Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I dunno... I have the original BATTLE ROYALE on DVD, and I really respect the film for the way it balances all the different tones it tries to strike. This one sounds like a godawful mess, though, and the movie parodies that have been shoehorned in make me wince, just in description form. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those sequels that proves the old rule that something that original should be left alone. Let’s see what this reviewer had to say:
Just saw Battle Royale 2, and thought I'd send a review.
I was not a big fan of the first film, but I did enjoy it for the violence. I went into it thinking it was going to have more commentary on the terrible Japanese education system (I work in a Japanese junior high school), but there was virtuality none of that - just students killing students killing students who accidentally killed other students. But Battle Royale was well-directed, had lots of interesting deaths, and Beat Takeshi played the "asshole tough-love PE teacher" type perfectly.
I was very disappointed by BR2, especially after reading the good review from Pigmon on AICN. As the movie started, the familiar choral song had me ready for a good action film with bits of horrifying violence here and there.
The plot of the first film was largely the interaction of the students with one another. However in this sequel that's not the case.
A 3rd year junior high school class is signed up then forced against their will to help kill Shuya, the male survivor of the previous film. Starting Christmas day, the class is given a quick brutal explanation of the "rules" from their pill-chewing homeroom teacher (and rugby coach), handed guns, then immediately forced to assault the island where Shuya and his "terrorist" group, Wild Seven, are holed up. Like the first film, they have explosive collars around their necks which will detonate if they fail the mission objectives - however this time there is a twist which makes looking after their fellow students more important. That's right - the students are not fighting each other, they're fighting "terrorists."
Who are the students? Well, who really cares? We're not shown much of their lives before being signed up, except in a few flashbacks involving the main character (who sneers his way though the movie) and Kitano's (Beat Takeshi) daughter. There's not a lot of character development. At one moment a dying girl says "Don't forget me!" and I didn't even know who she was. (Cue Gruber reference.) For most of the kids in this film, character development = hairstyles. Or sneering.
Beat Takeshi returns in one 30 second flashback.
Kinji Fukasaku's name is all over the movie, and his picture is at the end, after all the credits. I don't know if he would have wanted his name on this movie.
Battle Royale 2 is a war film, without any big set pieces. It blatantly copies the opening of Saving Private Ryan. There are many, many gun battles. Sounds good, but the squibs are few and far between. The battles all start blending together after a while, and I saw many people in the theatre checking their cell phones. Many of the battles reminded me of the late 80's post apocalypse B movies that cable and video brought us - both in quality and setting (ie. deserted, broken down factory, etc.).
If you go into this film looking for imaginative, occasionally gory, deaths, you will be severely disappointed. Almost all the blood not applied by wardrobe is cgi, as are many showers of debris, a few explosions, and the island. The film looks cheaper than the original because of these effects. (The neck collar explosions are especially noticable as computer-generated.)
There is a lot of cheeze in this movie, too. The kids' homeroom teacher, played by Riki Takeuchi, hams it up so much that at times it was painful to watch him.
Pigmon mentioned something about this movie coming to America. I doubt it will theatrically. Maybe it was just me, but there seemed to be an anti-American slant to this film. Near the end of the film, an action taken by an unnamed country (called only "ano kuni") presumably refers to America. Plus the film clearly equates terrorism with destroying skyscrapers (and shows this), which may make American distributors uncomfortable. After the film ended, I commented to a friend that it seemed like it was written by junior high school students.
DJ Sk.
Yeeeeeeks. That sounds awful. Man, I hope it’s better than that. No telling when we’ll have the chance to judge for ourselves here in America, though.
"Moriarty" out.
