Review of 47 Ronin (2013) by Meritcoba — 03 Mar 2016

In a past that probably never existed an American actor ends up as the protagonist in a tale set in a half legendary Japan surrounded by an almost exclusive Japanese cast that has something to do with two Japanese noble houses currying the favor of the Shogun, a surrogate Emperor who was the real power monger at that time. In this movie he can be spotted with ease, he is the guy with the golden bucket on his head, which he wears whenever he puts in an appearance.

The tale works towards a climax that isn't about beating the bad guy, but is about committing suicide en masse, beause of some wacky code of honor that only Japanese will get. But this is at the end and we have to sit through the rest of the movie before we get relieved.

At the start I was at a loss at once for I could not figure out why we would root for the 'good' side who is otherwise indiscernible from the bad except that we just have to feel for them because their 'honor' has been hurt. Not that they, say, are the better people because they are better for their people or the better people because of how they are. Nothing is made clear.

Alas Keanu Reeves doesn't endear either. He might make a nice Constantine but here he reprises his Neo role by showing barely any emotion. He lacked chemistry with Trinity in the Matrix, he lacks chemistry with Mika, the female lead in this movie. Perhaps bubbling expressions of love have blossomed between them, but that must have happened off the screen for they lack any chemistry on it. Not even CGI, used in abundance in this movie, can fabricate emotions that aren't there.Just assume there is.

The story itself turns out to be your average revenge tale that can't quite focus on the telling. We get all kinds of pointless excursions that just muddle the story line but barely any time is spend on the 47 ronin mentioned in the title, which just goes to show that the makers of this movie didn't bother to check out the Seven Samurai or Lord of the Rings, or failed to learn from it: if you don't bring your characters to live people don't care whether they suffer or die.

An example of a pointless side story: at some point the ronin have to get swords. So they go and ask the demons who reared Reeves(and whom he deserted) to give them some and after some kind of nonsensical conversation and a silly test they give them the swords for no reasons at all. Not that the swords really matter, as they lose most of them and their bunch of their fellows to an trap set up by the witch. In the final attack they don't even use them but instead they use bows and knives to kill their adversaries after scaling the walls of the enemy fort. All of which they could have done at the start of the movie without all the sidequests that thus end up being pointless.

The final confrontation is a let down. The huge animated armor that supports the evil side (where does it come from?) never gets defeated in a fight, but gets blown up almost as if by accident. The fight between the head bad guy and the good Japanese leader of the good side is underwhelming. And Reeves gets to fight the witch who turns into a cgi dragon-snake, which was funny as my eldest daughter guessed she would become a giant snake and I guessed she would become a dragon: we were both right. Reeves hits the witch on the head with a sword, which leaves no mark but kills her anyway. It is one of these things CGI can't replace either.

This movie just is bad because it doesn't bother with giving us believable people to connect with. The 47 ronin are an amorphous mass of people who we have no clue about who they are, what motivates them and why we would care about them dying. This goes doubly for Keanu Reeves, who gets most of the screen time yet is a total bore. The whole movie has no interesting dialogue and no interesting scenes, except for one where the Shogun remarks to the Lord of the good guys that he has a nice looking concubine and he answers: that is my daughter.

The only mildly interesting character in this movie is the witch. We never get told why she does the things she does. She is just evil, therefore supports the evil side. But at least the actress, Rinko Kikuchi, puts some emotions in it. There is one scene where she taunts the female lead, Kō Shibasaki, in a way that is very sensual which made us guess that maybe her motivations are a scorned love, envy or even a repressed lesbianism. If they had made the movie more revolve around her and her confrontation with Reeves it might actually stand out: the wild passionate witch versus the controlled cold fighter. Who would you choose to win?

Luckily everyone either gets killed or commits suicide at the end, thus forestalling any sequel. I hope.