Reaction & Review | Digimon Adventure tri.: Determination

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2016. That movie is "Digimon Adventure tri.: Determination".

Now, for those of you who didn't read my review of the first "Digimon Adventure tri." movie, I stated that I was gonna be covering all 6 of the movies in this series. And I plan on doing that for the next several months. As for "Digimon Adventure tri.: Reunion" itself, I'm gonna give you a condensed version of that review. The movie was pretty good and it got me interested to see where the rest of the "Digimon Adventure tri." series was going to go. It also left some questions kinda vague, but I am hoping that "Determination" is going to answer more of those questions.

I honestly don't know what to expect from this one. I'm kinda hoping it continues the trend of this series being good with it's writing. I'm also wondering if the CG is going to be an improvement, because one of my biggest complaints I had for "Reunion" was the questionable CG models on the Digimon. Hoping to see it get's improved as this series continues. But I'm also hoping for this series, above all else, to be entertaining. And the only 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 "Digimon Adventure tri.: Determination".

2 minutes later

Well, guys, I can tell you one thing that this series has kept from the first movie. This theme song still fucking sucks. I'm probably gonna have to get use to hearing this god awful song, if it's gonna be like that for the next 5 movies. But it's still not gonna change the fact that this opening song is fucking terrible.

16 minutes later

All right, I feel like I need to ask this. Is this story going to go anywhere? Because, right now, this movie's pacing is incredibly slow and nothing has happened during that time. I'm certainly hoping that the movie's gonna pick up, so we can get the story rolling. Because there's only a little more than an hour left in the movie, and I'm not really sure if it's going to improve from here.

14 minutes later

OK, this is kinda bugging me slightly. So Joe has gotten text messages from his friends that there's an infected Digimon on the loose. Rather than going to check out where the infected Digimon is located at, he just ignores it because he's too busy focusing on his exams. Dude, if you got the time to study for your exams, you got the time to help out your friends. For someone who has the Crest of Reliability, he sure is being a very reliable friend right now, isn't he?

19 minutes later

Sorry, guys, if I haven't been saying a whole lot. I'm kinda getting sucked into the story again. It's really interesting when it wants to tell a story. I'll get a little more into that when I talk about this in the review, but right now, I'm just kinda interested to see where this story's gonna go.

1 minute later

Wait, Leomon is still there? I thought he would've went back to the Digital World to keep an eye on Ogremon. You know, considering the fact that Orgemon is still infected and all. Why is he still here? Does Leomon just have nothing better to do right now? I'm kinda curious about that now, and it's starting to bug me a little bit.

8 minutes later

Wow, I never thought I'd see Leomon in human attire. That's totally not gonna make you look suspicious at all there, dude. No. No, you totally blend in with the other Digimon. Again, why the fuck is Leomon still here?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Digimon Adventure tri.: Determination". That was...quite an interesting ending. Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. Where to even start?

I think I should start with the issues I had with the first movie. I'm gonna start with animation. Once more, the animation is pretty much on par with what was in the first movie. The art design is really spot on, and I'm really happy to see that here once more. What about the CG, though? Has that made any improvements since the first movie? Uh, no. The CG has, somehow, gotten worse. First of all, I should mention that there isn't a whole lot of CG in this movie, when compared to the first one. Most of the CG in the first film involved the digivolutions. And the same can be applied here. There's only about 3 digivolutions in this movie that involves the same CG that was in the first movie. And it still looks terrible here. I brought up how Kabuterimon's model looked terrible in the first movie. Well, behold the one Digimon in this movie that actually looks worse in CG. That honor now goes to Ikkakumon, which is the Champion form of Gomamon. Somehow, between the first movie and this one, the CG has gotten worse. In fact, to prove how pointless the CG is in both movies, right towards the end of the film, we actually get to see both Ikkakumon and Togemon digivolve into their Ultimate level. And what's strange about all this is that their digivolutions are not in CG. They are in 2D. And the animation during those particular digivolutions look amazing. Which begs the question as to why the CG needs to exist in this movie? Because it looks so terrible, that both movies could've scrapped the god awful CG and used the digivolutions for both of their digivolution phases. And by that, I mean they could've used the 2D animation sequences for both the Digimon's Ultimate and Champion forms. There is no reason to use CG in these movies if that's how bad they were gonna be rendered for these movies. And unfortunately, I have a feeling that we're going to be seeing more of this same god awful CG in later installments of this series. Now, I hope it's somehow improved in later installments, but I have this funny feeling that it's not going to be that way. So unfortunately, the CG is what it is. It's the same terrible CG that was in the first movie. And it's probably gonna use the same terrible models in the later films. I certainly hope that's not the case, but I'm not holding my breath there.

Now, setting aside the god awful CG in this movie, the rest of the animation, as I've already stated, looks great. So at least I can give the movie that much when it comes to it's animation. Now, let's go straight into writing. First of all, I need to get this out of the way. This movie is definitely nowhere near as interesting as it was in the previous film. Now, I want you to take note that I said it's not as 'interesting' as the first movie. I am not saying that this movie is bad. In fact, when this move wants to tell a story, it does it really well. I'll get more into that in a second, but I want touch upon something first. I will say that this movie, in particular, has a lot of elements that reminded me of when I was watching Digimon as a kid. A lot of the dialogue in this movie is something that I would hear in the first Digimon series. And I gotta say, on that end, it did kinda made me feel like a kid again watching this movie. Not just the fact that this series is from a franchise that I grew up on as a child, but this entire movie kinda took me back to a time when the series was filled with a ton of corny dialogue and kinda cheesy acting. And I really have to give this movie's writing some praise on that end. It really felt like I was a kid again, because I grew up on children's anime that had this kinda goofy, cheesy dialogue. I'm talking about stuff such as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sailor Moon, you know, that kinda stuff. And I really liked that aspect of this movie's writing. So it's kinda hard for me to review this movie, knowing that this movie has that kind of aspect within it's writing. That being said, since I am reviewing this entire series, I should look at it from a different perspective. Now, even though this movie has that throwback to the older days of Digimon, this movie also falters from one big problem. And that would be the pacing. I'm gonna tell you guys, this movie has some really terrible pacing. The first 20 minutes of the movie has almost nothing happening. Basically, what happens is most of the DigiDestined are at a spa, along with their Digimon. And really, the only thing that remotely happens is when Biyomon and Meicoomon get lost at the spa, and I assume most of this is meant to be played up for laughs. And while some people are going to enjoy that kind of thing, it honestly didn't do much for me. And I was kinda waiting for the story to pick up. Unfortunately though, the really interesting bits of story doesn't kick in until the movie has about 10-15 minutes left. And even then, those interesting bits of the story feel rather rushed. And it's really noticeable, because this movie takes up a lot of time doing other things. Such as the when the DigiDestined are at the spa, or when they are at the school festival. Which the latter has those interesting bits of story. But again, the story doesn't really kick in until those last 10-15 minutes of the movie. And I'm really disappointed that this movie felt a little too laid back with it's writing, even though it is something that I, admittedly, do kinda enjoy. So, story-wise, this thing is a massive step back in quality. But as a throwback to the original series writing, it's kinda charming and, as I said, I enjoyed it enough to not completely despise this movie's writing.

As for our characters, most of them don't get a lot of depth in this movie. Which, I think, was intentional. Because it's only focusing on certain characters, which I'm OK with. The ones who do get the most depth in this movie are Mimi and Joe. And to a lesser extent Meiko. Joe mostly doesn't do anything in this movie, other than studying. Which I thought was kinda annoying, because, as I mentioned before during the reaction portion, Joe's Crest is known for Reliability. And rather than being a reliable friend and not go to the area in which Ogremon appeared, he just stays behind and continues on his studies. But there is kind of a reason for that. And I'm not gonna go too deep into that for the sake of spoilers, but his character is probably one of the more interesting aspects of this movie. As for Mimi, well, she really isn't that much different than how she was in the first movie. There is something there, but it's nowhere near as interesting as Joe's development. Speaking of Ogremon, I need to touch upon Leomon for a moment. Because Leomon was in a few episodes of the first season of Digimon. He didn't really get a lot of time to develop in that first season, but he was still a decent character. In this movie, I'm not really sure what purpose he was suppose to serve here. Because on two separate points, Ogremon, who's turned into an infected Digimon, goes on a rampage against the military and Togemon. And during those two points, Leomon was just there to appear behind Ogremon and bring him back to the Digital World. And then, later on, he suddenly appears with Tai and says that he had information for the DigiDestined in regards to what was happening with both the Digital World, the real world, and what was happening with Ogremon. And I didn't mind that at the time, because I thought he was just going to be there to give information and that would be it. However, for whatever reason, Leomon is still with the Digimon companions. And at that point, I had to wonder why exactly was he still there? Because, as I made mentioned earlier, Ogremon had appeared in the real world on two separate occasions, and Leomon pulled him back into the Digital World before Ogremon could cause any real damage. So...why was he still there? Why is Leomon still hanging out with the DigiDestined? Didn't he have more important things to be worrying about in the Digital World, such as Ogremon, who is probably still infected by this point. Why was Leomon just sitting there doing nothing? It really made me question as to why Leomon's appearance in this movie was even important. And the only reason I can think of why he was even here was towards the end of the movie. Which again, I'm not going to spoil what happens. But it really makes me feel that Leomon's appearance in this movie almost served no purpose here. And as for Ogremon, he also comes off as incredibly wasted here. And I'm not talking about character depth, because he's infected. So I'm not expecting miracles when it comes to character depth. But I really feel like Ogremon's impact in this movie just seems like a complete afterthought. And that's kind of a shame, because I liked Ogremon from the first season of Digimon. But to see him being used in this movie just for the sake of being here is really disappointing to me. And the same can be said for Leomon.

So overall, I can say that the writing in this movie is definitely not as strong as it was in "Reunion". But again, most of it I'm able to overlook because of what I mentioned earlier. At least, to me, I was able to overlook most of it. But if you're looking for more of a continuation with the story, you're not gonna find a lot of that here. It's nowhere near as good as the first movie. Setting aside the questionable writing, I can say that the acting, for the most part, is still decent. Nothing here is ultimately bad. It's still, mostly, the same kind of acting from the first movie. That being said, I do feel like a couple of the voice actors seem to have mellowed out. What I mean by that is a couple of the voice actors I mentioned that had reprised their roles for these movies have kinda aged a bit. Those two being Mimi's voice actress, and the actor who voices Tentomon, which is Izzy's Digimon partner. Tentomon's voice, in particular, has definitely aged a bit. But it's still decent enough, so I'm able to say that the acting is just as it was from the first movie. So honestly, I can say the acting works well enough.

I've already touched upon animation, so I'm not gonna repeat myself here. Sound-mix here is decent. I will say that the sound-mix has improved the most over the first movie. Partially because, the first movie had to mix in the guitar riff from the digivolutions with background noise in some cases, and it didn't really mesh well at all. Here though, I can at least say they fixed it well enough here. So that much I'm able to give this movie's sound-mix. There really isn't a lot of music here that is memorable in any way. I can say that that opening song is still as terrible as it was in the previous film. However, I didn't have to hear it a lot in this movie. It seems as though they cut it back to about half of what was played in the first movie, so at least I didn't have to listen to that god awful opening song for too long. But otherwise, guys, the score in this movie is completely forgetful.

So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Digimon Adventure tri.: Determination"? Kind of, yes. I will say, again, that the movie isn't bad. It's just not a lot of story progression is here, especially when compared to the first movie. I really felt like "Reunion", overall, was the better movie. Now granted, there are 4 other movies in this series I have to watch, so I'm hoping that they'll improve on the storytelling. But as for this movie, while it's incredibly weak in it's writing, it still has enough here to satisfy fans of the "Digimon Adventure" series. As I mentioned before, it has that throwback to when the series had that corny dialogue and the cheesy acting. So it's enough to where I can recommend it as a blast from the past. But like I said, if you're watching this movie to find out where the story is going, it doesn't have a lot of that here, unfortunately. So I do have to warn you there. I'm kinda hoping that the rest of the "Digimon Adventure tri." series is going to get better from here. But I'll just have to see for myself, now won't we? Now...I think I'm gonna go find something else to watch. I have no idea what at this point in time, but I kinda need to find something a little better to watch. I think I'm gonna go watch my copy of "Kiki's Delivery Service". It's been a while since I've seen it, so I'm gonna go watch that.

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.