“What kind of movie did you show?” The science fiction movie “What to Do With the Dead” (Shochiku / Toei) released on February 4, 2022. It had been attracting attention even before it was released with the novel theme of dealing with dead big monsters, but Twitter users who saw the work heard a bitter voice, and the movie review site has been receiving low ratings one after another.
Why is the work hit by a storm of criticism? I asked a film critic for his views.
“Special effects movie entertainment that no one has seen”
The work is a story about people who are chased by the processing of a large monster that died suddenly after terrorizing humankind. This is the first joint work by domestic distribution giant Shochiku and Toei.
The director and screenwriter is Satoshi Miki, who was a writer for Fuji TV’s variety shows such as “Downtown no Gottsu Ee feeling”, “Waratte Iitomo!”, And “Trivia Fountain”. Hey! Say! JUMP’s Ryosuke Yamada, the heroine’s secretary to the Environment Minister, Tao Tsuchiya, the Prime Minister of the time, Toshiyuki Nishida Toshiyuki Nishida plays the end.
Japan has been popular for many years with works depicting monsters such as “Godzilla” and “Ultraman series”. It is also fresh in my memory that “Shin Godzilla” (Toho) released in 2016 caused a big boom.
In “What to Do With the Dead,” the TV commercial is called “Special effects movie entertainment that no one has ever seen,” and conveys the sense of urgency of people who are chased by the monsters. The line of the Prime Minister, played by Mr. Nishida, “Who will get rid of it?” Was also impressive.
“If you say so far, you’ll want to see it on the contrary.”
However, when the movie was released on February 4, “criticism” continued on the Internet. The following words were heard from Twitter users who saw the movie.
“What kind of movie did you show?”
“I want you to get rid of the feeling of sickness after you finish watching.”
In the movie review of the movie information site “Movie.com”, star 1 accounted for the largest percentage of stars 5 to 1, with a low rating of 2.2 out of 5. (260 reviews in total). Even on the movie review posting site “Filmarks”, the low rating of 2.4 out of 5 did not change. (Both as of 18:00 on February 9th)
There were also voices on Twitter saying, “I’m worried about it,” and “I want to see it when I say so far.”
Why has it been so badly criticized while attracting a lot of attention? Yuichi Maeda, a movie critic who runs the movie critic site “Super Movie Criticism,” analyzed the reasons for the interview with J-CAST News on the 9th.
“I think the customers were expecting a’full-scale science fiction work’. There are many monster movies themselves, but how do you deal with the corpse after defeating the monster? That in the real world. What would happen if I did it? This point of view was the best. “
“I think the audience thought they could see the tense political and military simulations that were depicted in’Shin Godzilla’, but in reality, they could see even a millimeter. I couldn’t see it. What I see is a slippery gag, a political and military depiction with zero reality. A script with no reality, a human depiction. None of them meet the expectations of customers. I think it can’t be helped. “
“I’ve watched a lot of bad movies in the past …”
I thought it was a serious science fiction movie, but when I opened the lid, it was actually a gag movie. Many of these reactions were also seen online. Then, what was your impression when you saw it as a gag work? Maeda says:
“I can’t laugh at all. It would be nice if the gag was easy to understand, but the gag of this work is nonsense and weak. Director Miki is also writing the script for the play, but somehow it is a stage play style production. In stage theater, the distance to the audience is close, and even if you do silly nonsense things, the audience will laugh, but in the movie, there are also customers who are not close to each other. It’s a customer who doesn’t feel like laughing at all and isn’t warm, saying, “It’s completely different from what I expected! I don’t want to see that!” Is impossible, isn’t it? “
Mr. Maeda has watched and criticized numerous movies. How was your evaluation of this work?
“I honestly don’t understand the reason why a lot of people can make a movie that is so boring. With the movie industry all over the world, it’s hard to say that something like this will end up somewhere. Honestly, I think it’s only in Japan. Usually, someone stops it. “This is impossible.” If I were a producer, I would probably stop it when I read the script. I didn’t know why. But I couldn’t stop. I’ve watched various bad movies in the past, but it’s one of the best. I don’t think. I think it’s a super champion. “
If you want to enjoy such a work, how should you feel when you watch it? Mr. Maeda said, “Everyone comes to mind because what you expected is different from what you saw. If you see it after you know it’s a bad movie, I don’t think it’s a problem.”