Review for Attack on Titan: The Movie - Part 1

Introduction

Animatsu are on something of a live action kick this year, and they are getting a jump start on their US and Australian cohorts. The last couple of months have seen the UK release of the Parasyte feature films, manga adaptations that turned out quite special indeed and well worth watching. Both films were released in the UK on DVD and on Blu-ray, and for once, we got them ahead of the US, while the second film’s Blu-ray is a UK English language exclusive. We’re doing even better for the Attack on Titan movies. While they have been licensed for US and AU release, and Funimation have made a big theatrical thing out of them, we in the UK are the first English territory to get them on home video full stop. No one else has them on disc at the time of writing.


Attack on Titan has been the hit of this decade, the manga selling like hot cakes, the anime spin-off a streaming and home video sensation, so the live-action feature films were more an inevitability than a possibility. Just like the Parasyte movies, it’s one story split in twain, and we get the first half in Part 1. The difference is that Parasyte was an old manga that only got its live action adaptation years later, once the New Line Cinema rights squatting had expired. Attack on Titan is still an ongoing manga, telling a rich and complex story. The anime’s first season could barely scratch the surface, so it’s hard to tell what two short feature films will accomplish. The second thing is that I find manga adaptations that are set in the ‘real’ world tend to work better, just as Parasyte did. The more fantastic a story, the more far-fetched a world, the less effective an adaptation is. Attack on Titan’s story is nothing if not fantastic. Then again, Japanese live action cinema has previous when it comes to giant beasts rampaging through cities.


100 years previously, the Titans appeared, mindless, genderless giants whose sole instinct was to devour people. The human race was practically driven to extinction, the few survivors finding shelter in an enclave protected by three massive concentric walls. The outer ring the agricultural district, the inner ring the commercial district, the centre the domain of the elite, the government, and it was forbidden to all to tamper with the walls, to think of stepping outside of the boundaries. But a wall eventually begins to feel like a prison, especially for young Eren, who dreams of seeing the outside world. He even gets to the point of convincing his friends Armin and Mikasa to leave the walls, to find the mythical ocean. They get as far as the wall before they’re stopped by the authorities, but that coincides with the attack of a Titan larger than any ever seen, one that looms even taller than the outer wall. The wall is breached and the other Titans rush in, ready to feast. The farm district is inundated, the people massacred, the few survivors fleeing to the inner wall. The last Eren saw of Mikasa was her in the middle of the street, a Titan looming over her.

Two years later, Eren and Armin have signed up with the military, part of a scouting force given a last-ditch mission to retake the outer wall, and exterminate all the Titans. But none of the young soldiers are prepared for the Titan menace, while an unexpected face awaits Eren and Armin outside the safety of the inner wall. But no one knows the dark secret that Eren is keeping, not even Eren himself.

The Disc

Attack on Titan gets a 2.35:1 widescreen 1080p transfer, and given that it’s a digitally shot film, you can expect the Blu-ray to be pretty much flawless in presentation. Certainly the image is clear and sharp, with strong detail and consistent colours. There’s no sign of compression or digital banding, and all in all it’s a solid transfer. In terms of audio we get the choice between DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround and PCM 2.0 Stereo Japanese, with optional English subtitles. I went with the surround track and was seriously impressed with sound design, making full use of the sound-stage to convey ambience and effects, with the LFE busting a gut whenever a Titan was imminent. This is very much a film to watch with the sound turned up, and on as large a screen as possible, to get the best immersion into this world of giant man-eaters. It’s a great AV experience. However, Japanese film budgets being what they are, the overuse of CGI can tell at times, not in the Titans, which were mostly accomplished the old fashioned way, and then tweaked with digital effects, but in the realisation of the city and its environs. There are no extras on disc with Attack on Titan the Movie.

The images in this review were kindly supplied by Animatsu.

Conclusion

Don’t expect the manga story to be told here with any faithfulness; in fact don’t even expect a narrative experience on a par with the anime. The film may hit most of the same major beats as the manga story, but it is very much its own animal, a whole new and somewhat distant adaptation of that story. This isn’t a European, pseudo-mediaeval setting, rather a post-apocalyptic Japan, the pan-European characters are all gone, replaced by a wholly Japanese cast, and all of the complexity, depth, and intrigue of the manga has been washed away in the adaptation process. The Attack on Titan movie is a horror flick, and as unsatisfying a summer blockbuster comic book cash-in as any Hollywood mainstream feature film. It’s watchable, and it is entertaining too, but it’s utterly disposable and forgettable on top of that. I guess hoping for another Parasyte was asking too much.


While the film does hit the same beats as the manga, it can only go so far in its 98-minute runtime, which is as far as Eren’s first transformation. That’s barely scratching the surface, and for this to be a truly satisfying story, the second movie will have to go in its own direction, ditch the manga storyline completely. I think that the biggest disappointment with this first movie is the constant reminder of the manga, despite the fact that it resembles it only superficially. You have three young adults in Eren, Armin and Mikasa growing up in a part of the city that gets raided and destroyed by Titans, and then two years later, they’ve trained up and are looking for revenge. Things go badly until Eren has his ‘growing pains’, which is exactly what happens in the manga, if not exactly the same way. But the film has none of the weight, and little of the context behind it to match the original story. In fact it reminds me more of the Christian Bale movie, Reign of Fire, with Titans instead of dragons,


It’s really just an excuse for giant Titans going on the rampage, feeding on the hapless young teen defenders, with a whole lot of blood and gore. In other words it’s a typical teen horror flick, the same character interactions, the clichéd dialogue, and you can play a drinking game guessing who is going to get eaten next. ‘That couple’s talking about getting married once this is all over? They are so Titan fodder!’ Another thing that diminished the film in my estimation is the acting. Certainly the three young leads do little to impress, with Eren’s portrayal drenched in overplayed melodrama, lacking in subtlety or nuance. It’s an over-emotive performance that initially seems like overacting, but quickly progresses into being tiresome and monotone. Mikasa goes from whimpering victim to Sarah Connor in the blink of an eye, while Armin is just there. This is not a film about acting, it’s about the spectacle.


The biggest mistake is to think about the manga or the anime while watching it, which is a daft thing to say, as it’s called Attack on Titan, it’s being sold off the back of the manga. But really, you have to treat it as the b-movie blockbuster that it is; a parody of Attack on Titan, and then you will be able to enjoy it. It’s a dumb, fun, action horror in the same vein as Sharknado or any of those other daft sci-fi force of nature films that have been made in recent years. Whether the Attack on Titan movies can salvage some dignity will all depend on the direction Part 2 takes. If it continues in the same vein, then it’ll just be a footnote, but if it does something unexpected and radical, ditching the manga completely, then there’s a chance that these films will be worthwhile after all.