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Returner
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Squid Ink and Lobster.
Take Independence Day, E.T., Back to the Future, and The Matrix, mix it all together, heat it up just long enough to burn all the good CG away and serve with Japanese actors, you got Returner.
The biggest complaint I read about Returner is that it's derivative, and that's completely true, there's scarcely an original bone in it's body, but unlike some movies that simply ape their source material trope for trope, Returner seems like a genuine attempt to cram all of those influences together and produce something appealing on it's own, and personally I think it succeeds, even if it is incredibly flawed.
The CG looks ugly, the dialog is, at times, cheesy as all hell ("GO! The future is in YOUR HANDS!"), a couple characters being possessed to speak for the aliens is cringey as ****, and you'd think the villain must be extremely fast to silently run all the way across the deck of a ship out of site and onto a helicopter in a matter of seconds, THAT IS, until you realize the protagonist can be eating and keel right the **** out to sleep in even less time.
It's a goofy stupid movie, but it's one saving grace, if there is only one, would be it's actors and their characters.
The plot involves an alien invasion on the brink of destroying humanity's last stand when protagonist Milly escapes back in time through a time machine humanity just happened to having hanging around in order to kill the first alien which is told to have summoned the invasion of Earth. She immediately encounters Miyamoto, a sarcastic and skeptical mercenary, who she compels to help her by blackmailing him with an explosive to his neck. Thus follows a far-from-entirely-serious relationship which involves a lot of fun interplay between them.
I don't think I can really do them justice with words, so here's a clip:
Turns out while Milly's after the alien, Miyamoto's after the Big Bad named Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi's a great villain because he MUGS THE CRAP OUT OF EVERY SCENE HE'S IN. He's a very entertaining sleazebag and I daresay he's got an excellent death scene if you think about it a little bit.
The music has bursts of genuine quality, the story, while prone to surface-level scrutiny like "why are they burning time at a salon when they gotta save the world?", and you naturally run into about the same narrative failures as Back to the Future when it comes to the time travel aspect, but if you can forgive the movie for it's obvious influences and it's very pedestrian CG, I think it's a pretty touching movie by the end with an ending that features reincorporation that's foreshadowed, but still surprising.
I really like this movie. This is one of those that I totally concede has pretty significant issues, but would also certainly regret not having in my personal collection.
Final Verdict: [Pretty Good]
Returner
Sci-Fi Action Drama / Japanese / 2002
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
For the Action Movie Countdown.
Been putting this reassessment off for a LONG time.
You know that one day years and years ago when you were just bored out of your mind one day and vegged out in front of the TV flippin' channels and you wind up in the middle of a really weird subtitled movie? You don't think much of it at the time, but years later you'ru KICKING YOURSELF trying to remember what in the hell that friggen' movie was.
That was this movie for me, and I found it.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Been putting this reassessment off for a LONG time.
You know that one day years and years ago when you were just bored out of your mind one day and vegged out in front of the TV flippin' channels and you wind up in the middle of a really weird subtitled movie? You don't think much of it at the time, but years later you'ru KICKING YOURSELF trying to remember what in the hell that friggen' movie was.
That was this movie for me, and I found it.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
"I'll return, I promise."
Squid Ink and Lobster.
Take Independence Day, E.T., Back to the Future, and The Matrix, mix it all together, heat it up just long enough to burn all the good CG away and serve with Japanese actors, you got Returner.
The biggest complaint I read about Returner is that it's derivative, and that's completely true, there's scarcely an original bone in it's body, but unlike some movies that simply ape their source material trope for trope, Returner seems like a genuine attempt to cram all of those influences together and produce something appealing on it's own, and personally I think it succeeds, even if it is incredibly flawed.
The CG looks ugly, the dialog is, at times, cheesy as all hell ("GO! The future is in YOUR HANDS!"), a couple characters being possessed to speak for the aliens is cringey as ****, and you'd think the villain must be extremely fast to silently run all the way across the deck of a ship out of site and onto a helicopter in a matter of seconds, THAT IS, until you realize the protagonist can be eating and keel right the **** out to sleep in even less time.
It's a goofy stupid movie, but it's one saving grace, if there is only one, would be it's actors and their characters.
The plot involves an alien invasion on the brink of destroying humanity's last stand when protagonist Milly escapes back in time through a time machine humanity just happened to having hanging around in order to kill the first alien which is told to have summoned the invasion of Earth. She immediately encounters Miyamoto, a sarcastic and skeptical mercenary, who she compels to help her by blackmailing him with an explosive to his neck. Thus follows a far-from-entirely-serious relationship which involves a lot of fun interplay between them.
I don't think I can really do them justice with words, so here's a clip:
Turns out while Milly's after the alien, Miyamoto's after the Big Bad named Mizoguchi. Mizoguchi's a great villain because he MUGS THE CRAP OUT OF EVERY SCENE HE'S IN. He's a very entertaining sleazebag and I daresay he's got an excellent death scene if you think about it a little bit.
WARNING: "Returner" spoilers below
I really don't think we're supposed to empathize with Mizoguchi at all given how over the top goofy he is, but if you think about it... remember those few instances where he's literally trying to dodge bullets when the main characters have demonstrated literal bullet time?
Imagine this from Mizoguchi's perspective: he sees these brats running around, messing up his ****, making him look inferior, and demonstrating an uncanny ability to move fast enough to dodge bullets. All the way up to the climax, Mizoguchi increasingly moves in a way that looks like he can just sidestep hitscan weapons and after they beat him out time and time again with bullet time, IMAGINE how frustrated he is and angry to prove himself superior, SO SUPERIOR that when they can dodge bullets, he can CATCH THEM, and then you have that glorious little moment where he looks so ******* proud of himself only to have a delayed reaction to being shot in the face.
Imagine this from Mizoguchi's perspective: he sees these brats running around, messing up his ****, making him look inferior, and demonstrating an uncanny ability to move fast enough to dodge bullets. All the way up to the climax, Mizoguchi increasingly moves in a way that looks like he can just sidestep hitscan weapons and after they beat him out time and time again with bullet time, IMAGINE how frustrated he is and angry to prove himself superior, SO SUPERIOR that when they can dodge bullets, he can CATCH THEM, and then you have that glorious little moment where he looks so ******* proud of himself only to have a delayed reaction to being shot in the face.
The music has bursts of genuine quality, the story, while prone to surface-level scrutiny like "why are they burning time at a salon when they gotta save the world?", and you naturally run into about the same narrative failures as Back to the Future when it comes to the time travel aspect, but if you can forgive the movie for it's obvious influences and it's very pedestrian CG, I think it's a pretty touching movie by the end with an ending that features reincorporation that's foreshadowed, but still surprising.
I really like this movie. This is one of those that I totally concede has pretty significant issues, but would also certainly regret not having in my personal collection.