Devilman

Before I start, for anyone who chooses to watch this movie REMEMBER this pose. By the end of the movie, you'll be annoyed by it.

As a pretty big Devilman fan, I have to say this is a disappointment. The director tries too hard to make this into something that it is not.

The film loosely follows the manga/ anime with the core standard Devilman elements – the violence, some monsters, the killing of key characters, the missing of some characters, and the senseless violence with a tad of dark and depressing atmosphere. Aside from those elements, it does not actually fit into the Devilman universe at all what so ever. This is fine as long as there is a decent plot, convincing acting, or amazing action sequence, which it does not have either. Not only is the story all over the place, there is a problem with the flow of it as well. Unless you have some background knowledge, you will be lost.

Visually, it is pretty good but it can be done so much better, especially in the major fight scenes. I'm guessing this may be the result of filming on a limited budget they had?

As for the actors, unless you’re blind most people would notice that Akira and Ryo look some what alike. The reason being these two “actors” are actually brothers and they are in a band together called Flame.

The two seems to reflect the emo era; they don't have much emotions throughout the film. Disapproving, this face - Angry, this face - I don’t know but the two look the same to me. Miki and her parents seem to be slightly better but may be a little more dramatic. Not sure if this is due to the lack of emotions from the main actors or they were actually over dramatic.

Getting famous musicians to act even though they may not be good as actors seems to be a very common practice in the Asian entertainment industry. That being said, there are individuals who excel in music and still be good at acting. With this movie, the director did not get the two Isakis to give the audience a better performance.

There are some interesting moments. 1) Akira being a complete idot in the beginning of the movie when he saw Miki. You will laugh your head off. 2) The search for the missing classmate. There are many other illogical ones, which makes this like a game of finding what doesn't make sense in this scene. Feel free to list your findings in our comment section below.

Those who have enjoyed the anime or the manga, which I have not been able to obtain copies of them yet, would agree with me on this, this live action is missing a real good concrete story and it pains me to watch it more than twice, which I did.

If the director was to convey any message, I believe he had achieved it by making Nagai's world into complete chaos with people turning extremely prejudice against "monsters" or worst against other humans. So, who's the real monster?

Other than that, there really isn't much to say. It’s unfortunate that when they finally go for a live action, they screwed it up.

If you watch until the end, I would ACTUALLY recommend you to listen to the closing credit theme song because it's really good. Alternatively, you can just skip to the very end and listen to it OR just find the song online. Your choice.

I can only say, unless you’re a hardcore fan, as in you must see every single thing they put out or someone/ Izaki fan who just want to look at pretty Japanese guys as in the Izaki brothers with one of them who walks around shirtless, be my guest and watch this. For regular anime viewers, you may want to scroll through it. For hardcore fans, this will be a love hate relationship and prepared to be disappointed and feel a little like...