Shingeki no kyojin: Endo obu za wârudo (2015) Reviews

• Titans, titans everywhere

  tenshi_ippikiookami2016-07-06

  Or maybe not, as the second part of "Attack on Titan" is curiously devoid of the big people, who seem to be busy somewhere else. The first part of the manga adaptation differed a lot from the original source but was still a fun enough time at the movies, with acceptable action, passable CGI and a pervasive feeling of fear and threat, the titans and the story behind them scary enough to forget the over-the-top moments and some not very good acting. The second part, though, just feels like someone decided to fill one hour and a half of randomness. Oh, and Satomi Ishihara's Zoë Hange shouting. Non-stop. For the whole movie. We were left with a surprising moment at the end of the first movie: Eren could become a titan too. The second movie starts just afterwards, with him in chains and the leader of the army not very happy of seeing him. From that moment, any chance of the movie making sense jumps out of the window. Sadly, any atmosphere, sense of fear or cool action go out too leaving the viewer with not much. That the plot is very random and the explanation of the titans kind of really-you-couldn't-think-about-anything-else? could be forgiven if anything else made sense. It is not that the actors overact and chew through their scenes as if there was no tomorrow; it's that they don't have many other options, as the dialogue is terrible, and the direction lacking. All in all, the movie fails, and it's a pity because it could have been quite an interesting study of militarism or society control. It can be mildly entertaining, and it is short enough that it never becomes terribly boring, but it's just purposeless and empty.

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• This sequel kills the overall story.

  djangozelf-123512015-11-26

  I had such high hopes for this one. It goes downhill immediately and drags on while nothing of the first movie is surpassed. The fact that the titans were made by humans was something interesting I wanted to see but it got glossed over while it would make a good part for a trilogy. This idea of putting to much story in 2 movies fails horribly and makes this sequel painful to watch. I really hope someone reboots this because it really has enough material for multiple movies,preferably a trilogy. Everything felt less in this movie from the acting, to the script, to the production value, with only the ending feeling somewhat O.K. I'm rating this real low. Rating for both these films would be 4 or 5. This could have been great. Sad... it ain't so. Remake.

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• Justifies Nothing

  billygoat10712015-09-27

  The first Attack on Titan already missed the point of the anime/manga. Disregard the source material, it still delivers enough dose of delightful violence. But since it now made an even more complicated storyline for this mythology, it would be tough to gain the chance of having a compelling story. And here we are, the sequel that is suppose to make sense out of something that's already made stupid. Maybe the predecessor was sort of forgivable for bringing a lot of cool action and bloody death scenes from the Titans, but here, it's more explaining; while that's not a bad choice, the characters aren't improved, the themes are even more vague and the plot is just shallow. The action is fine when it delivers, but we witness more horribly written characters here than whatever made the first movie at least fun. This sequel is about unraveling conspiracies from tyrannical governments, and that doesn't sound so bad since it's representing its own dystopian future allegory. But every time it keeps explaining the life inside and outside the walls, things get seriously confusing. At one point, it states that life inside the walls is suppose to be some sort of a utopian facade, but we hardly even get to explore that commentary. We're just explained that everyone inside the walls are slaves from a classified science experiment. And the rest of the movie has these characters deciding which side should they choose, either to destroy the wall or kill many innocent civilians. It would be cool if this argument doesn't take forever, but it keeps going. The problem is it's not given much tension since we hardly even knew who the people they were defending. It's just a nearly unending argument of which choice is supposed to be the right thing and it gets tedious. And the story gets even stupider the more they reveal the secrets of the villains, but we'd rather shrug it off and wait for the next action scene. Too bad, it takes a chunk of every ten to twenty minutes to get there. The first movie, while dumb, does spend a lot establishing the terror of the Titans. Here, the action is much reserved, which is a shame since these scenes are the only ones that are quite glorious to watch. Now we see hand-to-hand fights between two or more Titans and that's pretty awesome, but again, these scenes are just so little compared to the dreary expositions the entirety took over. The effects still looks nice, but it's easy to overlook these merits if everything else seems boring. Attack on Titan 2: End of the World is just not trying anymore. The first movie have established too much of the terror of these creatures, but then there happens to be a greater villain, which is presented with dull verbal expositions that leads to an utterly underwhelming finale of a franchise that hardly has anything to put out to begin with. They could have made things simple, like a direct adaptation, rather than being a much shallow version of The Giver movie or an exasperatingly complicated version of The Scorch Trials. The anime/manga is already a pretty clever, and once again, morally complex material. So why follow these generic trends? Well, fine, if you want to be a mindless fun movie, then go ahead. Besides, the title "Attack on Titan" and even more so with "End of the World" are perfect to enough to indicated a mindless, but pretty cool epic. But this movie sadly justifies nothing.

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• The end was not as good as the start (of the world)

  siderite2016-01-03

  I actually liked the first part of this quite a lot. Characters were developed, story was set up, really creepy looking ghoulish giants as the opponents. If it weren't for the over the top Japanese acting, it would have been quite cool. Unfortunately, the second part of the story - this film - is not as good as the first. It turns a humanity survival thing into a sort of Resident Evil, just as ridiculously acted and with reveals that inhibit rather than use the potential created with the first movie. I have not watched the anime or read the manga. I know people are upset about the film not following the plot there. I have been just as outraged when films destroyed by image of a thing I love. However, you need to also consider this series of the movies as a stand alone story, maybe a reboot, who knows. The first part was very good at that, the second just obliterated that option. Bottom line: first part worth watching, second part not so much, but it would make no sense to not see it after going through the first film. Overall, a bit of a failure.

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• Rushed Right Through

  3xHCCH2015-09-27

  This sequel to last month's live-action version of the manga/anime "Attack on Titan." That was a much-anticipated film because of the popularity of the anime. However, it was uniformly met with bad reviews and fan disappointment because of the poor Titan special effects, but more because of the significant, arguably ill-advised or unnecessary changes in the storyline made to fit a live-action format. The first episode ended with the revelation that Eren was actually the special Titan who was killing the other regular Titans. This sequel began with an inquiry conducted by a ruthless Director General who seemed to want nothing but to execute Eren. Of course, Eren's friend Armin bravely argued for his friend. The action builds up to a climactic grand three-way fight among three special Titans on the outermost wall. This sequel, released just a month after the original, was only about an hour and a half long. The first 20 minutes or so was just a reiteration of the event in the first film. For me, the two films could have been simply integrated into one longer film. We do not see much of the regular Titans anymore in this film. We will also see the origin of the Titans and the reason why Eren become a Titan recalled in flashbacks which i wished were treated with more details and clarity. Like the first film, and even more so in this sequel, we see over-the- top acting from most of the cast. The main group of young soldiers, led of course by the trio of lead characters: Eren Yeager (Haruma Miura), Mikasa Ackerman (Mizuhara Kiko), and Armin Arlert (Kanata Hongô). The Mikasa of the films was not at all like the Mikasa in the anime. We see at least one act of bravery from each of their friends as well, namely Sasha Blouse aka Potato Girl (Nanami Sakuraba), Jean Kirstein (Takahiro Miura) and Sannagi (Satoru Matsuo). We see more of the bespectacled yet incredibly (and hilariously) hyperactive senior female officer Hange Zoë (Satomi Ishihara). We will get a surprising revelation about the enigmatic Shikishima (Hiroki Hasegawa), the character that replaced Levi Ackerman, "Humanity's Strongest Soldier" in the manga/anime. A similarly remarkable storyline follows the human antagonist Kubal (Jun Kunimura). Unfortunately, the film does not give us a satisfactory explanation about what happened to these last two characters. This film just sought to close the main storyline started by the first film, direct to the point. No more side detours were included. It was all over in less than 90 minutes. Unfortunately, a major part of this sequel was just a lot of talking, with practically no action in the first hour. By the time it reached the battle-royale in the last thirty minutes, a lot of the audience may have already zoned out. It was not really much of an Armageddon as promised by its title. 4/10.

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