L'Attaque des Titans

First of all I have seen the anime and it's definitely one of my favorites. This movie is a complete and utter disgrace to the franchise and does not have any positive quality that gave the franchise the popularity it earned nor does it have any qualities that make up for how bad it is.

The story in this version is for some reason changed severely from the original, which I would not even mind if it were just as good or even remotely decent, but no, it is very, very far from that. The story has A LOT of holes in its plot and logic. They removed the things that made the story beautiful, dramatic, and powerful and replaced them with their own amateurish, illogical, juvenile, excuse for writing. I cannot even fathom why or how the creator allowed this to happen.

Like the story, the characters are so heavily altered, they don't even have the same personalities as the original. Eren is now some kind of personification of "cool" from some nine year old's mind and Mikasa is now your average dumb, doting, beta girl. The dialogue is so completely stupid that I could not stop cringing the entire time. Despite the fact that they only needed 90 minutes for this movie, there are still a lot of awkward, unnecessary scenes and pauses that make the cringing feeling really set in.

The acting is also terrible, it's more of something you would expect from kids in a school play rather than from professionals in a big screen movie for a huge franchise. The CGI would have been impressive twenty years ago, like everything else they seemed to have settled on something mediocre at best yet they still add a lot of unnecessary CGI scenes that just help pronounce how bad it is.

I have no idea how much their budget was but they can't expect to release this movie without expecting massive negative criticisms not just from fans but even from your average consumers of today's media. Yes if you showed this movie to a caveman who's never seen any recent entertainment media, he might be impressed but the standards have been set and this garbage cannot even pass as "decent" for today's standards. Even more so because this movie belongs to a huge, successful, popular franchise and this movie has had so much hype leading up to its release.

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!

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...

AoT is probably one of the most popular series out there at the moment and I will admit that die-hard fans would find this disappointing. However, I am a die-hard fan myself and when I heard the news that a live-action was being made, I delved straight into research. I continued this research all the way from the beginning to even up to the point where I watched it myself.

First, I've always thought that live-action movies have never really been Japan's forte, plus considering the technical aspects of AoT I had a feeling CG and effects would be dodgy at some points. And honestly, I was IMPRESSED with the effects; yeah, some points I thought it could've been better and occasionally I rolled my eyes and thought, "Totally NOT a green screen." But equal many times I literally squealed in delight at the CG and effects, because it looked absolutely terrific during those times.

Secondly, for those of you who complain that it doesn't follow the original storyline at all. Isayama Hajime himself ASKED for the story to be different and it was up to the writers, yet to still keep the key elements. I found this out so long ago that I was prepared for something different the whole time, and I like the result. Except the ending, the last twenty or so minutes I feel as though the writers sort of lost their creative spark and tried to put in as many scenes from the manga as they could, which was disappointing.

Third, the acting and the characters. I liked the acting a lot in this movie, except for a few characters in some scenes. I thought Kiko Mizuhara played Mikasa beautifully and think no else could play the role better than her, honestly. I also liked how the writers gave Mikasa more of a "not taking any bullshit" attitude, but that's more of a personal preference, I suppose. Honestly, I just liked the general acting of characters.

Last thing, the scenery. Oh my lord how I loved the settings.The more crowded towns, the fields, the walls... AND THE GORE, wow. If there's anything I've learnt about Japan, is that they're not light on the gore for things like this. And I was absolutely LOVING IT.

Overall, I really liked this movie except for the ending, but hopefully the next movie will make up for it. I would watch this again at some point, no doubt. Just watch it with an open mind and don't criticize every point, then trust me, it's an enjoyable movie.

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.