Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Lupin the Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we continue this marathon by taking a look at another movie that came out in 1995. That movie is "Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus".
Now, generally speaking, I have really enjoyed all of the movies that I've covered for this marathon. Even though I thought there were a couple of weak films here and there, I still really enjoyed watching them, and I'll probably still end up watching those on my own time at some point.
So, why am I bringing this up to you guys now? Well, it sorta has to do with tonight's movie. Now, it isn't so much that I've heard negative things about it. It's actually quite the opposite here. See, most fans of "Lupin the 3rd" would site 3 movies in particular as instant recommendations. Those 3 movies are "The Castle of Cagliostro", "Tokyo Crisis", and "Farewell to Nostradamus". I've already mentioned numerous times how much I love "The Castle of Cagliostro". I've not seen "Tokyo Crisis", because I don't own a copy of it. And this film, well, I'm gonna be covering tonight, because again, this is one of those movies in Lupin's filmography that a lot of people say is amazing.
So, I'm probably gonna be in for a real treat here. However, it could also be one of those cases where a movie gets so hyped up as something amazing, and it turns out that it's just either OK, or it really, totally sucks. Now, I don't really think this one is going to suck, because again, I've enjoyed every Lupin film so far that I've seen, but there *is* that slight possibility that it could be over-hyped. I'm still hoping for it to be really good, but I won't know for sure how good this movie can possibly be unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it is time to kick back, relax, and check out "Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus".
3 minutes later
You know, guys, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, seeing Detective Zenigata dressed in drag was definitely *not* one of them. I know that the movie's just started and everything, but that right there is already gonna be hard to top. But we'll just have to wait and see what other surprises this movie has in store for me.
4 minutes later
So, not only was the plane that Zenigata thought that Lupin was in turned out to be a decoy, but the device that Lupin himself was using just a moment ago turned out to be the plane's control. Well...it's definitely creative, though the device itself almost looked like a larger version of a Game & Watch. I don't know why I thought of that, but I'm kinda happy that I got to reference it in someway.
1 minute later
Little Girl: That mean man is following me. I think he's a pedophile!
Well...damn! I've heard Lupin being accused of many things, but him being called a pedophile is definitely a first from my understanding.
16 minutes later
So, let me see if I understand this. Julia, the little girl I briefly mentioned earlier, has been kidnapped, and she'll only be returned safely to her parents if her father drops out of the presidential race within 3 weeks. And yet, despite Julia being kidnapped, she seems to be doing rather well for herself and doesn't seem to be worried whatsoever. I'm gonna tell you, guys, if I were in Julia's position, I would be freaking the fuck out for being held hostage, especially for 3 weeks. That just seems like massive overkill to hold someone's kid hostage for that long. At least, it does, to me anyway.
17 minutes later
OK, I have a big question here, and I'm really curious this. So, first of all, kind of a spoiler here, Lupin's famous uncle is dead. And Lupin, along Zenigata and Lupin's dead uncle, are escaping Execution Island. And the thing that boggles my mind is how the hell is Lupin is gonna revive his uncle from the dead? I ask this because, earlier in the film, Lupin's uncle had something important to tell Lupin and that he wanted to tell him at midnight specifically. But, due to some electro-shock therapy, he ended up dying. And I have no idea how long his uncle's been dead now, but I would imagine it's been *maybe* 5 minutes or so. Maybe longer than that. At that point, I would think it's a little too late to bring the guy back from the dead. But again, I am really curious as to how Lupin's actually gonna pull that off. Just asking for the sake of curiosity is all.
2 minute later
OK, never mind. Lupin's *not* gonna attempt to bring his uncle back from the dead. Apparently, there was a glass eye attached to his head that probably has some really important information for Lupin. So, my mistake, I sorta jumped the gun there. I kinda figured Lupin wouldn't be able to do something as outlandish as that, but still, the thought just sorta came to me.
9 minutes later
OK, you know what? I was gonna let this slide until later, but for the second time in this series, Fujiko has lost her memories. And I don't remember when that even happened in this movie. I'm *really* trying to remember, but nothing's coming to me. Now, who knows? Maybe the film will have some kind of explanation for that here, but it just seems really odd to me to see her having amnesia again, you know what I mean?
30 seconds later
And, once again, this movie already goes and answers something that was bugging me. So, apparently, the bracelet Fujiko was wearing was somehow able to suppress her memories. I'm not totally sure how that works, but hey, at least the movie explained that much. It's kinda of a stupid explanation, but still, it's an explanation nonetheless.
15 minutes later
So, not only do these bracelets suppress someone's memories, but they can also be controlled like mindless zombies. You really do learn something new everyday, don't ya?
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Holy moly, where do I begin here...? Well, I might as well address this first. I normally don't like it when somebody overhypes a movie, TV show, etc. Because, when somebody does that sorta thing, I usually lose interest in ever watching it. And part of me feared that this movie was going to fall victim of being one of those over-hyped movies. Well, after finally getting a chance to watch it, I can certainly say that this movie most definitely lives up to it's awesomeness. I really did enjoy this film immensely.
So, why don't we kick things off proper here and first talk about the writing. Now, if I had to come up with a term on how to describe this movie, I would say that it's chaotic, but still mostly controlled. I say this, because this movie crams in a *lot* of material here. And when I say it's a lot of material, I mean that you could honestly fit this story into an arc for one of the Lupin series and call it a day. I mean, there's stuff involving the book of prophecy, to Julia, to Lupin's uncle, and Lupin's little adventure in the amazon forest. There's a lot here, and that's not even covering half of what goes in this movie. But even so, the movie is still very consistent with it's story and action scenes, to where it's mostly engaging and easy to follow. And mind you, the movie's only about an hour and 40 minutes long. However, the writers did a great job here of filling in a lot of content while also being very engaging at the same time.
Now that's not to say that everything here, in terms of writing, is perfect. And a lot of that is gonna come from our characters. Now, I should clarify, first and foremost, that not it's all of them. It's mainly the new characters that are sort of a mixed bag here. To start with, the villains are probably the weakest part of the entire movie. There's really nothing about them that's in any way memorable, and I couldn't really even remember most of their names. The one name that I remembered hearing was Chris, which was all of twice. And he's the guy who mostly does the harder work, in which he kidnaps Julia a couple of times, because she's apparently the only one who can open the vault at her father's company, which is also where the book of prophecy is being held at. But even then, he is so fucking forgettable as a villain. In fact, I've noticed throughout most of this marathon that I've been doing is that the villains for these particular movies are incredibly forgetful. The only one I can make an exception to is Mamo, the villain from the very first movie. And that's because he actually had something resembling a personality. But this movie, along with most of the other movies I covered for this marathon, doesn't have anything like that. Which is really disappointing to say.
As with our characters, well, most of them are pretty much what you come to expect, when it comes to "Lupin the 3rd". And I'm mostly referring to our recurring cast. Most of them don't go through any real developments. The closest to that is when Lupin tries to get close to his uncle, who's serving life in prison on Execution Island for when he tried to break into the vault that Lupin is currently trying to get into himself, but you really don't see much of an interaction between the two other than that. I kinda thought, you know, being that Lupin was going to meet his famous uncle in prison, maybe they would share some kind of moment between the two. But aside from, maybe, on how they way part ways, not much else comes from it. There's a moment between Lupin and Fujiko that plays out almost similarly to how it did in "The Columbus Files", though it's a shortened version of it. If you want to know what I mean, well, I explain that in my review for that movie.
Now, the only other character that's worth mentioning is Julia, the little kid. Now earlier, I brought up a point on how, after she first gets kidnapped, she's shown on video to her parents, and she seemed to be in a rather happy mood rather than being worried about not seeing her parents again. Well, it's explained later on in a scene with her and Fujiko that her parents are only in it with their money and politics, and that she'll be happy to remain with Fujiko as long as she gets to go on another adventure. Which is a sweet thing for her to say, however, you don't really get that kind of connection between the two very much, even though Fujiko was originally hired as a tutor by her parents. The most interaction Julia gets is with Lupin, who mainly calls him a pedophile multiple times. Which, the first time, it is rather surprising from someone like her. However, like I said, she repeats that multiple times to him, and it can get kinda old after a while. So, it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth when it comes to her. In terms of child characters, she's definitely not as annoying as I sorta feared she was going to be. Which isn't saying much, mind you, but at least she's definitely useful in this movie.
So, despite me nitpicking a little bit, the writing here is still really strong. And with a lot going on in this movie, these kinds of problems aren't really going to affect the movie overall as long you try not to think about them for too long. And really, they shouldn't. Because it's just more of what could've been rather than being huge problems anyways. So, again, writing here is really good overall. And speaking of which, the acting here is also very good, too. Once more, it has the dubbing cast from Funimation, and they do a really good job here. The only new one I can actually mention is Julia's dub actress, who goes by the name of Laura Bailey. And for those who don't know, Laura Bailey is mostly known for voicing Rise Kujikawa from "Persona 4". And I recognized her voice almost immediately in this movie, because that was the exact voice she gave for Julia in this movie. And that's not even a knock on her acting, since she was voicing a little girl, it works perfectly fine here. So yeah, much like I've already complimented in the past, the acting from the Funimation dub cast here is just as good as it was in most of the previous movies that they've done here.
Animation here is great. Now, I've already used this comment before many times already with these particular movies, but for something that came out in 1995. This is great stuff. Color palettes here are great, and the animation itself flows very smoothly. And what's interesting about this is that, even though this movie came out in 95, there is no CG involved here. Which is impressive to me, because this was around a time where more animated movies, mainly in the U.S. at the time, started to experiment CG into their animated films. But this movie proves, at least to me, that you don't always need CG in order to improve your movie. Everything in this film is hand-drawn and it is beautiful to look at. Nothing here is cheap or recycled, which is definitely another plus for me. So yeah, the animation here is fantastic.
Sound-mix here is mixed perfectly fine. And the score here is great, too, as is the case whenever you have Yuji Ohno doing a Lupin movie. Now again, it's not the best score I've heard, but by it's own standards, it's still really fucking good. But then again, considering how good the music has been for all of the Lupin movies I've covered in this marathon so far, it would be considered a crime if any of the music in these movies sucked balls. So, thankfully that still hasn't happened yet, at least in my case anyway.
Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Lupin the 3rd: Farewell to Nostradamus"? Oh absolutely, guys. This movie is damn near fantastic. Again, as long as you don't think too hard about the little things that could've been added to make this thing better, it's still amazing enough to where it can stand on it's own feet. Now, on the off chance anyone might ask this, how I would rank this movie along with the other Lupin films that I've seen and enjoyed. Well, while I wouldn't exactly put this one at the top of my list, I would say that if I were making a top 5 list of my Lupin movies, I would definitely put this one in the top 5 at the very least. Where exactly, I don't know yet. But overall, guys, this movie is great. And if you, yourself, are a fan of the Lupin series, and you haven't had a chance to see this one yet, go ahead and check it out. Now, I am aware that this particular movie is out of print on DVD and Blu-ray, so it *might* be a little bit more harder to find than others, but I assure you it's worth checking out. I was lucky to find a copy of this movie at one of my local video stores for about $15. And it's worth every cent. At least, to me it is. And if you can find it online for free somewhere, go ahead and check it out there, too. It is an awesome movie. Now...I'm gonna go and find a different movie to watch. Perhaps maybe I'll watch something like "Kiki's Delivery Service". I haven't seen that in a little while, so I'm gonna go watch that next once I get done with this review.
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 later. Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment