not sure how myself since he's immortal and the like. Didn't really make sense to me.
Nina and Anna Williams. Pulling the same sibling back and fourth with dialogue that has to end with them emphasizing eachother's names. "Oh yeah NEEEENAH" "Yeah AHHHHNAAAAH". Only one opening fight between them and that's it. They brush over the aftermath of any future fight between them.
Then you have this teacher who is very creepy. Not sure of his name or what purpose he serves in the movie other than attempted comic relief. Part of me thinks he's coming on a bit too strong.
A panda that gets a lot of laughs for doing things whacky and out of place for a panada. At least I didn't make a kung-fu panda joke.
Then there's Jin and Kazuya. Or am I getting that wrong? Yeah these two guys who have some quarrel and are behind the scenes until they pop in at the end and fight Heihachi who was thought dead and shockingly ambiguously dies yet again again. Then they fight each other while turning into Goliath looking gargoyles and one of them loses....not sure which one because they look similar and the fights are too close up but if I had to guess.....the good one?
Alisa is a cyborg or whatever and gets demolished for no real reason. She doesn't even do it while fighting. Jin puts her on standby and instead of having her move to the side or something Kazuya just destroys her. One magic tear from Ling Xiao however and she pulls the "johnny 5 is alive" cliche' and fist rockets Heihachi's molten lava monster form that appears out of nowhere. And we all learn that moral about how fighting is wrong. Like Pokemon the first movie it's back to that stupid piece of irony that a game focused primarily on fighting is telling us how wrong it is.
So the only character we can confirm dead is Shinji Mikamiya. Everyone else does their thing and the film just seems to end with the implication of a tournament.... You know, the kind of thing that would make for a movie based on a fighting game. Kinda what it should have been.
So like Degeneration I think it's safe to say that despite their intentions only the die hard fans might get who these people are and know enough background history to piece together what agendas each one have.
For a movie goer like me who barely remembers any of the games I can tell you this is a solid 4/10 for me. And it may sound biased but I'd rank Degeneration over this for the following reasons.
1. Leon and Claire were the protagonists of RE2 and as such are suited well to star in a movie together. They aren't side characters.
2. Based on the movie alone the plot takes time to flashback to scenes and give you explanations on things like the T-virus, Raccoon City, etc. Only drawback was the Tricell ending that we can walk out of as simply a cliffhanger even though a die hard fan like myself still feel that after RE5 that ending with tricell made no impact on the game and might as well have been cut.
3. It has the basic elements to work since the RE games are inspired by horror movies. People fighting zombies. Okay. A handful of characters fighting might be interesting if we knew what the whole thing was about. You see fight scenes really only work when you care about what's at stake what what the characters stand to lose. It helps you root for one and hope the other is defeated. Since I didn't know these characters or what any of them were fighting for it was hard to see what they stood to lose. I mean it's not like characters are thrust into the situarion. Most of them make a willing effort to seek out a confrontation. Question is why? I couldn't care about any of them so all the battles were meaningless from a movie standpoint. They're just cool to Tekken fans because they're tekken characters. Heihachi is cool because he's Heihachi and not because of what he contributes to the film.
That's why I give it a low score. But maybe someone has a different opinion they'd like to share? Or perhaps you agree? Let me know what you think. I was going to follow the games anyway, but if this movie was to get moviegoers to also take an interest in the games it didn't do a good job. The people I saw the movie with wanted to play Halo afterwards.
I will say this though. Audiences coming out of the film were saying things like "I wish so and so were in it" and here's the thing. Fighting games like this have a lot of characters. Chances are a good deal of them won't make it in the movie, and even if they did they wouldn't be nearly characterized as well as others. You need solid protagonists and antagonists. The problem with this movie as stated above was a poor choice in unveiling both.
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