20-seiki shônen: Honkaku kagaku bôken eiga

I have not yet had the pleasure of reading the original Manga of the same name, and as with many other live action adaptations, can understand if the films have to leave out or change material to make the production work...

I can't speak for this film series, but what I do know is that it is huge!

Both huge on characters and story, you can forgive any slip ups it may have in trying to pack in as much as possible in the name of entertainment. And entertain it most certainly does. The first hour introduces most of the characters via childhood flashbacks and reunions offering up some great moments and plenty of funny scenes.

Once we reach the second hour, the action kicks in and the madness begins!

I just love this film and its sequels. The cast is fantastic and to be honest, I can't really think of a thing to complain about. Its intense, its funny, its big and its well worth a watch if you are looking something a little different.

Apparently, millions of Japanese are willing to worship a man in a mask who only talks about his childhood... and apparently, the hero of his childhood is Kenji, so one would imagine that all these idiots would leave Mr. Friend behind and go and worship Kenji instead. Right?

Nope. Instead, this cult's followers burn each other alive, blow up airports and have developed a lethal virus that completely drains the human body of all blood. Hey, I'm not opposed to daft plots when they're amusing, but 20th Century Boys pretty much lacks humour, as "mysterious" people point Kenji - the film's protagonist - in the right direction so that he can play a game in which he may or may not get to save the world.

Yeah, it's that dumb. And upon figuring out that all these terrorist attacks taking place are being scheduled by the events of a comic Kenji drew as a kid, instead of taking the said comic to the authorities on finally finding where he left it some 25-30 years ago, Kenji instead runs over to a friend's house, digs out his old guitar and jams out in the morning's early hours!

But that's perfectly logical, since Kenji once aspired to be a glam-rock star.

With a running time of well over 2 hours, I can't recall the last film I watched during which I spent almost as much time looking at the clock. Unfortunately, the sheer humdrum and stupidity of the film all got too much to bear and I eventually turned it off. I now waste even more time over this crap-fest by advising other IMDb users of its sheer awfulness.

Avoid.

I had earlier written about comic books being rich material for filmmakers to raid and adopt them into a cinematic version, and with the success of the Death Note franchise, it's more than apparent that such movies will have its built in audience, and in this case, to skyrocket the movie to box office success.

Depending on how the story is adapted, some will take liberties to gear the material for non- fans, to introduce it to a new audience. Death Note for instance, does this quite perfectly, drawing those unfamiliar with its mythos, and at the same time entertaining the fanboys. Mushishi on the other hand, assumed that one goes in with a bit of background knowledge, as it doesn't dwell too long, if at all, on the character backstory. 20th Century Boys however managed to take the middle ground, though I felt its presentation was somewhat left wanting.

We're introduced to Kenji (Toshiaki Karasawa), a supermarket manager who's about to be thrown into the adventure of his life. In a school reunion, he gets acquainted with his old pals, most of whom he already cannot recognize, before they launch into a discussion of a strange series of happenings which involve the emergence of their secret logo created during their childhood. As they catch up with one another, we also learn that collectively amongst the group, they vaguely recollect their 9 members, and hence sowed some suspicion as to the identity of who the new cult leader is, one who always hide behind a mask and calls himself Kira, oops, wrong movie - "Friend".

Throw into the plot yet another device in the form of a book called the Book of Prophecies, which Kenji is chief author, in somewhat of a create your own adventure with his pals, as they dream of the world coming to an end at the turn of the millennium, what with strange plagues, terrorist attacks, and a giant robot taking the place of the stay puff marshmallow man. They realize that world disasters are unfolded as per the sequence in their childhood book, and thus, with their sense of responsibility, work to try and put an end to the madness.

For the first half of the movie, the story really plods on, as it took great pains to try and introduce to us the array of characters important to the series, including an infant heralded as the Chosen One. While most of the characters remain rather one-dimensional with nothing much revealed about their background despite the frequent flashbacks (some which do get repetitive), Kenji is the focus of this installment, as we see an emergence of a resistance fighter from within a mild and meek, and often clueless supermarket manager. He doesn't really strike you as charismatic or well skilled to lead a group of do-gooders, but the second half would address all those concerns.

In wanting to remain unconventional, the story moves forward and back so frequently, that it'll give you a headache. It seemed to be wanting to shovel down character backgrounds incessantly, as every opportunity found to go into flashback mode, will be utilized, so much so that it becomes mentally tiring after a while to keep track of current time. Time plays an important part in the story as it hinges everything on D-Day of 31 December 2000, where a foretold apocalypse is expected to happen.

And here's where it really shines, even when the arrival of D-Day involved plenty of droning pep-talking. Looking at the locations, sets, and big action sequences throughout the film, it's indeed a relatively big budget production with no qualms about throwing money to achieve some form of visual perfection. The finale is nothing short of breathtaking, and with well filled tension, though if you're not expecting this to be the first episode of an franchise, you'll find yourself swearing at its cliffhanger ending. It's not a complete story per se even though it managed to remain self-contained, as it retains just about as much mystery as it did from the onset, with nothing much revealed or addressed.

For those looking into something more, I thought it had drawn some interesting parallels about the dangers of cults, and how enticing the promises made by preacher could be, with the followers blinding adhering to every word like it's the gospel. There are enough false prophets in the world, but those who can command a huge following, could grow and if their aspirations do find their way to the political arena, then just as how a manga-turned-movie would have its ready audience, then these political parties would already come with their congregation as ready supporters and voters.

For the eager beavers, it's not until January that you can watch the next part, so do remember to stay until right after the end credits roll for the trailer to Part 2.

Could 20th Century Boys be the Japanese Watchmen? Like in the case of Alan Moore's masterpiece, Urasawa's sprawling story covers the cultural myths and obsessions of the past century: from the nuclear catastrophe following the war to the western cultural influences, conformism and totalitarian tendencies, the demilitarized, defenseless Japan, the economic boom of the sixties . Even a touch of mecha and the pervasiveness of media in society.

Judging the movie, however, can be more difficult: its competently shot and acted, but like most transpositions, it makes its manga origin very clear, which can be appalling for the manga-illiterate in the audience, which at the projections I was sighed, left early or giggled in all the wrong places. Sound editing was awful, but it might be a result of the copy I saw.

Where the film could use some help is in the editing. Fans will appreciate the attempt to be faithful to the original source, but movies simply work in a different way: act II is too long, and the final climax and resolution is reduced to a few choppy scenes. It might definitely look better when parts 2 and 3 are released.

The story is interesting to begin with, with a bunch of kids creating an "end of the world" story and then watching it made come true when they are adults. They embark on a mission to save the world, as their original story prophesied.

However, the plot is really weird. There is a virus that kills people by making their blood explode, but it seems it is not contagious, it needs to be sprayed on. A giant robot smashes through Tokyo and the police stop in front of it to shoot guns. The leader of a hypnotic cult becomes the leader of the most important party in Japan, and so on and so on.

Then, as world saviors go, the heroes are the most inept I have ever seen. The movie is very long, at 142 minutes, and it is only the first part of a three film story. The acting is pretty bad, too.

Bottom line: it seems this is a failed attempt to mix the success of the Death Note franchise (I don't know what that thing was successful either) and the comic book/manga craze that is taking over the movie world in the US and the rest of the world. There is a feel reminiscent of Watchmen in the film, but only a trace. I am not saying that it is not worth watching, but I can't say I liked it.