Shingeki no kyojin: Endo obu za wârudo

Or maybe not, as the second part of "Attack on Titan" is curiously devoid of the big people, who seem to be busy somewhere else.

The first part of the manga adaptation differed a lot from the original source but was still a fun enough time at the movies, with acceptable action, passable CGI and a pervasive feeling of fear and threat, the titans and the story behind them scary enough to forget the over-the-top moments and some not very good acting. The second part, though, just feels like someone decided to fill one hour and a half of randomness. Oh, and Satomi Ishihara's Zoë Hange shouting. Non-stop. For the whole movie.

We were left with a surprising moment at the end of the first movie: Eren could become a titan too. The second movie starts just afterwards, with him in chains and the leader of the army not very happy of seeing him. From that moment, any chance of the movie making sense jumps out of the window. Sadly, any atmosphere, sense of fear or cool action go out too leaving the viewer with not much.

That the plot is very random and the explanation of the titans kind of really-you-couldn't-think-about-anything-else? could be forgiven if anything else made sense. It is not that the actors overact and chew through their scenes as if there was no tomorrow; it's that they don't have many other options, as the dialogue is terrible, and the direction lacking.

All in all, the movie fails, and it's a pity because it could have been quite an interesting study of militarism or society control. It can be mildly entertaining, and it is short enough that it never becomes terribly boring, but it's just purposeless and empty.

It's very unusual for one cinematic tale to be broken up into two separate movies (a "Part 1" and a "Part 2"), that are released in consecutive months. The Japanese film "Attack on Titan" has done just that. Japanese audiences got to see Part 1 on August 1, 2015 and Part 2 on September 19, 2015. American theaters showed the movies on September 30th and October 20th, respectively. With the U.S. release dates of these two halves just three weeks apart, Part 1 is probably still fresh in the minds of those who saw it, but some people may have missed the first one and want to see the second one. So, before I review "Attack on Titan: Part 2" (NR, 1:28) – also known as "Attack on Titan: End of the World" – let's look back at how we got to this point in this Japanese apocalyptic action/adventure/horror/fantasy… The basic story in "Attack on Titan" first emerged as other forms of entertainment in Japan and grew rapidly in popularity in a relatively short period of time. The Japanese manga (graphic novel) series, "Attack on Titan" debuted in 2009 and became an anime TV series in 2013. In this story, all civilization exists behind three sets of concentric cement walls designed to keep out Godzilla-sized man-eating human-like creatures called titans. After a century of peace (and the younger generation wondering if the titans are a myth), the calm is shattered when a new kind of titan that's taller than the wall kicks a hole in it. The titans lumber inside and promptly begin eating people. The survivors retreat behind the second set of walls and form a military regiment to plug the hole in the outer wall. For this concluding segment, Eren Jaeger (Haruma Miura), his best friend, Armin (Kanata Hongo), Eren's girlfriend-turned-fierce-titan-fighter, Mikasa (Kiko Mizuhara), and a few others who survived Part 1 are still intent on completing their mission in spite of the setbacks they encountered right before the end of that film.

Part 2 picks up the story right where Part 1 left off, but sets the stage first. There's a short flashback scene from Eren's childhood which explains the special ability that he displayed at the end of Part 1 (which, at the time, seemed to come out of nowhere). Next, there's a short compilation of scenes from Part 1, which prepares audiences pretty well for viewing Part 2. Then the story moves forward, starting with Eren chained up and threatened with execution for what he revealed about himself in the previous battle. Eren lives, learns more of the history of his civilization and the titans who decimated it, finds out what is really going on in the current war and has to decide what role he will play in its final outcome.

For those who saw the first half of the movie, the best way for me to tell you what the conclusion is about (without, of course, resorting to spoilers) is to give you a list of questions that Part 2 answers: How can Eren's special ability make a difference in the war against the titans? Are there others who have that same ability? Why did the titans suddenly reappear at that particular moment in time? Where did that titan's titan who broke through the wall come from and why does he look and act differently than the others? Why are the titans vulnerable to injury at the nape of the neck? What are the competing agendas at work here? What happened to the original scouting regiment from Part 1? Can the outer wall be effectively patched? And, last but certainly not least, what lies beyond that outer wall? Part 2 answers all these questions and, in the process, gives us a movie that's better than Part 1.

"Attack on Titan, Part 2" / "Attack on Titan: End of the World", even though it's the second half of a single movie, is very different in tone and substance. Part 2 improves upon many of the problems that I had with Part 1 (which led me to give that movie a "C-"). The story is more interesting in Part 2 – especially with several plots twists and surprising reveals. The script leaves far fewer unanswered questions and has fewer plot holes (fewer, but not none). The creepy/silly-looking titans get less screen time in Part 2 and hardly any close-ups, which helps the audience take the story's conflict more seriously and earns the film higher marks overall for its special effects. The characters are less annoying (especially the scouting regiment's comically gung-ho female squad leader who is still kind of ridiculous, but a little more amusing than in Part 1), but much of the performances is still overly melodramatic.

This two-part film would have been more effective as a single film. Joining them wouldn't have necessarily resulted in a bloated three-hour movie. Eliminating the credits at the end of Part 1 and that review compilation at the beginning of Part 2 would save time. That, and more judicious editing of the story, could have produced a half-way decent two-hour-long "Attack on Titan" movie. Releasing the story as separate films was probably about selling two sets of tickets, but that only works if Part 1 is good enough to make people want to talk it up and to see Part 2. I can't help thinking that making this into one movie would've turned out better both creatively and commercially. As it stands, however, Parts 1 and 2 were released as separate movies, leading to separate reviews and separate grades from us. "Attack on Titan: Part 2" is better than Part 1, but still not what I'd call high quality. "B-"

I really enjoyed the first Attack on Titan live feature, which may have not always been faithful but was pretty exciting. The second movie, on the other hand, is a nonsensical piece of tripe with little to recommend it.

There shouldn't actually be two movies. These were filmed at the same time and the second movie is full of flashbacks to the first one, so you could easily tighten these two 90-minute movies into one that was under two and a half hours. Alas, this wasn't done.

This movie makes no real sense from the first scene, in which Eren is tied up in a weird way and a mad commander screams. There's a surprise early on when the movie actually explains how Titans came to be, something the anime series has been dropping hints at for years without giving any real answers (no idea if the movie's answers will be the same in the anime or manga).

Outside of that, the movie is just a fairly incomprehensible story involving a bomb and some big titans that feels disjointed and poorly thought out. Characters do incredibly stupid things (as they did in the first movie) and no one's motivations make any sense. And the big action sequences in the end are less enthralling than the best action of the first movie.

I do enjoy Satomi Ishihara's comical take on Hange Zoe, but the other characters are virtually devoid of personality.

Had the big action scene of the second movie been allowed to build out of the action of the first movie it might have all worked, but the producers clearly wanted to get two movies out of one, with very bad results.

The first Attack on Titan already missed the point of the anime/manga. Disregard the source material, it still delivers enough dose of delightful violence. But since it now made an even more complicated storyline for this mythology, it would be tough to gain the chance of having a compelling story. And here we are, the sequel that is suppose to make sense out of something that's already made stupid. Maybe the predecessor was sort of forgivable for bringing a lot of cool action and bloody death scenes from the Titans, but here, it's more explaining; while that's not a bad choice, the characters aren't improved, the themes are even more vague and the plot is just shallow. The action is fine when it delivers, but we witness more horribly written characters here than whatever made the first movie at least fun.

This sequel is about unraveling conspiracies from tyrannical governments, and that doesn't sound so bad since it's representing its own dystopian future allegory. But every time it keeps explaining the life inside and outside the walls, things get seriously confusing. At one point, it states that life inside the walls is suppose to be some sort of a utopian facade, but we hardly even get to explore that commentary. We're just explained that everyone inside the walls are slaves from a classified science experiment. And the rest of the movie has these characters deciding which side should they choose, either to destroy the wall or kill many innocent civilians. It would be cool if this argument doesn't take forever, but it keeps going. The problem is it's not given much tension since we hardly even knew who the people they were defending. It's just a nearly unending argument of which choice is supposed to be the right thing and it gets tedious.

And the story gets even stupider the more they reveal the secrets of the villains, but we'd rather shrug it off and wait for the next action scene. Too bad, it takes a chunk of every ten to twenty minutes to get there. The first movie, while dumb, does spend a lot establishing the terror of the Titans. Here, the action is much reserved, which is a shame since these scenes are the only ones that are quite glorious to watch. Now we see hand-to-hand fights between two or more Titans and that's pretty awesome, but again, these scenes are just so little compared to the dreary expositions the entirety took over. The effects still looks nice, but it's easy to overlook these merits if everything else seems boring.

Attack on Titan 2: End of the World is just not trying anymore. The first movie have established too much of the terror of these creatures, but then there happens to be a greater villain, which is presented with dull verbal expositions that leads to an utterly underwhelming finale of a franchise that hardly has anything to put out to begin with. They could have made things simple, like a direct adaptation, rather than being a much shallow version of The Giver movie or an exasperatingly complicated version of The Scorch Trials. The anime/manga is already a pretty clever, and once again, morally complex material. So why follow these generic trends? Well, fine, if you want to be a mindless fun movie, then go ahead. Besides, the title "Attack on Titan" and even more so with "End of the World" are perfect to enough to indicated a mindless, but pretty cool epic. But this movie sadly justifies nothing.

I actually liked the first part of this quite a lot. Characters were developed, story was set up, really creepy looking ghoulish giants as the opponents. If it weren't for the over the top Japanese acting, it would have been quite cool.

Unfortunately, the second part of the story - this film - is not as good as the first. It turns a humanity survival thing into a sort of Resident Evil, just as ridiculously acted and with reveals that inhibit rather than use the potential created with the first movie.

I have not watched the anime or read the manga. I know people are upset about the film not following the plot there. I have been just as outraged when films destroyed by image of a thing I love. However, you need to also consider this series of the movies as a stand alone story, maybe a reboot, who knows. The first part was very good at that, the second just obliterated that option.

Bottom line: first part worth watching, second part not so much, but it would make no sense to not see it after going through the first film. Overall, a bit of a failure.