Infini-T Force: Farewell, Friend

Welcome to my review on the movie 'Infini-T Force: Gatchaman - Saraba Tomo yo' (long-ass name but oh well). This movie is produced by the studio Tatsunoko Production, although like often with movies a lot of other studios and company names are included. I just hope I am right with Tatsunoko being the one who primarily made it. The movie as a lenght of around 1 and a half hours, so if you want to watch this movie you gotta prepare for enough time. Important Note: This is a follow-up movie to the TV anime Infini-T Force. I recommend watching that show first and watch thismovie afterwards. Also, this movie will contain spoilers a few spoilers to the TV show. If you don't want to potentially spoil yourself, go scroll down to the last section of this review where I give my overall conclusion to this movie. Plot/Story: Before the actual story of this movie starts we get a really r e a l l y fast rundown on the TV show. That recap though lacks everything and anything so unless you've seen the TV show you might get serious headache from not understanding anything. The plot of this movie goes as follows: In an alternate universe, during the events of the TV show, a singularity in space (as in space & time) appears. This damages other worlds and causes them to malfunction. This world's version of Professor Nambu, a friend of Ken aka Gatchaman, tries to harness and use the power of that singularity for certain reasons. For that he kills that world's version of Gatchaman and other of his friends. The real Gatchaman and the other heroes from the TV show travel through space and time to get Kaidou Emi (main heroine of the TV show) in order to make her use her power to stop the singularity from advancing and destroying the other worlds. This movie's plot isn't on the very complex side, nor is it a particularly well-thought plot. Even though for this type of movie it's passable, a more fleshed out plot would've been more interesting. While watching I definitely had problems following some technical parts of the plot and it seemed to lack thought and depth. Art: Definitely the strongest point of this show. That I'm saying this despite this show being full-CGI shows how good art is. The CGI has definitely improved since the TV show, facial features are more expressed, the CGI models have a stronger surface and better colors than in the TV anime. The fight animations are also good but prevalent than the previous anime. I don't know the budget of the movie but I'm happy to see that CGI models get better over time (looks over to Berserk and Overlord 3). At least that's what I hope. Sound: Not really noticeable throughout the movie, meaning it was...there. However, one single time during the movie, around the end of the movie the production team suddenly included a very BGM so I have to give props for that great BGM. Charcaters: First im going to go over the protagonists and good guys of the show, starting with the characters we know from the TV series. Okay that's all, now on to the new characters. Okay, but seriously now. None of the characters from the anime get any kind of character development in this movie. Even though this movie has Ken/Gatchaman in the foreground and it mainly revolves around him it should still show at least small changes in their character. Sadly, this was not possible because of the script of the movie since none of the cast except Gatchaman have any significant roles. But even Gatchaman himself doesn't get any new character facets which is a shame. I get that Gatchaman sees himself as a all-out bright hero who does not kill and always saves the people. Kids in a way like Batman. But I'd like to compare him to Cap America. Cap America was also branded as a fairly plain hero, but after the events of his second feature film he saw the world in a different light and I think that it would not have been that difficult to write Gatchaman in a similar way. Now I don't know the source material of Gatchaman and how he's portrayed there so it might be that he's locked on on that personality. But I hope it's not that because that would be very unfortunate. Apart from the Infini-T Force cast we also get "a few" new characters. Mainly Joe and Dr. Kozaburou. Joe has a way better personality curve than Gatchaman but the movie lacks on sympathying him and making the viewers care very much about his story. Could've been improved. Apart from that I don't see any major problems in him. Dr. Kozaburou (Professor Namba) as the main antagonist of the movie feels lackluster in his resolve and motives. While they are understandable and you can get why he does what he does, his story and character lack enough depth to matter as a character and antagonist. The TV show did it better but they also had more episodes so i can't fully blame them. But other movies can. So this one with one and a half hour should be able to cover enough for a good villain, a good new character and small changes in the existing cast. But they don't. Overall Enjoyment and Verdict: Overall I must say that while I did not hate the movie and it was not boring it could've improved a lot on the characters from the TV show. Even more so, if they made the story of this movie exceptionally good then it could've gotten enough praise and money to fund more movies that focus on the other characters. It could've been like that. But unfortunately the people taksed with the story wanted to sit on a stagnant story that just as well might have never even existed. Even so, if you enjoyed the TV anime then you most likely also enjoy this movie. Maybe not on the same level but close to that. I'm giving this show a 7/10. Plus points for the artstyle and CGI as well as for that one piece of music used during a scene around the end. Other than that fairly avarage scores. One last thing: I watched this movie subbed but apparently it appears that there is only 1 sub-team that did that movie and I must say they did a terrible job. It definitely lowered my enjoyment on the movie. So warnings ahead. Anyway, that's it for my review on this movie. I hope I could help someone out there and I see you in the next review.