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Space Battleship Yamato (2010) Review
Apr. 30th, 2012 08:57 pmThe other day a friend showed me the live action remake of Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers). I was pleasantly surprised by the film's overall quality and would definitely recommend it to space opera fans, whether they have an attachment to the original or not.
I am a shade too young to have grown up with the anime, so the story was new to me. Basically, it is a tale of Earth being occupied by aliens and the valiant ship's crew that goes on a daring journey to find a technology that will help. There are no big surprises in terms of plot, character types, themes, etc. But I was quite impressed on two counts:
1) The production values are quite high. The production has been likened to the reboot of BSG, and it really does look similar, though more slick/less gritty.
2) The acting is a couple of cuts above what I generally expect from live action Japanese sci fi/fantasy popcorn movies. It is significantly better than the acting in the live action Death Note films (by and large). There are some weak links, including the leading lady, who--in fairness to her--was not given much to work with. But Takuya Kimura as Kodai showed a great deal of range and even, where his hero script permitted, subtlety.
So let's talk about Kodai, because he is both a great strength and great weakness of this movie.
( Kodai )
Of course, the film preserves the original series's historic "Yamato" connotations. There is much national pride and heroism, and I found it quite nice. I remarked to my friend that I might rather like to have world saved the Japanese. And given their advanced place in alternative energy research and the like, that may not be especially far fetched.
I am a shade too young to have grown up with the anime, so the story was new to me. Basically, it is a tale of Earth being occupied by aliens and the valiant ship's crew that goes on a daring journey to find a technology that will help. There are no big surprises in terms of plot, character types, themes, etc. But I was quite impressed on two counts:
1) The production values are quite high. The production has been likened to the reboot of BSG, and it really does look similar, though more slick/less gritty.
2) The acting is a couple of cuts above what I generally expect from live action Japanese sci fi/fantasy popcorn movies. It is significantly better than the acting in the live action Death Note films (by and large). There are some weak links, including the leading lady, who--in fairness to her--was not given much to work with. But Takuya Kimura as Kodai showed a great deal of range and even, where his hero script permitted, subtlety.
So let's talk about Kodai, because he is both a great strength and great weakness of this movie.
( Kodai )
Of course, the film preserves the original series's historic "Yamato" connotations. There is much national pride and heroism, and I found it quite nice. I remarked to my friend that I might rather like to have world saved the Japanese. And given their advanced place in alternative energy research and the like, that may not be especially far fetched.
