Dead Guys battle Aliens
I have never read the Gantz comic, nor seen the anime, so my only exposure to this series is the live-action movies. I knew nothing of what to expect going into the film other than what I had read on the box cover.
Right from the start, “Gantz” feels like a comic adaptation rather than a movie. In several of the scenes, I didn’t know what was going on and I wondered if the director expected everyone to know the background from the comic series. It didn’t really matter though, because the film was soon head-over-heals in giant combat and I got the feeling that the “why” didn’t matter very much. This is a film that you have to shut off your logic-brain and go on pure Rule of Cool.
The concept is esoteric from the beginning: Random people are plucked from the verge of death and find themselves in a featureless room with a giant black ball in the middle. The black ball–which we learn is named Gantz–tells them that their previous lives are over and their only option now is too battle aliens in some sort of game. You get points for how you do in the alien game, and if you get to 100 points then you can chose to go back to your life, or resurrect someone who died during a previous game. Gantz also supplies you with a supersuit and somewhat functionless weapons to carry out your task with.
“Gantz” feels like a lot of different films. There are obvious hints of The Matrix. There are some touches of Death Note and even 20th Century Boys, although both of those are much better films than “Gantz.” Stylistically, it looks good but it looks like a live-action cartoon rather than a movie. The monsters were interesting, and my favorites were the Deva guardian and the thousand-armed Kannon statues. I liked the touches of Japanese mythology mixed into the Sci Fi action. But there wasn’t enough of this. The aliens seemed to be wholly unconnected and just gave the protagonists something to fight.
The cast for “Gantz” was decent, but they rotated in and out so fast it was hard to get a grasp of any single character. Lead actor Ninomiya Kazunari (Letters from Iwo Jima) wasn’t really compelling enough as Kurono Kei to carry the whole film. Matsuyama Kenichi (Kamui Gaiden) is a much stronger actor, although he was in a supporting role. I thought that was kind of a waste. Having Matsuyama front and center would have been a better choice. Yoshitaka Yuriko (NEW Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler) didn’t seem to serve much purpose other than to fill out her form fitting suit, which she did rather well.
Overall, I enjoyed “Gantz” but wasn’t blown away by it. Even as a live-action anime film it pales beside “Death Note” and “20th Century Boys.” As a film in its own right it is some mindless but forgettable fun.
The DVD is a 2-disk set with some bonus footage and some interviews. All of those are nice but not really enough of an addition to justify the second disk. They probably could just have been included on the first disk as bonus features.
