The problem with this film, which is clearly a bad one, is that some of the bits in it are really good. Of course, this might be because the idea of the original manga shines through, but not having read it, I can't tell. I just watched the movie and enjoyed some things.
The structure of the movie is that of a children's film. It tries to be YA, but it is incredibly childish, from the editing to the special effects and action scenes to the characters themselves. And yet, instead of black and white characters that are either good or bad, you get a lot of shades of grey. Yes, you do get the young traumatized child that learns he has a cosmic destiny while being mentored by an older person who then (being Sean Bean) dies before any kind of structure was put in place, but that mentor is not that clean and the villain is not that bad and the henchmen have their own agendas and personalities. In short, I liked the characterization in the film, even if the film itself was ridiculous.
I also liked most of the cast. Probably nostalgia, but if you were in the 90s or early naughts and you had a movie starring Famke Janssen, Sean Bean, Mark Dacascos and even Nick Stahl you would have gladly gone to the cinema to watch it. Mackenyu is now famous in the West due to the One Piece of anime that got adapted right and I think he might have a bright future. Not much of an actor yet, but the potential is there. Probably Madison Iseman was the kink in the knight armor of the cast, but she wasn't terrible either.
Perhaps the wrong choice was to try to make this a film when it could have been a series, giving writers time to flesh out the characters, bring more knights into the story, kill Sean Bean a few more times, but I can only imagine the outcry of people who would go mad for the show not following the exact chapters of the manga. The thing is, when a mangaku writes a story about Greek gods they do it because that's exotic in Japan. I don't think they learn Greek mythology in school or grow up with the Legend of Olympus in their bookcase. When you adapt it to Western audiences, you should adapt the entire thing: replace the gods with Eastern gods or invent some new ones.
Bottom line: probably destined to be hated by the fans of the manga and ignored by the rest of people. If it weren't on HBO I wouldn't even had known about the existence of this film. Having watched it I can't say that I recommend it, but there were some bits of gold in the mud here.
P. S. "What are these guys made of?" "You don't wanna know". I kind of do!
The structure of the movie is that of a children's film. It tries to be YA, but it is incredibly childish, from the editing to the special effects and action scenes to the characters themselves. And yet, instead of black and white characters that are either good or bad, you get a lot of shades of grey. Yes, you do get the young traumatized child that learns he has a cosmic destiny while being mentored by an older person who then (being Sean Bean) dies before any kind of structure was put in place, but that mentor is not that clean and the villain is not that bad and the henchmen have their own agendas and personalities. In short, I liked the characterization in the film, even if the film itself was ridiculous.
I also liked most of the cast. Probably nostalgia, but if you were in the 90s or early naughts and you had a movie starring Famke Janssen, Sean Bean, Mark Dacascos and even Nick Stahl you would have gladly gone to the cinema to watch it. Mackenyu is now famous in the West due to the One Piece of anime that got adapted right and I think he might have a bright future. Not much of an actor yet, but the potential is there. Probably Madison Iseman was the kink in the knight armor of the cast, but she wasn't terrible either.
Perhaps the wrong choice was to try to make this a film when it could have been a series, giving writers time to flesh out the characters, bring more knights into the story, kill Sean Bean a few more times, but I can only imagine the outcry of people who would go mad for the show not following the exact chapters of the manga. The thing is, when a mangaku writes a story about Greek gods they do it because that's exotic in Japan. I don't think they learn Greek mythology in school or grow up with the Legend of Olympus in their bookcase. When you adapt it to Western audiences, you should adapt the entire thing: replace the gods with Eastern gods or invent some new ones.
Bottom line: probably destined to be hated by the fans of the manga and ignored by the rest of people. If it weren't on HBO I wouldn't even had known about the existence of this film. Having watched it I can't say that I recommend it, but there were some bits of gold in the mud here.
P. S. "What are these guys made of?" "You don't wanna know". I kind of do!