L'Attaque des Titans

A few minutes into the movie I was taken by surprise that the director chose to wildly mash up the characters and their relationships. Even though I really like the anime I was open to a new envisionment of the source material, since prejudice is something I try not to practice. Maybe the director wanted a new interpretation, while maintaining the essence of the series. But then it dawned on me that this new interpretation was leaky at best and the capturing of the essence was a parody. It was a 90 minute crap-fest of half-assed dialog, disinterested story telling and slasher-like violence. The movie also had a particular inability of finding a tone. Any tone. All the scenes feel staged, unreal and almost completely unrelated. Most disturbingly however was the implausibility. Nothing seems connected and nobody related. This is a waste of brilliant source material!

Film studio usually takes liberty on interpreting a live action, but Shingeki no Kyojin strays so much it doesn't even resembles the original story. This would be acceptable if the new plot follows the same core, far from that the characters and world here feel inferior, they are almost unrecognizable if not for the cosmetic. Its biggest strength is the gore, it's a viable action with a lick of horror when it gets momentum.

Humanity has a grim reminder that they live in fear of Titans, or so the opening says. The film focuses on a group of youngster trying to fend off Titans with Spider-Man cosplay tool. Right from the opening act, it doesn't follow the plot of manga. To be fair, it would have been okay if it worked. I'm not a fan and changes are expected, but in this case, it ruins both the new rendition and might even offend the fans.

Setting takes a drastic turns, both the time and place are entirely different. Character development feels watered down. Stripped from their traits, these guys and girls look like generic anime protagonist, while in manga they at least have distinct features. This rings especially true with the lead Eren and Mikasa who only bear the same name yet without any real charm.

The new additional characters as well as the portrayal of existing ones are choppy at best. Probably only a few of the scenes with humans actually have the same level of humor or tone. Effects don't really capture the agile motion, although the Titans do appear menacing. They look creepy enough with all the smirk and blood, which the show used in abundance. These Titans are bleeders.

It's uncertain what this live action tries to accomplish, its major demographic is definitely the fans, yet the significant change will turn them off. It may appeal to general audience as an action flick, although with lesser plot it's merely passable as monster movie with slightly nifty gimmick.

Well let's start by saying that we all knew coming in that the movie was going to be different from the manga and the anime. The movie was supervised by Hajime Isayama the author. The story is similar but is its own story. The CGI of course is not like the Hollywood movies CGI but then again the budget for Japanese movies compared to Hollywood movies are lower. I think they did a decent job with the CGI and the story is not that bad. You have to go into this movie with an open mind and try not to compared to the manga. I laugh when I see people complaining that all the actors are Japanese and that they should be white ..These are the same people that talked trash about Dragon Ball Evolution. The ones that said " why did Hollywood destroyed my childhood? " .. well now they want Hollywood to make AOT... The acting was decent and I really can't wait for the second part. Let's not forget that a lot of movies that are based on books and novels are always change... people are crying for Hollywood to do it better ..well let's see what they are going to say once Lionsgate makes the Naruto live action movie since they got the right to it from what I read...

As a non-fan I was mildly entertained. Didn't think it was terrible, didn't think it was the best film ever. I felt it faithfully translated a very convoluted TV series the best way it could within 90 mins while not sacrificing action and Titan screen time.

I don't consider myself a fan of the TV series, but being someone in their late 30's who grew up on they heyday of Japanese animation back in the 80's and 90's--Attack on Titan was the first time in a long while that an animation from there felt fresh, poignant and emotionally compromising for the viewer. The young kid in me would have loved this TV series, but the late 30's me who has been through a lot in life and chooses to seek out more positive and cheerful entertainment felt it got a bit too overly depressing and macabre. That's not saying I felt it was bad, just no longer my taste in entertainment anymore.

Fanboys/fan-girls on here rating this film 1's have noticeably a lot of impractical whines concerning the film. They simply are expecting a 600 hour TV animation series to be summed up in 90mins. It doesn't take someone who has worked on a film to realize that is setting up an impractical expectation. Characters and situations ARE to be expectedly retooled in order to give the film proper pacing. Sure, some characters in the film that fans had invested a lot of hours into via the TV series are sometimes sidelined, rewritten or killed off. I expected and knew this would happen and it didn't change my perspective on the overall film because I didn't go in with impractical fan expectations of this "film adaptation". Of course a 600 hour TV series has plenty of time for you to become emotionally invested with meat shield fighters that the overall story had every intention of killing off down the line for more emotional impact. But trying to delve into all those characters in a 90 minute film isn't going to happen. Have to be more objective than that within the context of this adaptation.

That being said the film does suffer from being disjointed and rushing through major plot points towards the final cliffhanger. It's really a film that just gets to the point and does not bores you with exposition that you can pretty much obviously figure out on your own.

The Titans are absolutely as terrifying as I remembered from the TV series and faithfully depicted. I found myself covering my face in some parts like I did with the TV series, so I think they did their job well in translating the horror and macabre of what the humans went through.

The action was obviously CGI heavy, but not done in a way that felt tawdry. They perfectly captured the aerial flight and feel of the fights from the TV series well.

Attack on Titan was by no means a 1 rated film. It's no Ed Wood film. It's no Manos the Hands of Fate. It's not Glitter levels of bad. It's not a film that is really that terrible. It's a film that on a baseline captures the terrifying essence of the TV series main concepts, but does suffers a little bit on core characters development.

I have no idea what the anime version looks like, but this movie kick Hollywood ass. Real entertainment. Give you the thrills of a horror movie also survival horror like the old Resident Evil 2 movie... Hollywood science fiction movie is all about CG and does not entertain anymore ...Great Movie

The only reason why most people bash this movie is because they expect it to be Anime clone or something. People always complain expecting all live action movies recreated from cartoons is . they expect people to be like cartoons..

I believe this movie is more thrilling than the dramatic liveless cartoon anime versions.