QUEZON City, Philippines (October 2) – I know that we should treat a film or a movie differently from its source material. That a film is the director’s interpretation of the original work and that it can never compete with your own interpretation or imagination.
But still…
The live-action adaptation of the “Attack on Titan” is very disappointing.
The manga “Attack on Titan” by Hajime Isayama was a commercial and critical success. So is the anime adaptation. As a matter of fact, it became the number one anime in Japan in 2014.
To be fair, teasers and advertisements of the film describe it as a “loose adaptation” and man, they did not lie!
Maybe its due to budgetary constraints or for practical considerations… after all the main attraction of the manga/anime is how they kill titans using what is called in-universe as the 3D maneuver gear. Said stunts will be very hard to duplicate in real life.
I can live with that.
But the film radically changed the premise of the manga/anime series, introduced new characters that did not substantially further the story and changed the timeline and so many more that really I just wished that the titans should just have eaten them all so that I can already go home.
Yes, this is just a rant… I can’t even review this film properly, it’s that bad!
One thing that the film got right is the atmosphere of dread and terror when the titans entered the breach in the wall. Imagine gigantic beings with a penchant for eating human flesh making a grab for any and every human that they can catch as everyone runs around in blind panic.
And did I mentioned that said titans are virtually immortal?
Just imagine how twistedly bad the film could be when I am literally cheering for the villains – the titans – to just chomp them all down and end my theatrical misery.
(ENS, written by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Vince Alvin Villarin)
