Tetsuo! Kaneda!

May 5, 2001

After a few months of waiting, I finally got to see the new remaster of Akira. Twice.

The new translations work wonders for this film. I think this is the first version of the film that really made sense and was entertaining from start to finish. Before, a lot of the exposition was snooze-inducing. The new dub was able to carry those longer scenes of just people talking a lot better, often injecting humor that just wasn’t there in the previous versions.

From a technical perspective, Akira remains an absolute masterpiece. Quite frankly, you’ll never see a movie quite like it again, since nobody would be crazy enough to hand draw, paint and animate something of this kind of scale and detail again. You will likely see better animation (although I haven’t really seen anything blow me away like this since) but it will be helped heavily with CGI and computer coloring.

The new print is remarkably clean, aided and abetted by the digital projection system at the AMC Burbank. Not one speck of dust or hair to mar the image. It was just gorgeous. The sound was a new 5.1 mix… bone-rattling and deathly quiet at the same time. The score in particular sounds better than ever.

Watching the film itself, I was a bit surprised at just how brilliant it is. I hadn’t seen it in a few years and I was sort of expecting it to seem a bit underwhelming in light of the last few years of insane live-action special effects and action. Instead, what I saw were cinematic techniques that are still cutting edge. The angles, the camera motions, the exaggerated physics, the constant time shifting in the action sequences… it’s all stuff that’s just starting to show up lately into live action. Really astounding stuff.

I don’t know if the print is circulating across the country, but everyone should AT LEAST buy the DVD when it comes out later this month.

Posted in Moving Pictures