$21Hello, Resurrection of Christ story through Japanese entertainment with special effects rivaling Hollywood. Gantz II: Perfect Answer takes place after the events of the first film with Kei Kuruno still putting up the good fight against other world aliens in Japan. Is it a good fight? Gantz the strange black ball supports Kei and other resurrected people through hi-tech weapons and suits that give people super human power.
Now if your caught up, Gantz II isn't a perfect sequel to the first film which introduced us to the Gantz universe of a video game like world where after you die, your brought back to fight aliens by a strange black ball with a man hooked up inside of it. The film still has stellar special effects and some amazing scenes, but it is the weaker of the two films.What I loved was the amazing choreographed fight scenes and futuristic technology and weapons. I can say this is one of the only Japanese films where I've seen special effects given there due. The process of transportation is still great to see where only parts of you come through sort of like a printer. Everything from people exploding from delayed guns. Let's explore them for a second, there's a gun that will cause things to explode, but causes a delayed reaction ,so a few seconds after you fire does something actually blow-up. This is somewhat horrible if your someone whose been shot , because you know it's gonna hurt bad.
A fairly long action scene takes place on a subway train filled with innocent people, things go bad, very bad. (Spoilers) At one point the subway train is cut in two which just looks phenomenal. The hero Kei on one side and evil alien on the other. The trains drifting apart. Kei has to make a jump to the other side. Part of the same train fight has Kei is flung from the train and he seems to pop into view of average people, showing off how strange this fight is. Regular people don't get it, but superhero like fights are going on. You always feel somewhat grounded that these strange fights aren't natural to the world.
Finally, a one last over the top violence fueled splatter face with and ending of aliens vs Gantz fighters is like Gears of War levels of carnage. Explosions, alien goo, blood and bullets all over the place in a nice apartment. I have no idea how anyone gets out of that and lives. You have guns and delayed weapons going off just a few feet from each other, then some sort of explosion that rivals the death star's end just on a smaller scale. You still have the light shining out of it just like the remaster death star explosion.
Where the film doesn't have a bang is the darker nature of the story and some over-acting. I'm not blaming the actors for the over-acting it was obviously written that way. There's just sections of dialogue about how much some of the Gantz people who loved each other dragged on. Kei's poor girlfriend Tae gets dragged into the fight with aliens and has a scene where she gets sliced multiple times and unbelievable keeps going to hold hands with Kei one last predictable time. It really slowed down the movie. It all can't be violence, but it also all can't be two people talking while the world is ending around them.
You never feel that sorry for the antagonists this time around, they keep saying it's for revenge, for the killing the Gantz fighters are doing. The aliens however slaughter innocent people and why their on earth on the first place remains a mystery as well as what Gantz really is or why it doesn't want aliens on Earth. It seems like most aliens wouldn't even attack humans if not sought after by Gantz. I just loved the different aliens and video game like missions from the first. You also felt bad for a little alien kid exploding in the first, but not this time around. This time around the aliens are just creepy.There's a whole other arc of Gantz member vs Gantz member that I hated, it made humanity look so bad. It happens in seconds and makes me hate the other characters for being so monstrous that they'd take a innocent person's life for their own. The ending is so depressing for our main hero Kei who now embodies a Christ like motif for what he's done.
It truly is best to see the first film before this one to get to know all the characters and story better. You will want to see what happens in the end after watching the original. It seems like they may have wanted to do three movies and just crammed in as much as they could before the end.
Gantz Perfect Answer actually comes with a DVD copy and and a bonus disc. Visual and audio looks great in HD and there is both dubbed and subtitled options.
Reviewer was given copy by publisher for review purposes.
