Kiki's Delivery Service 2014 Film Review

 

Anime adaptations are a;ways going to be a very hard thing to pull of but that task is made even harder when your doing a live action adaptation of something that was previously adapted by the great Studio Ghibli. As is the case with this film which even tho is meant to be more faithful to the original book has and always will be compared to the Studio Ghibli film adaptation and so then join me as I review the film that features a horrendous CGI cat with the film in question being called simply just "Kiki's Delivery Service" enjoy.

The plot of this film is thirteen year old witch in training Kiki leaves home for the very time and goes to start her witch training and delivery service in a new town. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot tat's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad but that's also the issue as this films plot just wasn't that good either with this films plot being a retelling of the Studio Ghibli and book p;t only with none of the charm either the Studio Ghibli film or the book had to pull t off n my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Fuka Koshiba as Kiki , Ryōhei Hirota as Tombo and In This Corner Of The World star Machiko Ono as Osono. Also starring in this film is  Hiroshi Yamamoto as Fukuo , Miho Kanazawa as Saki , former singer Rie Miyazawa as Kokiri , Michitaka Tsutsui as Okino , voice actress Minako Kotobuki as The Voice Of Jiji , Hirofumi Arai as Nazuru , Kôtarô Shiga as The Zoo Director , Yosei Bun as Morio , Mortal Kombat star Tadanobu Asano as Dr. Ishi and LiLiCo as The Voice Of Radio DJ.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With this films cast turning in some fairly solid performances but the issue is tho is that this films script gives the cast nothing to work with interms of what their respective characters personalities even are which means that the cast just can't turn in a good performance as the films script really just won't allow for it.

Doing the CGI for this film is Incessant Rain Studios , the legends ad the greats that are currently over at Motor/lieZ , Picture Element and Q-Tec. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty for the most part pretty bad with Jiji coming of as the worst effect as it's blatantly obvious that there using a CGI cat when they could have used a real cat for alot of the characters scenes.

This film is of coursed based of off the 1985 novel of the exact same name written by author Eiko Kadono. This film has been touted by some people online as being more faithful to the original and I have to say that just based of off a quick reading f the books Wikipedia page that's a big fat lie with the film making more stuff up then the Studio Ghibli version which makes this adaptation even more pointless as fans of the book aren't going to like the story for not sticking close to the book and general audiences aren't going to like at as it just repeats alot of the stuff that the Studio Ghibli version did only without any heart or charm that made that version of the book work in the first place.

The common thing for people to say when talking about two different adaptations is "don't compare this film version of the to the original" and I can see why they would say that in this case. However on the flip side of that is the fact that the Studio Ghibli version was quite literally the very first adaptation of the story and is on general a very good and so when a lesser version of the story that many claimed to be more faithful to the book comes out it's honestly understandable why people would compare it to the Studio Ghibli version as that is the version that they grew up with and is really the better version of the novel.

For some reason the makers of this film chose to give this film a very action packed third act which whilst the original film also did that in that film it played about of Kiki's character growth. Whereas the same thing cannot be said for this adaptation as she really isn't given a character arc to speak of with this films action packed third act just being just so the makers of the film can say that it's different from the previous film which just doesn't work or make sense in the slightest because the third act in this film basically includes the towns people who hated Kiki for some reason learning to like her where as in the original film there action packed third act was about Kiki learning to overcome her own self doubt in order to save a friend thus making it more of a personal mission and while there are hints of that in this films third act as well it just doesn't work all that well in the slightest.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and forty eight minuets and thirty nine seconds. Which is a bit to long for this film just because the story is one that we all know anyway and with this film not really adding anything new to it it really does make no sense for the film to be as long as it is but at the same time tho there's no way you can cut anything out of this film and not have it effect the story as a whole even tho we already know the plot beats that this film will and does for the most part hit and I will admit that this film does have some fairly solid pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is a comedy that means that I have tom actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. However like alot of things surrounding this film the comedy just isn't as funny nor as cute as it should have been with the film not really taking the time to make the main characters likable and so alot of the jokes that they say that should be funny just come across as being mostly unfunny in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall I really wouldn't blame you if you didn't know about this film as I myself didn't know about it until just a few short weeks ago with this film just being average and nothing really all the more then that in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that means that this very film earns itself a grand old score of exactly a 5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys an girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Studio Ghibli fandom wiki page , Wikipedia , the official Tokupedia fandom wiki page ad Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images from this particular film being Google Images since alot of the images that are from this film and that are currently still indeed up on Google Images are all really fairly freaking high in quality and as well as being fairly freaking high in definition.