In which we discuss a new plan of action, and we are introduced to a movie

Having attempted to do step 2 (of my previous post), I found that my posting guidelines were not nearly as clear as I had supposed them to be.

So, new guidelines:

• No profanity
• No gore
• No r34
• Post on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
• Post about the subject I have most to say about at the time

And, with that out of the way, a line break!

Professor Layton is one of my favourite game series of all time. He is also one of my favourite characters of all time. And the games have some of my favourite soundtracks, visual styles, gameplay styles… The list would go on, if it weren’t for the fact that I can’t really think of any other such qualifiers.

                So when I first heard tell of a movie in the works, Porfessor Layton and the Eternal Diva, I freaked out. At the time, I expected it to be like a feature-length, HD cutscene. The games’ cutscenes are another thing not to be ignored. I was ecstatic: they could not, however they warped and twisted the games’ premise, ruin this.

                The games, currently, take place in two trilogies: the fourth, fifth, and sixth games take place three years before the first three. The titular professor solves mysteries and occasionally battles giant robots with his 10 to 13-year-old sidekick, Luke, who looks more like a 5 to 6-year-old.

                Skip forward a few years.

                It was either Christmas, my birthday, or some other similar event. And I got the movie I’d almost forgotten about.

                And time went on. I found my attention distracted at first by the videogames I had gotten for that same event. Whatever they were, they must have been pretty good. Eventually, though, the main event. I gently unwrapped the DVD case; placed the plastic wrapper (not the gift wrap, that would be silly) in a box often used by me to store plastic wrappers; and I tried to get my DVD player to work.

                I believe it did, eventually. Certainly I recall watching an hour and a half of my favourite voice.

                I also recall the mounting disappointment. The visuals simply weren’t what I had hoped they would be. The voices, too, were not quite as I remembered them. And the plot. The plot was, compared to the games, dull, dull, dull.

                I cannot deny that I absolutely adore knockout competitions of doom, and the one featured in his movie fit the criteria.

                But it was done badly.

                The plot was – what’s the word? – contrived. It simply felt too outlandish to have happened. The sudden revelation that the Professor could play the piano with one hand on a collapsing platform hundreds of feet in the air was too much. The obligatory big robot at the end of the movie was either not big enough, robotic enough, or conceivable enough.

                But perhaps the latter qualms are due in part to my not having played Professor Layton and the Spectre’s Call (the first game of the second – prequel – trilogy, happening before The Eternal Diva chronologically) at the time of watching. Three major characters from that game who were not present in the previous trilogy reappeared (the professor’s ‘official’ assistant Emmy, Inspector Grosky, and the villain), and Luke, the eponymous professor’s self-proclaimed assistant, was three years younger than in said trilogy: obviously coming with differences in personality and relation with the professor.

                Now that I have played said game, and enjoyed it oh so much, I can revise my opinions of the characters introduced. They get, it hardly needs be said, much more development in the game than in the movie. It definitely helps to know who they are when watching, as all have very distinctive personalities.

                And I suppose I’ll wrap this up. The movie has some good gags, and is entertaining the first time through, but naturally, being as it is a mystery story, has little to no replay value, so to speak. The plot is simultaneously hard to believe and too simplistic. The animation isn’t as good as it could have been, or at least it feels like it should have run smoother. I’d say it’s a mediocre to good movie: the only reason I’ve bashed it so much in this review is because it could have been so, so much better.

                It has nice animation, intriguing mystery, okay characterisation, acceptable humour, and so forth. It’s just that I should have been able to refer to all the above as being ‘brilliant’. The only thing that really sticks to the games in terms of quality is the soundtrack.

                It’s a good movie, which is a shame.