Black Magic M66 Review – 75/100

Black Magic is another one of those movies I had no expectations of, and yet turned out quite entertaining. Don’t get fooled by the title: the story has absolutely nothing to do with any sort of magic. Instead, it’s a science-fiction action-flick. Sure, the movie has a lot of flaws, but fortunately it has enough good points to make it worthwhile.

The thing that made this movie for me was how refreshing the characters feel. Every single character is in the movie and becomes involved for a good reason. I especially liked how everyone in the military has a personality and is more than just a walking paper-bag, like you see in so many other anime. The villains for this movie, although you’ll never get any good development or depth from them in any single way, do have good reason for their actions, and they’re so much better than “bad guy X who wants to either destroy or rule the world”.

But yeah, don’t expect the plot to make sense at all times. The movie tries, but when the main character comes into action you’re going to wonder how she survives. There’s also absolutely no character-development and the movie gets less interesting as it nears its climax. Something which should have been the other way around!

Incidentally, Masamune Shirou seems to be behind Black Magic M66. While I haven’t seen his other works of Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed, I doubt that this is among the best of his works. Thankfully, though, Black Magic knows exactly what it is: an action-flick. It never attempts to be deep; it never attempts to emotionally connect with the viewer, it doesn’t try to be 100% believable at all times. All it wants is to entertain the viewer for 40 minutes. Well, mission accomplished.