Ever since Battle Royale, there’s been endless copies of the bewildering Japanese student slaughter. Each competing to be more destructive, nihilistic and cruel, they also tend to throw in nonsense, pursuing to be subversive and nonsensical at the same time. There may have been forerunners though that was the definite cinema moment in my opinion to spawn them all. (Probably wrong opinion.)
As the Gods Will is the latest entry in such hyper-brutal glorification of violence and it’s not bad, not great, not good, somewhere in between. Influenced heavily by facsimilies of the works described as above, this has a few somewhat worthwhile moments of enjoyable torture yet doesn’t really go anywhere near the emotional depths that it drives to be; it’s shock value for the general sake of it, and it soon gets old real quick.
Characters are whimisically whisked away to be murdered without a shred of mercy. So how can you expect to build any kind of serious ties or invest emotion in them? That’s the viewer’s challenge here and it’s not easy. Student Takahata is suddenly thrown into a deadly arena of survival when he manages to escape a bizarre bouncing head which turns his fellow students into… beads. And while gloating all the time, because that makes it more scary, right?
Stumbling over a pile of his dead comrades, Takahata finds that the worst is yet to come, embarking along what feels more like an episodic series of arena-style competition crammed into a viewing then one real movie. Each scene is so long – they may be designed to generate interest in the various personalities, but this is stuff is so corny that it would only, well, appeal to kids. Apologies to all kids.
Much of the horror is reliant on the animated enemies which aren’t too offkey. Technically they’re very competently composed and fearsome; after the first 10 seconds, they get really cheap and tacky, and this isn’t such a bad thing because the idea of being devoured by a generic advertisement digital moscat could have had a ring of irony in its murderous rampage. Since the film doesn’t take itself so seriously anyway, this feels like a missed shot at an open goal for self-criticism.
Takahata’s adolescent ruminations ultimately lead the narrative, and they are despairingly boring, though many moments – especially including the various tests he is subjected to – interestingly veer in the direction of criticism and statement about and against society. Sadly, although there’s a lot of noise, there isn’t much bravery or courage to back it up.
If you’re going to watch this, expect to be trapped in a 25-minute time loop of killing, infighting, dramatic victory, repeat. That isn’t a careless exaggeration; there is so much structural repetition of idea that the director could have created a more sustainable approach by marketing their concept as a string of episodes, rather than cramming them all into one 2-hour festival of mayhem. Don’t chop your films up like your sushi.
5/10
Possession Media 