I was expecting to absolutely love this movie. I was expecting to fall in love with it like I did with Mamoru Hosoda's other films like Wolf Children and the Girl Who Leapt Through Time. And while this film was in no means bad, I couldn't help but feel a little underwhelmed by it.
What's good about it: The animation is great and unique as always, A lot of the emotional scenes were handled pretty maturely, and it can be pretty engaging and gripping at times.
What's bad about it: They're trying to tell two different stories at once. One story being about a bunch of people trying to save the world from a corrupt artificial intelligence and the other being about a kid who has to pretend to be the fiancé of a girl he likes. And they're not balanced out very well. I personally think it would've worked if both of these stories were two separate films. Another issue with the film is that the characters that are meant to be important (the love interest in particular) had little to no development outside of just being the love interest. The reason behind that is because there were too many characters. A lot of the film focused more on her family than it did the actual main characters. If you want this character to have a big family, then fine, more power to ya. But you shouldn't put all of your focus on them. You should keep the focus where it should be: on the main characters.
But even with these issues, does this film still hold up? Yeah. This movie is in no mean amazing or even great, I still think it's decent. However, if you were expecting a masterpiece like Wolf Children or the Girl Who Leapt Through Time, you may wanna look elsewhere. For me, I'm glad I saw it, I just wouldn't see it again.
What's good about it: The animation is great and unique as always, A lot of the emotional scenes were handled pretty maturely, and it can be pretty engaging and gripping at times.
What's bad about it: They're trying to tell two different stories at once. One story being about a bunch of people trying to save the world from a corrupt artificial intelligence and the other being about a kid who has to pretend to be the fiancé of a girl he likes. And they're not balanced out very well. I personally think it would've worked if both of these stories were two separate films. Another issue with the film is that the characters that are meant to be important (the love interest in particular) had little to no development outside of just being the love interest. The reason behind that is because there were too many characters. A lot of the film focused more on her family than it did the actual main characters. If you want this character to have a big family, then fine, more power to ya. But you shouldn't put all of your focus on them. You should keep the focus where it should be: on the main characters.
But even with these issues, does this film still hold up? Yeah. This movie is in no mean amazing or even great, I still think it's decent. However, if you were expecting a masterpiece like Wolf Children or the Girl Who Leapt Through Time, you may wanna look elsewhere. For me, I'm glad I saw it, I just wouldn't see it again.