I hate this movie.
It's stupid and bad and dumb and I hate it.
I hate it so much that I love it. It's possibly the best bad movie ever made. Every time I watch it, I think, 'Wow, this movie is really stupid and this is just another hour and a half of my life I'll never get back.' Note the 'every time' in the previous statement, which implies that I have let this movie eat that hour and a half of my life more than one time. So, to make a kind of thesis statement here, the movie sure does suck ass, but it sucks ass with style.
"Why does it suck, Whitney?" I can hear you asking me now. Well, maybe not if you've seen it, but. It sucks because it has all of the confusing wacky apocolyptic plot nonsense we've come to expect, but none of the goodness known as "character development." This is a movie that says, "Hey, screw you, character development is for housewives and little girls! Oh, sure, we could provide some background or something for Yuuto, or, hey! We could also have Fuuma rip his arm off! Oh, that'd be much cooler." So, yeah, that would be one of the driving flaws. Here we have a giant cast of characters; they sure are cool looking and can kick ass, so we needn't bother with explaining who they are or their existence at all. So, sure, that made the movie just a bit confusing, to say the least.
Ah, confusing. I imagine that the standard reaction to watching X is to just blink a few times after it's over, and then go, "Wow, those wacky Japanese. Uh... the decapitations were pretty cool!" It's what we can expect, really, from trying to condense a giant manga storyline that hadn't been completed (and still hasn't been completed) into about a hundred minutes.
But oh, how I love it. Because it sucks. Specifically because it's a dumb, horrible, beautifully animated and well-acted movie. Okay, if you watched this movie with a hope that it would be faithful to the manga and provide you with a colorful, moving version of all the CLAMPy goodness, you'd be screwed. But if you approach the movie as I did, in a "What the hell is going on and who are all these people again?" sort of manner, you're in for a treat, but only if you have a sense of appreciation for the lame.
The movie does have it's quality moments, however. The animation is downright beautiful. Sure, they gave Kamui the wrong color eyes, but everyone looks great. The voice acting is just dandy, even if the casting is a bit odd in places. We think Yuuki Hiro would have done a better job than Tomokazu Seki as Kamui, but we're just damn otaku losers. Sorata, because he is just great, does not get completely screwed over in the character development department. And he gets to be charming and cute and noble and kickass and speak in his damn incomprehensible dialect. And have a cool outfit. Uh, not that I'm biased or anything, really. Some of the death scenes are really touching. Not Karen's, mind you, Karen's is a "Honey? Karen, honey, MOVE" sort of situation, but what can you do? Yuzuhira's death was painful. Sorata and Arashi's deaths got me a little misty, but, uh, again, I'm not biased or anything. The movie also has the big benefit of giving the world a vague idea of how CLAMP is going to destroy all of our hearts as the manga plays out. Perhaps it's even a death list! You're next, Subaru! I'm sure you're looking forward to it. But I digress.
Take a step back from the movie and give it a good look. Look hard, now. Notice a few big differences? Notice some things that are funny? Notice stuff that's different from what you would expect from the manga you know and love? Oh, hey, wait. This says it's CLAMP, sure... but it's CLAMP dressed in drag. It's CLAMP with testicles. It's CLAMP with a big hairy chest. It's a CLAMP that slaps you on the ass and tells you to go get some more coffee, sugartits. Basically, what I'm saying is that it's pretty fucking shounen for CLAMP. Allow me to point to some examples:
Kanoe's giant knockers. Sure, they're big in the manga, but, wow, those are some serious slutty yumemi boobs there.
Satuski's jiggly, jiggly boobies. Yeah, sure, she's fifteen, whatever you say, boys.
Sorata's giant muscles. Sure, he's brawny for a CLAMP guy, but he's got freakishly huge arms in the movie. I mean, freakishly.
Kusanagi. Come on . He's a pussycat in the manga, and certainly not the kind of pussycat that puts cigarettes out on any bodyparts.
Yuzuriha's panties. You only see 'em for a second, but they're there. Which leads one to wonder why we weren't Arashi-flashed, too, but the answer is probably that she would have kicked all of our asses first.
Kanoe groping Kotori. Which was just kind of creepy, really. But, hey, dude, lesbians.
And, of course, the main, giant, flashing, indicator: THE COMPLETE AND TOTAL LACK OF GAY.
What is CLAMP without the gay? I mean, it's pretty much on every page in the manga. You have to squint to find the heterosexuality. If you don't read Japanese, you can just go through and fill in the text bubbles with "gay gay gay, gay gay gay gay! Homosexual! gay gay!"
But then there's the movie. The movie which kills Subaru and Seishirou (GaaAAaaay!) in about five minutes. The movie that left out Kakyou entirely, presumably because he just looked a bit too girly. All right, logically, those three got shafted because at the time of the movie's release, they either hadn't been introduced or explained in the manga, or they would take up too much precious limb-hacking time to explain. But this is still the movie that just has Fuuma twitching and performing lots and lots of acts of violence, instead of what we've come to expect from him, namely twitching, performing lots and lots of acts of violence, and nibbling and fondling Kamui.
Add that all together and you have one big, bloody, dripping, shounen piece of quality comedy. If you're looking for a movie with a lot of good fight scenes, you're good. If you're looking for a movie with tits in the first five minutes, you're good. If you're looking for a movie that kills Kotori not just once or twice, but four times, you're good. If you're looking for a movie that's horribly confusing and would have made an assload more sense if they'd made one of those damn winged Kamui's a Fuuma, you're good. If you're looking for a movie that pretty much introduces characters for the sole purpose of killing them, you're good. If you're looking for a movie that doesn't really particularly seem to know what it's doing or where it's going, but it knows damn well that it's going to make a mess doing it, you're golden, bubby.
Or you could spend that hour and a half with the manga. But then you wouldn't get the pleasure of hearing Fuuma's head sing the closing theme. Forever love, Fuuma. Forever.
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