Friday, August 23, 2013

Assault Girls




Ah it already feels good to be back (sort of). After browsing through the Foreign section of Netflix, I came across this little gem. Now, I'm going to warn you that this is a case where the poster is horribly misleading. I thought I was going to see chicks with guns being super awesome and such. Nope. Instead it's women that have to team up in a video game to defeat a common enemy. That doesn't sound bad. Actually that might be interesting: a ragtag group of women going after an evil corporation, a guy that two timed them, or I'd even take evil spirits. So what is this this powerful foe? A giant eel that has the head of Godzilla.

What makes it even worse is that the running time is only 70 minutes long, with a 10 minute introductory narration that has NOTHING to do with the plot. There's also the actors that speak English even though they're Japanese and their accents are so thick that the movie is subtitled. Why are they speaking English? The announcer of the game tells us 50 minutes into the movie that native languages aren't allowed during game play. Why? Insert your own explanation because I can guarantee it would be way more creative than whatever the writers would've thought of.

I'm going to make this easier on myself and on you. Instead of watching 70 minutes of nothing, just watch the movies and anime this movie manages to rip off in an admittedly impressive amount of time. I'll even give you the list:

Mobile Suit Gundam, The Matrix, Appleseed, Desert Punk, Gamer, Source Code, Godzilla, Watchmen, Rampo Noir, Gunslinger Girl, Big O, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Aliens, Gantz (not if you're squeamish), Trigun, Burst Angel and Ghost in the Shell.

17 in 70 minutes. I think that's some kind of record. What really bugs me outside of the blatant rip offs is that it's a potentially interesting concept that is wasted and lost in the midst of 40+ minutes of no dialog, no plot, bad CGI, very odd characters, and this weird gray haze that made me think the screen on my computer was on its last leg. It's a 0 for me. I'll never understand how a movie called Assault Girls could be so boring and borderline depressing.

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