Reaction & Review | Assault Girls

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a sci-fi action movie from 2009. That movie is "Assault Girls".

Now, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie, other than what I've read on the back. Well, before I get to that, I noticed a blurb on the top of the DVD case. Which states that this movie is from the director of "Ghost in the Shell". Specifically, the first two "Ghost in the Shell" animated films. I should mention that I tried to get into "Ghost in the Shell" by watching one of the animated series, and that didn't really do anything for me. I also tried to watch the live action "Ghost in the Shell" movie from 2017, and that movie was incredibly dull. So, while I may not be into "Ghost in the Shell", I'm certainly hoping that Mamoru Oshii, who is the director of this movie, can do something good here with this thing.

While I'm on the subject of tonight's movie, I was reading the back of the case, just so I can get an idea of what I'm getting myself into. And, honestly, I'm not really sure if there is going to be a real plot here. According to what I read, the plot indicates that it's about a team of women called Assault Girls, who test their fighting skills in a virtual world by destroying sand monsters. Like I said, I'm not really sure if there's any real plot beyond that. But who knows? This movie could dig out something interesting with it's premise. The only other thing that I know about this movie is that it's short. It's only 70 minutes long, so the good news is that if this movie ends up being terrible, at least my suffering will be short and sweet.

Then again, I don't really know if this will be any good. I'm certainly hoping that it will, at least, be entertaining. But the only way I'm gonna find that out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Assault Girls".

9 minutes later

Guys, I understand that this movie has just started, but this has got to be one of the worst paced openings I have ever seen. We just got through with a prologue that lasted almost 7 minutes, and now we're being treated to shots of nothing happening...OK, now I'm seeing the same sphere that was on the front cover. Would be nice if this movie would actually pick up, so we can get the story rolling. But that opening narration took way too fucking long to get through. That was just incredibly unnecessary.

9 minutes later

Well, it took the movie about 18 minutes to get to it's opening title screen, but at least we finally got to it. It's kind of a pity that the movie had to take that long just to get to it's opening title, in a movie that's only about 70 minutes long. The pacing in this thing is fucking brutally bad.

4 minutes later

Guys, I'd love to hear what these characters are saying, but I can't hear any of the dialogue because two of our main characters are wearing these muzzle masks that's making their dialogue inadmissible. This is really getting hard to watch, guys.

15 minutes later

So, guys, I'm gonna ask this. Is ANYTHING going to happen in this fucking movie? I swear, guys, this movie has gone nowhere with it's fucking premise, and I am struggling to stay the fuck awake. This movie is so fucking dull, that I'm hoping the next half hour or so will get interesting. I strongly doubt it at this point, but I want something interesting to happen in this movie. I am not asking for something good, because that ship has long since set sailed at this point, but I want something interesting to happen that's going to make me care even a little bit about what happens in this movie. That's all I'm asking for.

14 minutes later

Hold on a fucking second here. Did this movie suddenly switch over to the Japanese voice acting? Because, last time I checked, I was watching the English dub. At least, I assume it's the English dub. I'm going to assume that this was a fuck-up on the company that put this movie out on DVD, but I could've sworn that I was watching the English dub when I pressed play. Granted, the acting for this dub was terrible, and admittedly, the Japanese voice acting is less painful to listen to, but for the love of God, I wish this movie would keep some level of consistency. This is just horrible, guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Assault Girls". Let me shut this garbage off...OK. Dear lord...that was fucking stupid. I'm sorry, guys, I am just baffled about this movie. Because I thought there was going to be something interesting here. I remember when I bought this thing and thinking that there was going to be something unique and different. But no, there is nothing here that is redeemable. Nothing.

I want to start with something different. I want to talk about the biggest problem that this movie has. Worse than the writing, worse than the acting. Believe me, I'll get to all of that. The biggest problem that this movie suffers from is the pacing. This movie has some of the worst pacing I have seen in a movie in a LONG time. And that's saying a lot, because I genuinely thought that the movie was going to be fast paced and straight to the point. But that's not what happens here. We have a ton of scenes in this movie that go absolutely nowhere. We have long, drawn out establishing shots of a virtual world that is completely lifeless. And the movie will hold on to some of these shots for about 30 seconds before moving onto something else. And if it's not focusing on this virtual world, we also have a ton of shots of our four main characters walking. And nothing of value comes from these shots. It probably would've helped if these shots were to establish who our main characters are, and give us a reason to care about them. I am not asking for mountains of depth, because that rarely happens in action movies. But at least give some kind of reason as to why we should care about any of these characters. But this movie didn't want to do that. They are all, almost, unlikable characters with zero personality. I understand that I'm already dipping into writing, but I'll get more into that when I talk about the characters. But going back to the pacing. This movie spends so much time showing standing shots of nothing happening. If this movie was trying to be artsy by showing that you don't need a ton of dialogue to tell a story, then this movie fails at it because that kind of storytelling doesn't work for an action movie. And while I'm on the subject of it, this movie barely has any action in it at all. You'll either have our main characters trying to destroy sand monsters, or you'll have a long, drawn out, 4 round duel between Gray and Jeager, which goes fuck all nowhere. And it's actually going to be hard for me to recommend this for fans of plotless action films, because this movie doesn't have a lot of action scenes. But I'm getting ahead of myself again. We also have this opening prologue that takes up about 7 minutes to get through. And I'd love to tell you about all of that, but the problem with that is the narrator's thick accent. The only things I got out of that opening narration was something about imagination and reality, and that someone created a virtual world game called Avalon. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you what he was talking about because of the thick accent our narrator has.

So, moving away from the horrendous pacing, because I could talk about that for an entire day, let's move on to the writing. I have a theory about something. And, mind you, this is all just a theory, so take it for what you will. I am convinced that there was suppose to be a story here. Now, I totally understand that because this is an action movie, you're not expecting a deep, deep plot. And I would've not minded that, except we don't have any story here. I genuinely believe that there was a story at one point, but someone from behind the scenes told Mamoru Oshii that he had to cut back on a lot of shit that he wanted to write into this script, because he was the one who, not only directed this movie, but also wrote the script for this movie. And because of that, what we have here is a shallow, empty story that has nothing of value. You know, I happen to remember a while back that I covered a certain Swedish action movie called "The Ninja Mission". Where I commented how the story was plotless, the characters were shallow and shit, and the action scenes were nothing except gun fights. But, you see, that movie at least kinda, sorta, tried with it's story. At least it had a main character that was a shallow, shitty knockoff of James Bond. At least the gun fights were something to go on, even if they were all, well, almost the exact same thing. This movie doesn't have any of that. And, as I just stated, I truly believe that there was more to this movie than just our main characters walking through a lifeless virtual world. But either Oshii had a gun to his head and was told to remove anything involving character development, or Oshii himself thought that what he had written was good enough to be green lightened and just didn't care about adding anything involving a plot, or characters that were worth caring about. Either way, this movie does not feel finished, and what kills it the most is the runtime. And I need to make a slight correction on my part. Because earlier, I mentioned that this movie was only 70 minutes long. That...is not entirely true. This movie ends at about the 63 to 65 minute mark, and then, after that, the movie starts rolling the credits. So, because of this, not only do we have a slightly misleading runtime, but because of it, it actually makes the movie look even worse than it already does. Point is, guys, this story does not feel finished. And I feel that something went wrong behind the scenes.

Now, setting aside my baseless theory about what happened to the film's writing, let me try to talk about it in a little more detail. This movie's story structure is divided up into 5 chapters. Which, OK, that sounds fine. Because, I've seen this story structure done in a similar movie that I covered for this series, which was "Mutant Girls Squad". And that movie ended up being awesome, because it was able to use the story chapter setting incredibly well. Here, though, it's the exact opposite. Chapter 1 starts with our main characters battling sand monsters. And, during all this, we hear this AI voice that tells them that their battle techniques are poorly structured and that they need to consider forming a party. Speaking of which, in Chapter 2, which is probably the most unnecessary chapter in the entire movie, showcases one of our main characters, Gray, who returns to her own base and is told by the same AI that she needs to consider forming a party, because she cannot win on her own. And that is literally ALL of Chapter 2, because it lasts for about 2 or 3 minutes, and we go straight into Chapter 3. There was no need for Chapter 2 to exist, because you could've put this scene into Chapter 1, and you wouldn't have missed a thing. Chapter 3 is where the pacing problems start to kick in because I talked about all of the failings this movie has with it's pacing, where we have establishing shots of our 4 main characters walking. And, during all this, we get to hear the AI's voice about 4 or 5 different times that the players need to consider forming a party. Why? Because the viewers are goldfish, and wouldn't be able to pick up on that the first time around. Anyway, as we have our 4 main characters walking for no reason, occasionally, they'll stop by at this statue. One of our main characters actually brings a snail with her and puts it onto the statue. And she stares at it for a while before leaving. And then, later, Jeager, who is the only male character in this movie I should mention, notices the snail when he stops by the statue and, later, ends up eating the snail because...reasons. Speaking of Jeager, Chapter 4 starts with Jeager eating, and much like everything else involving the terrible pacing, the movie will focus on him eating for about a minute in one shot with no camera cuts, until Gray enters the scene and ends up interrupting his meal. Then it shows our four main characters all together as they are about to begin forming a plan to destroy the final boss of the game. Oh, but before that, we get to see a 4 round duel between Gray and Jeager, which, as I stated before, goes fuck all nowhere. A little bit of a spoiler, on the off chance you care about that, Gray ends up winning all 4 duels, so...yay. And then Chapter 5, the final chapter, ends up with our four main characters battling the last boss of the game, which they destroy in all of 3 or 4 minutes. Seems rather anti-climatic, but, then again, this movie was running on a very strict runtime, so I wasn't expecting miracles there.

Let's talk about our characters for a moment, shall we? We have nothing here in terms of characters that I would say is worth caring for, and their personalities end up being dry free in the process. The only mentions of anything involving backgrounds is during the first chapter, where Gray mentions that Colonel has two kids, and is supporting them by playing the game that she's in. Aside from that, Colonel has nothing else to go on. And as for the opposite, Colonel mentions that Gray's either living with her mother or brother, I couldn't remember which. And Gray has no personality in the slightest. Then we have Lucifer, who, as far as I know, doesn't have very much, or any, dialogue in this movie. And it's implied that she likes to dance. We don't actually get told this, but she showcases this by dancing a little bit in the few scenes that she's in. And, honestly, that's the closest thing we have to character depth from someone who, probably, doesn't have any dialogue to begin with. And that is sad, when the one character in this movie who doesn't speak very much, is the only one that shows simmering glimpses of personality. And then we have Jeager, who sucks at the game he's playing at, and doesn't improve until Chapter 5, when he's working with the, I guess, Assault Girls, to take down the sand monsters. Beyond that, he doesn't have any character depth to speak of. And going to back to Chapter 3 for a moment, I mentioned the shots of our 4 main characters walking, because that's the only thing that chapter gave any shits about. It would've been nice had we gotten some kind of character depth on any of these characters before Chapter 4, because it would've benefited the movie to showcase why we should care about any of these characters. Like, show a little bit of background of Colonel's family, as was mentioned before that she had two kids that she's trying to support. Or show a flashback with Gray living with one of her family members. Or how about showing something from Lucifer because, as I made mentioned before, she was the only one that showed glimpses of personality. Maybe she use to be a professional dancer at some point? Show something! Anything that makes our characters worth caring about. But no. The movie only wants to focus on our characters walking, because fuck character development. We need to have long establishing shots of nothing happening. And that is fucking sad and tragic, because the movie had that perfect opportunity to showcase why we should care about any of these characters battling in this virtual world. But that didn't happen. And because of that, the writing is one of the biggest sins that this movie committed.

I'm gonna try to move on from writing, because I've said plenty about it as is. Let's talk about the acting. When I started up this movie, I thought I was watching the English dub. But apparently, by Chapter 4, the movie decided to pull a fuck you, that's why, because our 4 main characters, well 3 excluding Lucifer, decided to speak in Japanese. Earlier, they were speaking in English, and very poorly, too. Because the acting was fucking terrible in that area. And even when they were speaking in Japanese, their acting wasn't that good, either. I wish this movie would've kept some level of consistency with whether or not the actors wanted to speak English, or not at all. Which makes me question if this movie was intended to have an English dub. Either way, the acting from both versions sucks. The only two actors who even tried were the AI of the virtual world, who spoke perfectly good English, and the actress who played Lucifer. She seemed like the only actress in this movie who was having fun in her role. In fact, looking at the credits on the DVD case, I believe her name is Rinko Kikuchi. She was the only actress of the three main females who looked like she wanted to be there. Everyone else, minus her and the AI voice, is either subduing their lines, or, in the case of Jeager's actor, was overacting his lines. Anyway, the acting for the most part, was horrible. And it's, probably, one of the few Asian films I've watched that had terrible acting from, almost, the entire cast.

Special effects are...eh. They're OK, I guess. Like, none of it is horrible. But none of it is going to stand out either, because the CG in this thing looks like it came out in 1999, much less 2009. And, normally, whenever I make that comparison, I would say that the CG is terrible. But, honestly, I've seen far worse CG in my lifetime, so I can't really call this terrible. It just doesn't look great. So, I'm gonna give the CG a bit of a pass here. But again, it's nothing that's going to stand out at you. I mean, the sand monsters look OK, and the muzzle flash on the guns are OK. It's just an, overall, OK, looking movie, in terms of special effects.

Camerawork is the one thing that this movie really shines at, because it really likes to show these awful long establishing shots of this lifeless virtual world. So, on that end, I can say the camerawork is fine. Lighting here is decent. Sound-mix, good lord, the sound-mix is terrible, whenever our characters are talking with these fucking muzzle masks over their faces. Because then, the dialogue is fucking muffled, and you can't hear shit about what they're saying. So much so, that I had to do something that I have never done before in this series. I had to stop the movie, go back to the DVD menu, and turn on the English subtitles, because I couldn't hear a god damn thing of what they were trying to say. I could probably attribute that horrible muffling sound to just bad acting, because their accents were that fucking thick. Aside from that, though, the sound-mix is at least competent. Again, without that terrible muffling sound our characters make when trying to communicate with their muzzle masks. Music, I couldn't tell you a single track that was, in any way, memorable. It's just there, and you're not going to remember any of the score that was in this movie.

So, with all of this in mind, can I recommend "Assault Girls"? No. Hell no. This movie is one of the worst paced films I have ever seen. Even with it's 65 minute runtime, there is no way you're going to get through this thing without falling the fuck asleep. I can't recommend it to fans of plotless action films, because there's barely any action in it to begin with. Maybe, just maybe, if you're a fan of Mamoru Oshii's work on the first two "Ghost in the Shell" movies, then I could, maybe, recommend it on that end. But for everyone else, no. This movie was shit. It fails as a plotless action film, it fails at trying to make you care about any of these characters, and it fails at being an entertaining movie. It is boring, slow, and a complete waste of your time. And especially Oshii's time, because his talent in writing this thing is completely wasted. And I'm ashamed of myself for even having interest in wanting to watch this movie. Now...I kinda want to watch a better sci-fi movie, and I got a few options here. Let's see...seeing as how this movie wanted to work in a virtual world setting, I think I'm gonna go and watch my copy of "Summer Wars". Because I had a lot more fun watching that, than wasting time on this piece of shit.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.