Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a thriller from 2003. That movie is "Sky High".
Now, I know two things about this movie. First off, I know the plot to this movie is about a Detective, who is trying to find his wife's killer after she gets mysterious murdered. Speaking of which, that brings me into why I wanted to cover this movie. You see, on the back of the DVD case for this film, it presents 3 different possibilities for our deceased character. Accept death and wait for reincarnation, stay as a ghost for all eternity, or seek vengeance upon her killer...but lose her soul forever. I bring these choices up, because this movie could pull off what "Clue: The Movie" did and present 3 different alternate endings. I don't know if it will or not, but I am very intrigued by this nonetheless.
Now the second thing I know about this movie has to do with its director Ryuhei Kitamura. I bring this guy's name up because he directed one other movie that I covered for this series late last year. The movie I'm referring to is "Azumi". And for those of you who never read my review for that movie, I did wind up enjoying it, despite it's flaws.
So, I'm hoping for something else good from this particular director. And I'm hoping, of course, for this movie to be that something else. I don't know if it will be though. The only way I'm gonna really 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 "Sky High".
6 minutes later
All right, I have a question right off the bat here. So, Kanzaki's soon to be wife has somehow been inflicted with a nasty blood wound that's on her stomach. That part, surprisingly, is not what's bothering me. What *is* making me raise an eyebrow is how the hell is she still walking the down the aisle with that damaging wound? The fact that she's still bleeding badly despite walking is somehow very odd to me. Just wanted to share that with you guys.
11 minutes later
OK, so Mina was stabbed first by some woman, followed by her heart getting taken out of her body by some guy. And apparently, her heart glows for some reason. All right, well that raises even more questions as to how the hell she was still walking after getting heart taken out of her. But you know what, I'm not gonna continue to question that, because I'd be here all day trying to figure that part out.
18 minutes later
OK, you know what? As much as this movie's slowed down a little bit, I will say that this image here where the reporter was interviewing Kudo is a little bit creepy. It's not really all that scary, mind you, but at least the imagery behind her is a little bit creepy. So, at least there is that.
15 minutes later
All right, this is starting to bother me a little bit. So, this is the second time that Mina can be seen, despite the fact that she's a ghost. The first person who saw her was Tatsuya Kudo, the head of guy of his Genetics company. The second person who's seeing her is this photographer, who I guess has some kind of interest in the paranormal world or something like that. I don't know, it doesn't make any sense, and it makes me wonder how many people in the living world can see Mina, even if it's supposedly vaguely? It really is not making any sense, and I'm hoping that this movie will attempt to make some sense of itself sooner rather than later.
7 minutes later
Well...I gotta say, it's certainly not everyday you get to see a hanging corpse coming down from the ceiling at a concert. At least, not the classier ones anyway. But still, at least it's something different.
10 minutes later
Wait, hold up, I just thought of something. So, Izuko, the girl who was the spiritual guardian of the gate, has died. Don't ask, it doesn't entirely make any sense. But anyway, she's dead. But before she died, she gave her own powers to Mina, who's now the new guardian of the gate. So, does that mean then that the 3 choices she was given earlier is completely null and void now that she's the new guardian of the gate? I'm really curious about this now, because this movie just continues to make less and less sense with each passing minute. And I'm beginning to lose my patience here with this movie, guys.
14 minutes later
Hold up, is Kanzaki and this photographer actually going to try and stop Kudo and her with guns? Even though earlier on, we were told that guns are useless against them seeing as how they have supernatural powers and all. God damn it all to hell...I swear, guys, this movie is becoming more stupid with each passing minute, and I truly believe that this movie is not going to get any better! This movie sucks!
1 minute later
And what do you know? Bullets don't work on Kudo. Did I *not* just say that guns don't fucking work against him? Good lord, this movie is slowly bordering on being retarded, guys.
20 minutes later
So, guys, we're now up to our final showdown between Mina and Kudo. And as much as I'd like to tell you guys that I'm looking forward to this battle, I can't. I can't, because this movie has become so stupid even for me to enjoy. And mind you, this is coming from someone who usually enjoys stupid movies. And yet this movie has found a way to make itself too stupid for me to even like. That is almost an accomplishment that I didn't think would even be possible, guys, but this movie found a way to accomplish that goal. That is just purely depressing, guys.
The Review
Oh, sweet merciful god, this movie's finally done. Well, guys, that was "Sky High". I can finally shut this stupid movie off here...OK. Good lord almighty, I'm just...speechless. I'm speechless because I really thought I was in for a really good movie. Shit, I really had high hopes for this thing to surpass my expectations. And, well...it did surpass my expectations, but in the completely wrong direction. This movie is just beyond stupid for so many different reasons.
But before I get into why this movie sucked this badly, I first want to start by telling you guys something important. At least, it's important to me because it will help set a precedence for when I eventually talk about the movie itself. So, a lot of people like to think that stupid movies are automatically bad by default. And that's not really true. Because, you can enjoy *any* kind of movie, whether it be good, bad, or even just plain stupid. As long as the entertainment value is there, you're guaranteed to enjoy it no matter what. And that's what I mainly try to look for whenever I watch movies. If I find them entertaining, then it doesn't matter what pointless score from Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB says, because I've realized over the years that ratings ultimately don't determine a film's quality. It's mainly from the viewers perspective on what kind of quality exists for them when it comes to the movies that they watch.
Which then brings me more into why I enjoy stupid movies. Now, without making this list too long, the kinds of stupid movies that I enjoy usually come from B movies. Movies such as the live-action "Street Fighter" movie from 94, "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie", The "Super Mario Bros." movie from 93, "Suburban Commando", to even films such as the first 4 "Triple-B" movies from Andy Sidaris. All those movies I enjoy for various reasons, and they're all incredibly stupid. But do you want to know why I enjoy those films so much? For as stupid all those movies are, the one thing that they all have in common is that the stupidity in those movies happen naturally. In other words, when it's done *unintentionally*. And when those kinds of things happen, it makes those movies so much more fun to watch. Because, you can laugh at how stupid those movies are and still enjoy them immensely. Now, I'm not saying that you *have* to like those movies in order to enjoy them, but I'm just giving you an example of what happens when movies that have those kinds of stupid quality to them in which it happens unintentionally.
Which then finally brings me to this movie. Because this film has the kind of stupid that has no redeeming qualities to it's badness. The writing in this movie is so nonsensical and stupid that even I couldn't fathom it, even on a so bad it's good kind of level. And the worst part about it is that it's not even trying to aim for that sort of standard. It really wants to take itself seriously, and it even expects the viewer watching it to take itself seriously as well. I mean it has themes in regards to life and death, and whether or not revenge is worth going for, especially knowing that you'll be going to hell if you kill someone. It's the kind of film that makes you want to think. And that would've been fine if this thing were written better. But again, with how bad the writing is in this movie, all of those themes and serious topics mean nothing when all is said and done.
So on that note, I may as well try and talk about the writing for this movie. First of all, I need to correct myself on one thing. At the start of this thing, I talked about the 3 possibilities that our deceased main character has, in regards to whether not she could accept death and await reincarnation, stay as a ghost, or get revenge on the killer but go to hell in the process. And I also mentioned there being a possibility this movie could have alternate endings just based on those choices. Well...there isn't any alternate endings. It's just one ending and that's it. Also, even though this movie didn't flat out answer it, it did confirm one of the many questions I had about it, in which Mina becomes the new guardian of the gate after the previous one gets killed, so she doesn't have to make any of those choices that this movie proposes. So yeah, a bit of a spoiler there, but she remains as the guardian of the gate. Which is really kinda misleading, given what this movie was trying to advertise on the back of it's DVD case.
And as for the rest of the writing, I could be here for a whole day trying to explain all of the illogical bullshit that this movie tries to make sense of itself, but I'm gonna give you guys an abridged version of our villains plan here. Tatsuya Kudo is trying to resurrect his wife back to life. And in order to do this, he has this book called the "Book of Death". And with this book, he can bring back his wife in exchange for resurrecting the great demon. They never specify if it's Satan or not, but it doesn't really matter. So anyway, in order for him to do this, he must kill 6 women who were once reincarnated as guardians of the gate at one point in their time in the exact ways that they were once slain. And he also needs their hearts in order for this to work because that's what the "Book of Death" says to do in order to resurrect the great demon. It's never really explained how Kudo was able to gain his supernatural powers, or when why someone can still kinda move even after their hearts have been removed from their bodies, but that's honestly the least of this movie's problems.
One of the biggest problems this film does have, however, is the pacing. This movie clocks in at just over two hours long. Which is roughly the same amount of runtime that "Azumi" had as well. But the difference between that movie and this one is that where "Azumi" might've had at least one pacing issue or two where it could've been trimmed down a little bit, this movie needed a *lot* of trimming down. There is no reason for this movie to be over 2 hours long. You could've cut down at least 15-20 minutes worth of padding and the film could've been much better paced. But unfortunately, because the movie is over 2 hours long, the pacing becomes a real issue here. So much so where the movie ends up becoming boring as shit most of the time. I had yawned at least a few times in this movie because the movie is honestly really that boring. Which is rather disappointing, because you had a premise that sounded really awesome on paper, but when it comes to execution, it ends up being completely fucking terrible as a final product.
So not only do we have terrible pacing here, but the characters are also uninteresting as well. There is not a single character here that I could care about whatsoever. I mean, you would think that a movie, which has a detective going out for revenge for his slain wife would be worth caring for. But no, Detective Kanzaki's personality is completely flat and boring. Nothing about his character makes him stand out and you really don't have much of a reason to care for him whatsoever. Mina is also pretty flat and lifeless, which is ironic, given that she's supposed to be dead in this movie. Everyone else I could just write off as also completely flat and lifeless. I could not remember a single thing about them other than that Kyoko has a fascination with life and death and the photographer has an interest in the paranormal. And the latter's not just a coincidence either, because it ties into a plane crash that had some sort of spiritual being killing over 400 passengers, which is why he's had that interest carry out for him since. But even then, it's not like his character is interesting either, especially since I couldn't even remember the character's name at all. I think Kanzaki might've mentioned it twice towards the end of the movie, but I still can't remember it because that's just how forgetful he was.
So yeah, guys, the writing in this film is completely stupid and terrible. Almost nothing about it makes sense, and it's not even so stupid to where it could be considered laughably bad. It's just terribly written, horribly paced, and it has no characters that are even worth caring about. It's really *that* horrible. Now believe it or not, the acting here is actually decent. I did end up watching the English dub, and the dub here is OK for what it is. Mind you, it's not great, but it's certainly not the worse kinda dub I've heard either. And while this has nothing to do with the film's dub, there is one actress I actually recognized here, who goes by the name of Eihi Shiina, who plays Izuko, AKA the guardian of the gate. And the reason why I recognize her is because she was in two other films that she starred in. "Audition", which I reviewed for this series, and "Tokyo Gore Police". Both movies are great, and she did a really good job here with the material she was given. But it's not just her, the entire cast did a really good job, even though the scripts that they were given really kinda sucked. They really did try to polish those turds as best as they could, so I have to give them all props for trying the best that they could do here.
Special effects, for the most, are really good. And when I say for the most part, I'm mostly referring to the practical effects such as the blood effects. The blood effects in this movie are great. The CG, on the other other hand, looks...kinda cheap here. Now granted, I don't know what the budget is for this movie, so I can only speculate that it was pretty low. So we're not really aiming for the Star Wars prequels here in terms of budget. That being said, whether this movie was running on a low budget or not, the CG here is cheap and a little bit shit. What kinda makes up for it, though, are the fight sequences. The fight choreography in this movie is pretty good. So, I can at least give the movie that much. It's not much, granted, but at least it is something.
Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit rather well. The sound-mix here is mixed fine. The score here is OK too. Granted, it's not really what I would call "memorable", but at least it's tolerable, which is better than nothing at the very least.
So ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Sky High"? No. Hell no, guys! This movie is fucking terrible. Nothing about it makes sense. It's riddled to the wall with stupidity and logic issues. And it's not even on a so bad it's good kind of movie, it's just dreadfully bad all around. It's not even good enough to be made fun of on a bad movie night, because there's not much to riff on here. It's also incredibly boring too, which also adds onto the pacing issues that this film has. I really wish I could find some way to recommend it to you guys, but I seriously can't here. It's just a terribly written film that's too stupid, for me anyway, to even enjoy. Which is really a shame because I *wanted* to like this movie. I really did. I really thought that, when I bought this movie back a couple of years ago, I was really going to like it. But I didn't. It really let me down. And that's the biggest disappointment of them all. So, with that in mind, I'm gonna go find something better to watch. And seeing as how this movie was trying to work in the spiritual aspect of things, I'm gonna go and watch my copy of "Wings of Desire". Which is a movie that I reviewed several years ago and I wound up loving it. I haven't watched it since my review of it, so I'm gonna go watch that next once I get done with this review. And hopefully, it'll ease my pain of having to ever relive this movie ever again.
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.
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