Reaction & Review | Digimon Adventure tri.: Loss

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're continuing this run of the "Digimon Adventure tri." series by taking a look at the fourth entry that came out in 2017. That movie is "Digimon Adventure tri.: Loss".

Now, as has been the case with the other "Digimon Adventure tri." films I've covered last month, I don't know very much about this movie. I can tell you what I do know about it. I know that it's going to pick up where it left off from the third movie. And thanks to the ending of "Confession", the DigiDestined are back in the Digital World after it's been "rebooted". And I could go into great detail about that again here, but I've said plenty about it in my review of "Confession". If you do want to know, just go read my review for that movie.

The only other thing I do know about this movie is that, out of all 6 movies from the "Digimon Adventure tri." series, this one has the shortest runtime. It's only an hour and 18 minutes long. Which, compared to the previous film I covered in the "Digimon Adventure tri." series, which was "Confession", that movie had the longest runtime of an hour and 42 minutes. So...I'm not entirely sure what this movie's going to do with such a short runtime. But you know what? I've seen plenty of movies that have this rather short runtime. A real good example would be a majority of DC's direct-to-video animated films, and most of them wound up being really good with such a short runtime. So, I do have plenty of hopes that this movie is going to be, possibly, really good. But the only way I'm gonna find 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.: Loss".

15 minutes later

You know, guys, even though the story hasn't really gone anywhere yet, I am liking what is here so far. Once more, it's going back to that time during the early portions of season 1 of "Digimon Adventure" where the DigiDestined were getting use to the Digital World with their Digimon companions. Granted, it's basically sorta rehashing what "Determination" did. But I will say that I am liking it a little bit more here than how "Determination" handled it. Just thought I should share that with you, guys.

15 minutes later

So...Machinedramon just came back. That's sorta cool. Kinda hoping that the movie will explain how he came back to life after the "reboot". But I will say that it is sorta cool to see him back again. So, I guess that's kind of a positive.

5 minutes later

All right, I know this is a trivial thing to be bitching about, but I'm gonna bring it up anyway. So, do you happen to remember back during my review of the first "Digimon Adventure tri." film where they opted to pronounce Gennai's name like the word "Get", but replacing the "T" with an "N"? Well, now this movie's decided to pronounce his name like it was in the TV show. You know, like the word "Gem", but replacing the "M" with "N". Again, I totally understand it's a trivial and stupid thing to be mentioning, but I would like it if these movies were a little bit consistent on how they should pronounce Gennai's name and stick with it. That's all I'm asking for.

17 minutes later

You know, guys, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, Gennai licking Sora's face like that was not one of them. That was rather disgusting. And really creepy, too.

5 minutes later

So, now MetalSeadramon is back also. You know, as cool as it is to see these references from the first Digimon series, I'm left wondering as to whether or not the rest of the Dark Masters are back, now that the Digital World has been "rebooted". Or if Dark Gennai just wills it or some shit like that. I'm really curious if the movie's gonna give some kind of explanation about their reappearances, but I have a funny feeling that I'm not gonna get an answer to that.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Digimon Adventure tri.: Loss". I'm gonna shut the movie off...OK. Well, I guess I should go straight into writing.

I will start by saying that, when compared to the previous two "Digimon Adventure tri." films I covered last month, this one is certainly an improvement over those two movies. Because "Determination", as I've stated previously, was much more laid back and didn't have much of a story. While "Confession" did have more story development, it kinda suffered from logic issues that brought the film down a bit. This movie, however, has kind of a mixed balance between the two films. Because, while it does have that throwback to when the first Digimon series had that corny writing and sorta cheesy acting, it also has a pretty good story to boot here. And unlike "Confession", where it had logic issues and story gaps that didn't make a whole lot of sense, this movie doesn't really have much of that here. It's able to tell a consistent story, for the most part. And we do have a better continuation, unlike the previous film. Now, I will say that this movie is nowhere near as good as the first "Digimon Adventure tri." film, which was "Reunion". But it's still able to stand out on it's own, without having too many problems here to bring the movie down. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that this movie has it's problems, in terms of writing. There are a couple of minor things, such as when Meicoomon keeps repeating to herself that Meiko left her behind in the Digital World, and that kinda got annoying after, I think, the fifth time that she said that. I could be totally wrong on that count, but it was kinda noticeable to me. The other thing has to do with the conflict that happens between Biyomon and Sora. Now, as I made mentioned before, since the Digital World was "rebooted", the Digmon have lost their memories and can't remember their companions anymore. And most of them act differently towards their human companions. Some of them are skeptical, one of them is afraid that they might eat them, and some of them get use to them pretty quickly. And then we have Yokomon, which is Biyomon's pre-digivolution stage. In this movie, Yokomon/Biyomon acts like a complete jerk to Sora, because she obviously doesn't remember being Sora's partner, but Sora does. And for a majority of the movie, she keeps telling Sora to leave her alone, even though she can't really be apart from her. And it does kinda get annoying after a while. But eventually, she does slowly start to warm up to Sora when she keeps thinking about how she and Sora were, and probably still are, partners. So, while it does kinda get annoying after while, it's not something that's going to turn you off from the movie entirely. It's just something that you kinda have to get use to after a while.

But now, I want to move on to the biggest problem I have with this movie. And it has to do with the character of Gennai. Or Dark Gennai, as the movie now wants to call him. First off, on a minor note, I still find it odd that the movie decided to go with how his name was pronounced in the Digimon TV series, even though the first movie decided to pronounce his name differently. I don't know why the writers decided to change the way his name is suppose to be pronounced NOW, considering that this is the fourth film in this series. But hey, I'm not going to harp on that issue too much. But I do want to talk about how his character is written in this movie. So, somehow, someway, there's this guy named King Drasil, who has corrupted Gennai's mind and has turned over to the dark side, and he's now called Dark Gennai. Because, you know, that's somehow suppose to sound edgy and cool. When really, it just sounds fucking stupid and cliche. But again, that's just another minor issue. So anyway, we're told this by a Digimon who goes by the name of Hackmon. Now, we don't get to see any of this happen, as he tells Nishijima, who's been trying to find out where Agent Himekawa has disappeared to this entire movie. So, we're just suppose to assume that this has all happened, even though we don't get any kind flashback or backstory as to how Gennai was corrupted. It's all just exposition. Now, this plot point could be further explained within the next two movies, but I do feel it is a little bit of a cop-out, because we could've gone in depth about how this King Drasil character corrupted Gennai into becoming evil. But, oh well, I guess that's something that's going to be explained in the next movie or so.

Now I want to touch upon how Gennai-oh, my bad "Dark Gennai" is written in this movie. Now...this might sound like a weird thing to say, but I want you to imagine if you took the character of Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars and you make him sound like a rapist. And no, I'm not kidding about that. That's the first thing I thought of when I was listening to his dialogue. He basically sounds like a shittier version of Emperor Palpatine, if you made him sound more stupid and like a rapist. And I can prove that, because, as I made mention earlier, he licks Sora's face, which is already creepy by it's own standards. And as he has Meiko trapped on the boat and blocks her escape, at one point he says to her "Oh, don't worry. It'll all be over soon". You know, that would be the kind of shit a rapist would say. Now, what about the comparison with Emperor Palpatine? Well, as Meicoomon tries to free Meiko from Dark Gennai's grasp, Dark Gennai says that there's more than one way for a Digimon to digivolve, other than by a Digivice. And that's when a Digimon gets so angry, they start to digivolve at will. And at one point, I swear to God I'm not kidding about this, he ALMOST quotes Emperor Palpatine when he says to Meicoomon to let the anger flow through her, so that she can digivolve. I almost thought that this movie was going to do down that route in which they would reference a famous line from another movie. Because I know that season 2 of Digimon did this at one point where one Digimon quoted an infamous line from "A Few Good Men". However, that didn't quite happen here. But I will say that it's incredibly noticeable, especially if you're someone who has seen the original trilogy of Star Wars movies.

One other issue I have with writing has to do with the appearances of Machinedramon and MetalSeadramon. Now, while it was sorta cool to see them in this movie, it kinda reinforces my point about what I brought up in the previous film. Because, when the "reboot" happened, these two Digimon show up. In fact, a little bit of a spoiler here, ALL of the Dark Masters appear in a flashback at the beginning of the movie. So does this mean that my point about what happens in the "reboot" actually comes true? Does that mean that if Machinedramon and MetalSeadramon are back, does that mean then that Puppetmon and Piedmon are back, too? What about the other Digimon I brought up, such as Myotismon and Devimon? Are they brought back to life, too? I don't know. On the other hand, I did remember that Dark Gennai did summon them on his own will. It might've been through the distortions that have happened in this movie, or what have you. I have no idea. It doesn't really make a ton of sense. However, it's not something that's going to ruin this movie for you, unless you were tied up with all the issues I had with "Confession". But I will say that this movie doesn't really have a lot for you to shut your brain off, because there aren't really a whole lot logic issues in this movie, unless you really think about all that has happened so far with this series of movies.

Beyond those issues, though, the writing is still decent enough, to where you can overlook most of the minor problems that this movie has. What about the acting? Well, similar to the other 3 "Digimon Adventure tri." films, it's mostly the same kind of acting that you get from those previous movies. In fact, I will say that, thanks to this script, the acting is certainly more on point in this movie. Because, in the previous two "Digimon Adventure tri." films, the acting ranged from the actors sounding like they aged a bit, to one actor phoning it in, which was whoever voiced Nishijima. And I will say that Nishijima's English voice actor definitely improved here. I'm not totally sure why he gave such a lackluster performance in "Confession". Maybe he just had an off day when he was recording his lines for that movie. But regardless of what happened, he certainly got better here. And the rest of the acting is certainly the best that we have gotten so far. So, you know what? Props to the cast who gave it their all for this movie.

Animation is still on point, as well. The art style is consistent with what was in the previous films, and it still looks great here. And as much as I would like to say that the CG still looks absolutely hideous here, as has been the case with the previous films, I'm not going to do that here. What I CAN talk about is the pacing on the digivolutions. You see, I understand that there a lot of people who watched the original Digimon series, and had to watch the digivolutions while listening to the English theme song quite a bit as it went on. But at least there, there were moments where they had to cut back on the time in how long it took for the Digimon to digivolve. Mostly because of TV standards, but that's beside the point. Point is, it was handled a little bit better in the show. In this movie, towards the end of the film, it took almost 5 minutes for most of the Digimon to digivolve to their Mega forms. And I wouldn't have that much of an issue with it, if I didn't have to keep looking at the god awful CG for most of that time that the digivolutions took place. Now this could've been fixed with one of two ways. The first would be to cut back on the time on how long it takes for the Digimon to digivolve into their Mega forms by showing all of the Digimon that were going to digivolve for this battle. What I would do is show all of the Digimon that were going to digivolve on one screen, so that we can see them Digivolve at the same time. Now yes, you would still have to see the terrible CG models of the Digimon, but at least it would cut back on the time much quicker. The second way to fix this problem would be for something that I brought up much earlier. Instead of seeing them digivolve again, we could've saved that time by filling it in with the backstory on how Gennai became corrupted, and how we get to see King Drasil be able to do this. But no. The movie thought it would be a better idea to show the digivolutions one at a time. Which ends up taking way too long, and you would be reminded that yes, the CG is still awful, and this movie wanted to showcase that for the viewers in case you didn't see it the first time. Now...beyond the terrible pacing for those sequences, animation, barring the terrible CG, is still really good.

Sound-mix here is fine, as is the music. Ultimately, guys, am I able to recommend "Digimon Adventure tri.: Loss"? If you've been following the "Digimon Adventure tri." movies up to this point, and you've enjoyed what you've seen, then yes, I can totally recommend it. In fact, if it hasn't been made clear enough, this movie is certainly better than "Determination" and "Confession". The only reason why it's not above "Reunion" is because it was written better, and, to me anyway, it would be very difficult to overcome how good "Reunion" was. But still, I can totally recommend this movie, as long as you have been keeping up with this series of movies. It's certainly a step-up from the previous two films. And because of this, I have a little more faith that the other two movies are going to be just as good, if not better. However, I'm not going to know that for sure, until I get around to watching them. But, for now, I think I'm gonna go watch something else. Let's see...I think I'll go watch my copy of the "Street Fighter" movie from 1994. Why? Because I'm kinda in the mood to watch something that's cheesy, yet awesome at the same time.

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.