Add to Queue Review - “Battle Royale”
Mind. Blown. It’s official. “Battle Royale” is fantastic. Imagine “The Hunger Games” in a world where there are no stakes on the line. There is no pride to be won. There is nothing to be gained and if you don’t murder your best friend in three days than your head will explode. Not in a mind blowing “I just heard about the 4th dimension on a Neil Degrasse Tyson podcast”, but in a “my neck is rigged with explosives and there’s a chance sleeping the wrong way might cause it to slit my throat in the middle of the night.”
Every scene captures a fantastic new emotion and your investment in these kids is more or less instantaneous.
In spite of all the gory details, note that for the most part “Battle Royale” is a very watchable film. My wife who has no interest in foreign films or what she calls “those subtitle movies” and who has a similar disinterest in putting off chores, closed the dryer and delayed her trip to Target because she was too engaged with the film after watching about 15 seconds. The energy is just so high and the pacing is incredible. Every scene captures a fantastic new emotion and your investment in these kids is more or less instantaneous. It’s such an exciting film, I almost forgot to tell you what it’s about.
There are 46 students. In three days, there better be 45 dead.
So basically, the teachers or I suppose all of the adults in the world are mad at kids for being disrespectful. This might be because someone got stabbed but I might have missed that part. Either way, for some reason it is now ok to murder every high school student or better yet, pin them against one another with government funded chaos islands. From there, the rules are fairly simple. There are 46 students. In three days, there better be 45 dead. Otherwise the sensor around everyone’s neck will explode and “There Will Be Blood”! There are also a couple of wildcard transfer students who have no problem with murder and add an additional element or antagonist to the film.
There’s little else to comment on with this film. When you see something as entertaining as “Battle Royale” it’s hard to focus on all the details when all you really need to say is “Watch this film.”
