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| Release Date: | July 16th, 1988 (Japan) - July 24th, 2001 (US) |
| Runtime: | 124 minutes |
| Rated: | R (US) - 15 (UK) |
| Genres: | Anime, Sci-Fi |
| Directed by: | Katsuhiro ?tomo |
| Written by: | Katsuhiro ?tomo |
| Starring: | Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Tessh? Genda, Hiroshi ?take, K?ichi Kitamura, Michihiro Ikemizu, Yuriko Fuchizaki, Masaaki ?kura, Tar? Arakawa, Takeshi Kusao, Kazumi Tanaka, Masayuki Kat?, Y?suke Akimoto, Masato Hirano |
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 Watch any film regarding the government and a force large enough to require either the nation?s or the world?s involvement, be it Grade A or Grade Z in quality, and it will always tell you one straightforward thing: government research and experiments dealing in the biological makeup of matter will very likely end up with a very pissed-off genetically enhanced creature will the ability to overthrow any human means of resistance. Just take the Frankenstein creature for example. Reanimated with the scraps of dead body parts, he was blessed with the breath of life, but considering that old Dr. F didn?t bother giving him a body worth living in, the monster had no other choice but to revolt. Or how about Godzilla? Bombarded with rays from nuclear blasts detonated near his natural habitat, the big guy got blown up to behemoth proportions and managed to wipe out half of Tokyo before the guy who headed his creation abruptly halted his onslaught. Every time something like this happens, it?s the government that starts the problem and it?s the government that tries to contain it. Unfortunately, it can never succeed in doing both. Akira is another good example of Big Brother?s blunders in this area.
Tetsuo and Kaneda are two kids growing up at a very tumultuous time in their lives: the teenage years. However, Neo-Tokyo hasn?t been the same since a world war that occurred half a century ago managed to give it a royal kick in the ass. Instead of the usual kid troubles such as dances and popularity, Tetsuo and Kaneda, being in a motorcycle gang, are usually pretty busy racing around on their super-bikes and bashing in rival gang members? heads in with whatever blunt weapon?s handy. However, their lives are drastically changed when Tetsuo is kept at a special government hospital after a big fight and eventually undergoes genetic treatment to activate his hidden powers. Before you can say, ?hit the fan?, it does. The drugs Tetsuo is consuming turn him insane. This wouldn?t be a problem, except for the fact that he?s got matter-manipulating powers rivaling previous entries in the hospital. He can fly, deflect projectiles with a force field, and can tear men apart with only a quick thought process. The government tries its hardest to battle him but is ultimately proven to be useless in every manner except in making about as much destruction as Tetsuo does. The kid?s omnipotent. Who but his best friend Kaneda can stop him?
This is a tough movie to judge. Why would it be so? Well, I?ll tell you: Akira is an example of one of those movies that severely lack in one department but manage to make up for it in another. In this case, the loss of storytelling is ultimately compensated for its groundbreaking animation process used in its creation. It?s not that the storytelling is in any way flawed, it?s just that it does a horrible job of answering questions. When the film ends, I can assure that you will be sitting there muttering curses under your breath wondering what the hell just happened. It could have been a knockout had the filmmakers bothered to tell us anything that explained what the movie meant, but they didn?t, so we?re left with a less-than-perfect movie. What else could go wrong? Well, a couple of things in particular.
One problem is the English dub job. The actual translated script is fine, but the animation in Akira is so clean-cut that the words that the characters speak don?t fit their mouths. Usually, anime has subjects? mouths just flapping away with no designated direction, but here, they?re actually modeled after the way a human would naturally speak ? with variance. So to fix this problem, just get the subtitled version like I didn?t bother doing. It fits.
Another peeve of mine in the film is one of tolerance. Later on in the film, Tetsuo gets his arm blown off by the SOL satellite ship and his body begins replacing it with its own organic substance. However, it grows to a point where Tetsuo can hardly control it himself, and it also grows to a point where the fine line between disgusting imagery for story progression and disgusting imagery just for the hell of it starts to bend. I don?t know about you all, but when I watch a movie and something nasty?s going on, I want it to be for a reason. Considering that Akira has a problem with this area, we?re left with a gross scene that has no bearing to the movie?s final result whatsoever except in just being gross. There?s plenty of sick stuff before this scene, but at least there was reason to all of it. This is just exhausted effort. (Note to the less-than-wise: Don?t choose to watch this with Grandma unless she?s an anime freak like you.)
I think Akira?s real purpose was to show off its animation, which is by no means a small thing even 14 years after it was made. I was impressed with how they took each scene and managed to make it as cool and as mind-blowing as they could. Normal things are rendered eye-popping, including death (from bullets to mental will), destruction (from simple shattered concrete to nuclear explosions), and other points of fascination (hell, the scene mentioned above was an exercise in animated quality even though it was almost too much for me to handle). Watch as colored neon trails stream from speeding motorcycles, blood sprays in all directions from an injured soul, and giant mentally conjured monsters go on the rampage. If you?re a hardcore anime fan, you?ve probably seen this mimicked a lot, but for newbies to the animated business, I?m pretty sure you?ll remember this film for quite a while.
So what do I call this film? An art exhibition, that?s what I say. Even with a serious lack of direction in the plot department, Akira manages to make itself memorable enough to grant hard cash being plunked down for a rental. If you do decide to rent it, remember that this is an old movie by anime standards and it?s hard for anime to stay popular for long these days. It?s been remembered for a reason, and that is because it tried its hardest. And while it may not have succeeded, it?s still a good enough way to spend two hours. |
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Jesse Rose
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