This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
This movie is a remake of one of my favorite films ever (not just Japanese films, but films period. The original is just that good).
This movie does twist and make the story its own while keeping the same beats, but I mostly am not a fan of where they went with it.
The reveal that Motome explicitly asks for money to take care of his family before he dies instead of it being a slow burn reveal from Hanshiro's…
I went into this movie and its predecessor pretty much blind. And I was blown away. I know there's an anime series for it too, and watching that might color my opinion on this particular film, but as a self contained story, I thought it was a beautiful story about love and loss.
It was good enough that it makes me want to go watch the anime.
"It's not about the journey, it really is about the destination."
OF COURSE a 3.5 hour movie would say this.
Anyway, Felicity Jones basically steals this movie with one amazing scene at the end. It's a good movie and I really enjoyed it, but it's really disappointing to know that AI was used in this movie. I'm not sure I would've gone to see it had I known.
Also, let's normalize intermissions for long movies again. This movie had one and it was well timed.
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