Movie Review 51: Summer Wars

Ohayo!

Prepare thyself for the first anime movie review by a company other than Ghibli in a very long time.

I asked a collective of Anime fans what movie I should watch, i got a lot of Summer Wars responses. So the first movie I watched, Summer Wars.

It's about a boy who is faking being a girls boyfriend, then accidentally causes the Internet to collapse. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but yeah, it's random.

Review Time. Will have some spoilers

MOVIE REVIEW: Summer Wars

Pros:
The animation was amazing, the 'in game' animation was astounding. there are so many things on screen and it was extremely fluid. I really enjoyed most of the stuff inside the OZ program.

I liked the family dichotomy, but ultimately there were so many characters I had no idea what any of them did.

Overall the movie had a very fun feel and the concept. I liked the characters and i can see why it's a favorite for many people

Cons:
The actual movie didn't make a whole lot of sense. A renegade AI was swallowing up other people's accounts and controlling the world? Ok, that works, but how can you trick it into betting them all? and why does it want to kill every body? what reason would it have to kill everyone? I understand the world is now run on this software, but couldn't the system just be rebooted? is there no security at all? how can one kid, well actually 100 people solve a code that opens up the whole system. can this happen to the Internet?

Why does the kid get singled out when he doesn't actually solve the original algorithm correctly? why is his name plastered all over the place? and why was that storyline never brought up again after he comes back? who absolved him of his sins?

also, at one point someone in the family says the missile from space thing would have enough energy to destroy quite a large area, it misses by less than a football field and doesn't demolish them all?

It just seems like the creators had more interest in the cool visuals than the story itself. or maybe I'm just reading more into it than I should.

I was actually more interested in the relationship between the girl and boy. why did she pick him? was there a real reason other than just needing him for the overall story? She eventually developed some kind of feelings for him I guess, but why would she have picked him in the first place. They were int he same class but it was never stated that they were actually friends. Maybe if the film established that they were friends first it would have worked better.

What the hell is Hanafuda? I'm guessing it's a game, but it sure would be nice if it looked like it made remote sense and wasn't just a plot device for the end of the movie....

Final Verdict: 62
Enjoyed it, but it just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me in the end

Comments

  1. This has become my most read article, How did that happen?

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