For centuries, a war has been fought between the forces
of light and darkness. The Umbra Witches
who served the dark were thought destroyed by their enemies, the Lumen Sages
over 500 years ago. In the present, one
still walks among the living, dealing death and destruction to the forces of
Heaven who threaten the Earth. Her name
is Bayonetta: a witch without a past and a penchant for raising Hell wherever
she goes. The announcement of a historic
religious event leads her to the city of Vigrid, where a bevy of Angelic foes
and a mysterious rival wait for her.
When the past comes knocking, will Bayonetta be subject to a truly
bloody fate? Or is it the destiny of a
child of the darkness and the light to be humanities salvation?
Bayonetta might just be one of the best video games of
the 21st century. Basically,
it’s Devil May Cry with a sexy female leading lady who gets into some of the
craziest, mind bending action sequences the human mind can think of. The game is a thing of beauty and it’s
content is just begging to be adapted into an Anime. Thankfully, Bayonetta: Bloody Fate delivers
everything that made the game that inspired it so legendary while also doing a
few things differently and, in my opinion, theyre changes for the better.
In her feature Anime debut, our titular heroine shines
and steals both the show and the viewers heart with her mix of effortless sass,
innuendo and killer style. The voice
cast of the video game lends their talents to this feature and that includes
Hellena Taylor as Bayo herself. There
should never be a substitute: her Bayonetta is a perfect being and the kind of
girl you definitely don’t take home to momma.
She’s got one liners to spare and an abundance of magical abilities and
weaponry to do her job oh so well. What
I think Bloody Fate does a bit better than its video game counterpart is
infusing Bayo with some needed emotional resonance. The game does have a bit of a hindrance of
making some of its cutscenes a stylistic film reel. It’s cool but you cant really see much of the
emotions that impact Bayonetta at key moments.
Thanks to its amazing Anime look, we can see when Bayonetta is actually
shaken by revelations and times when she is even the slightest bit overpowered. It’s enough to make one worry about her
coming out of this insane journey…but you never forget it’s Bayonetta and this
dominatrix like bad ass isn’t going down so easily.
Studio Gonzo is on freaking fire with this one and I’m
happy that their Anime films outdo the production values of their some of the
TV Projects like Full Metal Panic and Peacemaker Kurogane. Bloody Fate is a sleek, stylish and just
plain gorgeous adaptation with very few imperfect frames. All of the action is mostly well paced,
though the airport sequence has one boss fight too many. Still, the film lives up to it’s subtitle by
being an all out gorefest at times.
Sometimes I felt like I was watching an action Anime film from the 90’s
like X or Ninja Scroll and I was ok with that.
The characters look amazing, especially Bayonetta, sexy poses and
all. The adorable Cereza is just as
loveable here as she is in the game and somehow escapes the trope that having a
kid in your super serious and cool story can hamper things. Her bond with Bayo produces some very heartfelt
and at time very funny moments that fit in just fine amongst all the
action.
While Bloody Fate borrows much of its plot and character
from the first Bayonetta game, it isn’t a beat for beat adaptation. Having played the game once before I could feel
that the movie is trying to be faithful but also do its own thing. I enjoyed this because it feels fresh and
interesting. Often times it’s tempting
to just copy and paste a video game into an Anime without leaving out any
detail or changing anything to fit the Anime medium. Free of Video Game Cutscene constraints, the
action can flow without interruption and the actual story beats can simmer and
be taken in after some action heavy sequences.
It’s still not hard to guess the actual identity of Cereza, just as it
was in the video game, and I wonder if that was on purpose or was someone
really, really thinking they were clever when they tried to make us think she
wasn’t who she was…man that’s a tongue twister of a sentence. Other than that, Bloody Fate was very
faithful to the source material and never felt like anything truly different.
Bayonetta: Bloody Fate is an excellent Anime action flick
that is both a solid reinterpretation of a stellar video game and a love letter
to action Anime classics of the 90’s.
Armed with style, dazzling scope and one of the sexiest leading ladies
in Video Game history, it’s such a shame this is the only time we’ve seen
Bayonetta on screen like this. For what
it’s worth, if just one movie that’s a near perfect take on a near perfect game
is all we get, then I’m glad it looks this good and is this much freaking fun.
9/10
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