Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 33

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train
Tanjiro, his sister-turned-demon, and two other companions, meet (big breath) Demon Slayer Flame Hashira Kyojuro Rengoku on a train and encounter, uh, demons. Though it’s an asterisk achievement, Mugen Train was the highest-grossing movie of 2020 because of you-know-what screwing things up. I’m not familiar with the Demon Slayer series at all, but I was able to get into what was happening despite the film coming off like it was a small incident in the much bigger arc. Regardless, the story was good enough that I didn’t mind the gore so much.

Slender Man
Four high school girls summon an entity known to traumatize and capture children worldwide. This was a horror movie; that’s all I can really say about it. It’s not a story or plot you haven’t watched or read before. The only thing Slender Man had going for it was that it was a depiction of an Internet meme/legend come to life, but the depiction wasn’t anything memorable.

Lupin III: Legend of the Gold of Babylon
Lupin and the usual cast of characters—plus a drunk old woman in love with Lupin, and a NYC mafia leader—race to find a cache of gold left behind by an ancient civilization. Hilariously filled to the brim with exaggerated racial and cultural stereotypes. No one is spared: Italians, Chinese, Americans, Russians, Japanese, women, black people, fat people. Even the elderly, but no one cares that they get made fun of. Utterly off-the-wall plot points, motivations, and mechanics (the mafia leader uses a modified/weaponized fly swatter to discipline his subordinates). A favorite scene occurred when Lupin flung a banana peel onto a roof ridge, right after his companion, the samurai stereotype Goemon, shattered a lightning bolt with his katana. Instead of just talking to him, Lupin’s way of motivating Goemon to sign onto the heist in the Middle East was to land him into a pile of garbage.

The Tomorrow War
Soldiers from 30 years in the future appear in a football soccer stadium to recruit present-day people in a future war against an alien threat. It’s a modern action-sci-fi movie put out by Amazon. Do you think it’s going to be anything you’re not expecting? Some okay action scenes, but everything was mostly or entirely predictable, especially the character types. You’ve got the Really Busy Dad trope, and the Really Busy Dad’s Estranged Dad trope, and the Smart, Spunky, Capable Daughter Who Became Who She Is Despite Her Really Busy Dad trope to round out the triumvirate. Just watch Edge of Tomorrow (or read its source material) for this story done more competently.

The Giver
In a highly-regimented and isolated community, a young man takes on his role as the inheritor of humanity’s memories and discovers the secret of his surroundings. The utopia that was really a dystopia in disguise. That’s usually how it goes, right? When folks are happy but uniformly obedient without deviation from their society in a story, one has suspicions. The community leader in the The Giver book didn’t have as large of a role to play, where in the movie she (of course) played the Big Bad—another complication you would know if you know how Hollywood movies go. The film strongly hinted at a loss diversity of humanity—real diversity, the kind that’s always existed, not the recent socio-political movement to force cultures onto each other like a cockfight—that left me wanting more details on how that played out.

Zathura: A Space Adventure
Two brothers find an old space adventure board game and their entire house, naturally, ends up flying through space. A film complete with an annoying older sister and neglectful dad. This came out in an era (2005) where plot twist weren’t so required as they are today. Is an occurrence a twist if you’re expecting at least something like it to happen? I couldn’t tell this was a kid’s movie, because it wasn’t too patronizing in the way kid’s movies usually do. In that sense it was enjoyable. Pixar and Dreamworks have really ruined the formula for western children’s film. Speaking of…

Home
A lemming-like alien race, the Boov, take over earth, and one of the Boov accidentally email an invitation to his apartment-warming party their mortal enemies, the Gorg. If you’ve seen one kid’s animated movie in the last 20 years, you’ll know how this one goes. The design of the Gorg’s menacing space suit I really liked, and I wracked my memory hard to remember that it resembled the robot soldier from Castle in the Sky.

Ninja Scroll
Jubei Kibagami, a wandering sword-for-hire, is blackmailed into fighting the superpowered Eight Devils of Kimon and the Shogun of the Dark, who plan on overthrowing the current ruling shogunate. The pinnacle of Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s work, released back when “anime” was called “Japanimation” unironically. A dark and violent tale, with gorgeous, all hand-drawn animation. The gore isn’t excessive compared to modern films, but the story and characters are good enough for me to get by it.

Mother (video game)
A boy in rural America fights against the supernatural threats in his hometown and environment. Also known as EarthBound Beginnings or EarthBound Zero, this game was Japan-only until relatively recently, thanks to demand and some American game developers and translators. Americans only knew of the sequel, EarthBound, which came out years later than the original. This was a large thematic departure from role playing game, as it was set in a modern small town with regular people. The “missions” were rather banal: return a lost hat to its owner, or befriend a bullied student by gifting him a bottle rocket. Exotic locales include a zoo, a graveyard, and train stations. The game is also rife with oddball, humorous moments, but the mundane setting makes the expected RPG tropes the player eventually encounters—like a dragon and a queen—stand out.

Escaflowne
A depressed schoolgirl is transported to the supernatural planet of Gaea and is caught in a war involving enchanted mechs. You know a movie is going to be good when the opening scene is a swordsman freefalling from the sky, landing on a military airship, and killing everyone on board so he can steal back the huge mech they were transporting. This was a retelling of the series, which I will review in a future post, and there were notable differences in mainly the protagonist, Hitomi, and in the mood of the storytelling. Hitomi here in the film is a moody schoolgirl, on the verge of suicide, feeling disconnected from her life and surroundings, understandably thrown to distraction after being teleported into the Escaflowne’s cockpit on Gaea. I’d dare say she even found meaning in life after the events on Gaea and in returning to earth. Either way, this was an excellent, if different, take on the sword and sorcery epic that weren’t too in vogue at the time of its release (2000). The movie itself is deceptive to me, personally, because it feels like I had seen it when I was much younger, in the 1980’s, bundled up on a winter’s night in front of the fireplace stove. Misplaced nostalgia is a weird thing.