This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
It's hard to express my particular disappointment in this movie.
Is the movie worth seeing? Yes.
Does Michelle Rodriguez kick ass yet again? Yes.
Are there set pieces I never would have imagined? Yes. [cart heist, lava dragon, jelly]
Despite this, I found myself so disappointed in those last few minutes. I don't want to ding the film for its predictable moral (that your found family is just as valid & valuable as your biological family), because I wholeheartedly believe in…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
I went into this knowing nothing about it other than the ten seconds of the trailer I saw that made me interested in the first place. I kept expecting the film to take a Pursuit of Happiness-style turn where it tries to make you feel bad for Hirayama. He's in the claustrophobically-shot bathroom and gets attacked by the homeless guy. Takashi breaks into the van and steals the cassettes, or Hirayama has other financial troubles and has to sell off…
Not just "an all-timer" for me, this is "THE all-timer". Every time I watch it, I find new stuff I love about it. This time, it was every single Mae Whitman line.
CONFESSION: when I first saw this movie in theaters I was a little sad that it talked about Pac-Man being named Puck Man, because I had read the book "Game Over" where it mentions this and liked telling people that as a fun fact.
So much fun! The blacksmith fight is one of my favorite fights in any movie. And the movie ends with the same combination of action and sillyness that makes the film great, rather than a dry scene of tying up the ends of the plot.
Worst thing in the movie (other than Johnny Depp retroactively tainting it) is that most of the fight scenes on boats are just too long and I get a little bored of them.
