Title: Returner (2002)
Genre: sci-fi, action
Directed by: Takashi Yamazaki
Written by: Takashi Yamazaki, Kenya Hirata
Starring: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Anne Suzuki, and Goro Kishitani
Summary from IMDB: A young woman from the future forces a local gunman to help her stop an impending alien invasion which will wipe out the human race.
aStore: DVD
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Okay, so this movie is basically ET, The Matrix, Transformers, and Terminator all rolled up into one. And it was pretty awesome, if I must say.
The lead guy is pretty hot. The girl is kind of cute in a very normal girl kind of way. The story is somewhat nonsensical and you have to wonder why the heck they would do some of the things they do. The dialogue is sometimes incredibly stupid and you’re left wondering what kind of people they really are. It was pretty juvenile sci-fi fan service in some of its scenes. But it was also a truly awesome movie.
It will never be my favorite movie, I would never go that far, but it was very good and I was left with that soaring heart feeling you only get from movies that have in some way effected the way your brain thinks of something, even if you don’t know what the effect could mean. This movie had some personal significance to me, though all I really know is that it made me happy to watch it.
The lead guy is seeking vengeance on this crazy guy over the death of his childhood friend, and he doesn’t seem to care if he dies to do it. So he becomes a paid assassin. His bad guy is the bad guy, which gives the good guy a double reason to go after the jerk and rip out his pound of flesh.
The girl is a time traveler from the future that has come to stop the beginning of a war with a bunch of vastly technologically superior aliens. She actually makes me think of Riley from “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.” It’s as if Riley has come back in time to save the day — definitely not anyone’s best choice, but all she can do is her best. Except Milly is actually pretty dedicated and personally very tough. She’s just inexperienced.
This movie is rife with paradoxes, but that’s okay. Because it’s a movie. It’s not real. And maybe they have a Suspension of Belief time machine, and what do we even know anyway? I mean, we believed the world was flat and the moon was made out of cheese right up until it was proven otherwise.
So if you can watch this movie, do. Enjoy it for what it is: good, old fashioned pulp sci-fi. Nice.
Rating: 4
*video spoilers*
