Didn't do too much for me, but mostly from a subjective perspective

Rating: 4/10 (22 October 2019)

The award-winning "Akira" is a Japanese animated movie from 1988, so this one had its 30th anniversary last year, and it was written and directed by Katsuhiro Ôtomo, who was in his early 30s at that point and it is probably still his most known career effort as of today, even if he has also worked on other fairly well-known films. The cast list I cannot say anything about really, probably only the biggest anime/Japanese movie fans will be familiar with the names and that is alright. Good voice actors are never as famous as good "live action actors", but that does not mean in any way they are worse. The ones here did an okay job overall for this film that runs for slightly over 2 hours. As for the western world, there are animated movies that are only for kids and animated movies that are for grown-ups as well as kids, but virtually no animated movies only for adults. This is definitely different when it comes to Japan. For this country, there is a full sub-genre of films that are animated and not suitable for children, not because of sexual contents most of the time, but because of the violence. This is one of them. As for sexual content, we only have female breasts exposed on one occasion, but tons of bloodshed and violence really. This was one of the problems I had with this movie, indirectly I would say, because the film is incredibly tense and not in a good way. People say (wrongfully) that it is not good if nothing happens in a movie, but the exact opposite we got here is nothing to be desired either because there is no moment to take a breath for the audience really and I personally do not like it. Also it does not feel too realistic if always something happens, something crucial, that is, apparently. And this is the case here.
Anyway, one of the more interesting things to me here was that while the film was made in the 80s, there are references to the future, what the futuristic Tokyo will look like and funnily they picked the year 2019 exactly to depict it. Okay, it's not on a Space Odyssey oder Dark Angel level, but still kinda funny, even if obviously they are exaggerating so much here that it is hard to believe this is what they thought the year 2019 would look like. I think we can be glad that it is not like this in reality and also that there was no World War III as mentioned early in this film. Okay what else did I like about the movie. The animation is okay. It is not entirely to my liking, but there are moments I enjoy and I can see why some really adore it. It's obviously not Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli in terms of looks and approach, but it succeeds to deliver in other departments, more through style than cuteness. I liked the sets and depiction of the broken city honestly more than the people's looks. Especially those with changed skin color I found a bit strange, but I guess it was also partially to emphasize their powers and how different they are to "normal" humans. Another thing I found really cool was the red motorbike and also the red uniform one character was wearing. Still what was up with the stickers? Advertizing? Anyway, I don't care too much, it still looked swell.
Now for the negative and there is a lot more for sure than positive, at least for me. But like I said in the title of my review, a lot of it is subjective. I must say I really struggled with the characters and their introduction especially. Early on, it felt like a mess to me with how many were included really and how each and every one got a scene or two and then some were never seen again. Also in terms of editing, the film is so so fast that there is never really a camera shot and angle that lasts for more than a few seconds. Of course, this fits in well with the speed attached to this film in general in terms of motorbikes and superpowers and fighting because some of the characters are super fast, but still, this is certainly not my preferred approach. At the end, it was a bit improved as there was finally better focus on the characters and not too many of them anymore. Still, there were characters like the officer who did not have really enough elaboration before that to make the impact they were supposed to make and also where is he gone eventually? Like vanished completely and not in the creature I think. Also I thought it was a weird decision by the two (or maybe even all three) tiny powerful characters to just jump in there to save the young man. And boom he is saved in the end, but nobody else is. Why would they trade their lives for him? Sure he fought hard and gave it his all, but he is not a deity or something and the quote "at least we can save the young man this way" was not enough for me.
I think many people who rated this film so highly that it is still (barely) in the imdb top250 forgot about some of the mediocrities earlier on and the rather weak first 75 minutes and did so because the ending is really spectacular and admittedly what the test subject turns into at the end (or almost the end) looks pretty memorable, also pretty disgusting, but how we hear he cannot control his body anymore also shows that, while he probably is the main antagonist, he is also some sort of victim. And it was a bold decision to let the girl die that he sucked in. And other characters. But to me, it hardly made an emotional impact. Same for the moment when the good main character (of course) survives and his friends welcome him and are really happy he is still there. I also did not like the little light and "piece of energy" he eventually turns into and it was too much of an easy way out. Maybe the feel-good easy way out and kinda interesting, but did it make sense that he turns into something so tiny after we hear he bascially created a new universe before that? They did it better with Scarlett Johansson's transformation into pure energy not too long ago I guess. But let's not drift too far away from this one here. I give it a thumbs-down overall and was a little bit (but not too much) surprised when people clapped the moment the closing credits rolled in. Then again, with the type of people in the audience, I was not too surprised. But even if I did not like the movie as much, I still thought it was a better watch on the big screen (where I got the chance to see it) than on a small laptop screen or so. But it is definitely nowhere near my top250, probably not even in my top250 from 1988, let alone from the 80s. I don't recommend checking it out. If you still want, it probably helps if "Dragon Ball" is more your thing than Pokemon in terms of ideas and stories. Oh and finally, also a few words on the title, again negative ones sadly: It is short and catchy yes and from that perspective probably helped the film to garner more attention, but Akira never felt like a defining concept or character to me compared to some others that would have been a better choice to name the film after. In an accurate scenario, it would be that Akira is significant enough to say: "Yes, this is the character that they should have picked for the title." However, the way it is here, is the other way around. Naming the film after Akira gives a pretty forgettable character some additional significance. That would be all.