Gantz

I am not a fan of the Gantz manga and I have not even read it. I don't really read manga and comics. So when it comes to a live-action adaptation, I am clueless about the characters but I can make out with the adaptation's explanation or the adaptation may even prompt me to pick up the manga. Gantz as far as I know is famous for its over-the-top violence and nudity. I saw many criticisms on the adaptation saying that it lacks of blood and nudity. For a general movie-goer who does not know what to expect in the adaptation will find this a little bloody and will wish for some more nudity.

The story: There is a sick game which revives dead people and commands them to play along. Their tasks are to kill aliens. Aliens!!! Once an alien dies, the players are given points according to their contribution to the death of the alien. A number of points will reward that person. Gantz is touted as a big-budget action sci-fi movie. And yes, it is. The big action scenes especially the final one show that much money is spent. The aliens look okay but are unique in some ways. Characters wise is okay, some are a bit interesting but some are just there for sake of being there. The pace is decent for a Japanese movie, not to say that all Japanese movies are slow-paced. Watching this feels like watching the Japanese doing a Hollywood movie which is decently paced and features big action scenes. With the final movie completing this series, it will be expected to end with a cliffhanger.

Overall: It is good for a Japanese action movie, it could be one of the best I have seen. But for a character movie, it could have done better. It is worth a watch whether you are a Gantz fan or not. Since fans are saying that the manga has more violence and nudity, I am compelled to pick up the manga and to see if it is true. For a non-Gantz fan, I can't wait for part 2 which will conclude the movie series. Sadly, Singaporeans will have to wait.

I only know the summary part of the manga, so I will stick to the movie itself. The movie starts with two old friends( ? ) that coincidentally meet on a train platform. In this brief moment, they attempt to rescue a man off of the train tracks and in trying this, they are killed by the oncoming train. Or were they? The two awaken in a room with a few other strangers, all of which claim to have been killed. Accompanying them is a mysterious black orb which gives some very vague instructions on what the "group" needs to do. Basically the task is to kill aliens that are on the earth hiding out. Sounds corny, but it is far from that. The movie is so well filmed including cinematography, editing, locale that pretty much whatever the group was sent to do was going to be a treat. Lucky for us viewers, it was an exciting mission at that. As the movie progresses, we learn that each person is awarded "points" for surviving (since if not, well, they are dead) and what can be done with those points is part of the mystery. The effects are very good, and basic, not overdone at all. This makes it much easier to get into the film and the characters in it. The acting was very good, even if I personally had to be distracted from their performances by reading the subtitles. Either way, I could tell by visual features and expressions that it was well done. Each encounter gets more and more difficult, as one would assume, and leads to a very open ended climax that makes you want to see more. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie from start to finish and recommend it to anyone that likes sci-fi and originality. Please Hollywood, can you keep your hands off and not remake this, let the Japanese do their thing, they have brought us a gem in this as it is. Enjoy. 6.9/10

This movie started out so good, it was almost criminal it turned out to be such completely unbelievable crap in the end.

The basic premise was good, for this kind of movie that is:

1. A bunch of guys die for several reasons.

2. The end up in a room with a mysterious black globe.

3. The globe gives them missions to kill UFOs residing in Japan. Hinting that they may redeem their lives this way.

4. They are given suitcases with black suits and cool sci-fi guns.

5. They are attacked by vicious UFOs.

So any person equipped with more than two brain cells would have:

1. Donned the suit.

2. Quickly checked out the weapon and got ready for the mission.

3. You wanna get your life back, right?

This far into the movie, I expected they would, I was eager for what was to come. This could be great!

Then they are magically "lasered" away to someplace in Tokyo and the UFO guy is not late to show up. Well not to spoil what happens too much, they are completely unprepared for the mission. And why?

1. They have completely failed to put on their cool black suits. OK, they girl has put it on. And looks good in it!

2. They have completely failed to check out their cool weapons.

Not to to spoil the movie, if there is anything to spoil, let me say this as a reality check:

1. If I knew I had died and had a chance to redeem my life by carrying out a mission, I would be sure to use any equipment given me.

2. If a monster was attacking me or my fellow undead, I would be sure to shoot first and ask questions later. Out of pure survival instinct.

3. If a monster was beating the crap out of one of my friends, then, even if I had no gun, I would do something to help out, lest I live in shame for the rest of my life.

4. If I was a hopeless nerd like most of the guys in the movie, and a cool beautiful girl showed interest in me, I would at least talk to her.

The guys in this movie, though, fail on all these basic point of normal behaviour. They are all prize-winning village idiots, almost autistic in their passiveness, hopelessly asocial towards the beautiful girls that seem to like these idiots, egoistic, craven individuals who can't use a weapon or even throw a stick at a monster in order to save their own or other people's lives. They lack the most basic survival instincts or humanity.

As a result, I spent most of the movie shouting "FOR THE LOVE GOD MAN, SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT!!"

I'm not a trigger-happy man in normal situations... But with vicious UFOs attacking me, come and get some! :-)

I'm a fan of the original anime, though I never got around to actually reading the manga. I loved the brutality and tragedy of the original anime, so this movie had quite a different feel to it overall.

I liked the changes they made to adapt the story to a movie. There was a lot of back story with the characters that had to be ignored or compressed, but when you're focusing on 2-3 characters in 2 hours, that is to be expected.

Overall I liked the special effects, the casting was pretty good, and although I'm not sure about the changes in the ending they made, i'm OK with what they've done to make this into an interesting sci-fi movie that is worth watching.

I did not read the manga, but I did watch the entire anime a few years back. The anime had 2 full seasons to tell the story, the movie had just two hours. So clearly while it is not as rich as the anime, the movie does a very good job given the time restriction.

I had no expectations when I started to watch it, however after 15 minutes I was a believer, and even if I didn't know the story, still a pretty decent movie. Very nice FX and a high quality production to it.

As fiction flicks goes, it is not for everybody, but If you like the theme and/or anime/manga culture, go for it for sure. And the sequel is already in the works, so we will get our Gantz fix soon enough.