Having been somewhat disappointed by Casshern -which was beautiful but soulless - I wasn't expecting much. Goemon came as a fairly pleasant surprise.
Yes, it's incredibly effect & CGI heavy, but that's fine, because it's very obviously an art film and works entirely within its own context. The sets all look relatively real, colours are intense where they need to be, and flashbacks are by turn grey and sepia. It all makes sense. Action (and there is a lot of it) is poetically realised. Unlike many modern films, the action direction is clear and truly thrilling. The camera zooms around all over the place, but I never felt I was missing anything. This in contrast to countless films that overuse slo-mo and jump cuts (and as a result are plain terrible)
The core characters are all well realised and genuinely sympathetic. The relationships between them are explored and relatively convincing.
In fact, the only point at which this film really failed was in a pivotal scene, where Goemon somehow forgets to use his amazing Ninja powers to get through a crowd, having spent the rest of the film jumping tens of meters effortlessly. It's completely absurd, deeply frustrating (I literally ended up shouting at the screen), and makes no narrative sense at all. If not for that, I'd easily rate this film 9/10
Yes, it's incredibly effect & CGI heavy, but that's fine, because it's very obviously an art film and works entirely within its own context. The sets all look relatively real, colours are intense where they need to be, and flashbacks are by turn grey and sepia. It all makes sense. Action (and there is a lot of it) is poetically realised. Unlike many modern films, the action direction is clear and truly thrilling. The camera zooms around all over the place, but I never felt I was missing anything. This in contrast to countless films that overuse slo-mo and jump cuts (and as a result are plain terrible)
The core characters are all well realised and genuinely sympathetic. The relationships between them are explored and relatively convincing.
In fact, the only point at which this film really failed was in a pivotal scene, where Goemon somehow forgets to use his amazing Ninja powers to get through a crowd, having spent the rest of the film jumping tens of meters effortlessly. It's completely absurd, deeply frustrating (I literally ended up shouting at the screen), and makes no narrative sense at all. If not for that, I'd easily rate this film 9/10