I like Toei… or at least some parts of it. They can come up with quite original premises and well executed series. But whenever they market the living heck out of their series I just tune out. Six Digimon series, seven Precure series and god knows how many more movies. Heartcatch Precure really was one of those rare exceptions in which they really wanted to do something new and good. This movie… just wasn’t. I mean, it doesn’t even try to hide that its sole purpose is to sell toys.
The premise of this movie is utterly flimsy. The mascots invite all of the Precure to a magical theme park that contains a magical light that can give hope to everyone but also can conveniently give some bad guy the power of eternal life, so he sends s bunch of minions to get it. In there, the mascots all just openly hand out magical toys (so much for trying not to stand out), which in the end will be used to defeat this bad guy.
The messages of this movie are very badly hidden: buy our product so that you can send your own hopes to the lead characters in order to help them beat this bad guy. Let’s all keep up our hopes, and that will allow us to conquer all evil. Of course, don’t worry about any damage that the bad guys cause: when you beat them, everything will return to normal, and broken buildings and structures automatically heal themselves back to life. I know that there are other series with these elements, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen them done with the subtlety of an elephant on figure skates.
In the end, you want to watch this movie for the action scenes. The art here can be quite beautiful, but with the budget of this series (do not tell me that Toei doesn’t have any money here with their marketing here), I do believe that the creators should have tried harder. At crucial times the creators just switch to animating their characters in 3D CG, and the bad guy himself is just some big purple blob that’s conveniently very easy to animate and the movie is also full of stock-footage transformation scenes that may be excused for long television series, but not for an hour-long movie that shouldn’t have to worry about its budget. You can see that some talented artists have worked on certain scenes. But at others… I just miss creativity.
Movies based on series have really been quite lazy during the past years, with them either being recaps, or just movies with silly premises like this one. Bringing all of the lead characters of all of the existing Precure series together was a nice idea, but this movie hardly does anything with it. I want to see more movies with bold ideas, the ones that are full of the creativity that you can’t show at a regular tv-series.
| Storytelling: | 4/10 – Yes, kids? You want the Precures to be able to beat the bad guys? Then buy our products and yell as hard as you can! |
| Characters: | 7/10 – No depth or development whatsoever, but the characters are likable enough to watch. Tsubomi and Erika somehow manage to hold this movie together. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – Animation ranges from actually really good to just uninspired considering the movie’s budget. |
| Setting: | 3/10 – Stupid. Just stupid. I know it’s a kids’ movie and all, but that’s no excuse. |
Suggestions:
– Heartcatch Precure
– Kaleido Star
– Adolescence of Utena
I’m currently watching every Precure available on fansub (currently on Splash Star) and seeing the second screenshot of the recently “killed” villain with the HeartCatch fairies (I just watched that bitch getting offed XD) makes me want to see this movie even more (I like crossovers).
Of course nobody is watching this for its plot, we just want to see all the Precures kick some evil ass.
Sigh Sob was this really worth replacing Ookami Kakushi? 🙁
Solaris: this is just a movie. The tv-series is awesome.
dood: ah, now I understand who those villains are, and why they had no background whatsoever. It’s interesting though that the creators didn’t cross over the villains of Heartcatch Precure. ^^;
:O oops i think i posted in the wrong section >.
the movie is intended to hardcore fans who understand 100% precure franchises. The fact that the enemy is all enemy that appearing in the previous franchises proven that.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen a Precure movie before as you seem confused about the miracle lights. The little lights are complimentary (or inexpensive at least-I’m not sure) to children when they go see a Precure movie in the theater. The inclusion of the light was not to sell toys outside of the movie but to garner audience participation. Hence the scene towards the end when the mascots call to the audience. They’ve been doing it for quite a few movies now, and the Heartcatch movie will have a light as well. In other movies there is a little introduction at the beginning on the “do’s and dont’s of Miracle Light etiquette” in the theaters. It’s pretty funny ^^. DX movies don’t have this for some reason.
However this movie was a good way to sell toys of the previous Precure if you know what I mean ;P
About the movie itself, I still have mixed feelings. I did enjoy it quite a bit, especially the fight scenes.
If you had seen the first All Stars movie, you’d notice that they bring together all the previous characters very well. In this movie it’s more centered on the newbies that the kids would be most familiar with (Heartcatch and Fresh), which makes a lot of sense but pisses off older fans I guess.
Strange that Granny Kaoruko, Yuri and Itsuki would just happen to be present in the crowd. So much keep that “Sunshine” secret.