The mystical island of Horrai has reappeared and four
“War Gods” that govern it seek a mystical box that will grant them unspeakable
powers. A half demon child named Ai
escapes the island in search of the one person who can save her and her young
comrades from being sacrificed for the War Gods ends: Inuyasha. Indeed the half demon warrior has a past
connection to this girl and Horrai Island and now with Kagome, Miroku, Sango
and Shippo, must return to settle an old score.
But other individuals both friend and foe are being drawn to Horrai as
well as a great showdown prepares to take place.
And so we reach the end of Inuyasha Month on a whimper
rather than a bang. In truth it took me
a while to type up such a simple synopsis for the movie because to be brutally
honest, I did not care. From the moment
the children of Horrai first appeared in the opening act, I was not drawn in
and it got worse when even the appearance of Team Inuyasha did nothing to get
me excited. And I don’t think it’s a
matter of fatigue after four films. No
it’s a matter of this film itself trying to stay entertaining and failing
miserably.
The story is boring and it’s attempts to copy Inuyasha 3
and make the situation a bit personal for not just Inuyasha but also Seshomaru
and Kikiyo just don’t’ work. In Inuyasha
3, you cared about the two bickering brothers fighting over a piece of their
fathers legacy and wanted to see them triumph over the darkness that was
unleashed. Here, do we really care about
a bunch of kids, two of whom are twins with no enthusiasm that Inuyasha spends
more time beating the hell out of than he does Shippo in a whole season of
episodes (ouch), or about Kikiyo and Inuyasha’s failed exorcism of the island
50 years ago or Seshomaru not accepting his fathers followers which lead to
their death at the hands of the War Gods…nope. But most of the first half of the movie is
hellbent on making it so important that it will talk your ear off more than any
film in the series. And speaking of
Seshomaru and Kikiyo, was there any need to include them at all in this
movie? Not at all. However, Seshomaru does get a pretty decent
fight scene and his thoughts as he kills one of the “War Gods” echoes my own,
“I exist only to battle and defeat the strongest of opponents…and you are far
from one of them.” Truer words have
never been spoken.
Yeah this review is more or less a short one because I’ll
just end up repeating myself on a lot of points. Boring story, villains who never break the
typical villains of the week mold, an unbearable supporting cast and a feeling
of the Inuyasha crew just going through the numbers to get finished with this
travesty as quickly as possible. If it
weren’t for Seshomaru and a couple of the always dependable cute Inuyasha and
Kagome moments, this film would be written off as a total loss. I’m just happy that no other Inuyasha films
have followed this because I get the feeling it would only get worse as time
went on for them. We got one good
Inuyasha film this month…the third one.
But with Fire on the Mystic Island, we got the unthinkable, a film worse
than The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass…it’s Transformers 4 all over again.
4/10
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