[Locke]

This was...impressively boring. I dunno whether things are tight over there at Toei but wow this looked really bad. Especially in Wizard's case his action looked worse than what was found in the respective TV series. Gaim's portion was certainly better - "that is as much as I'll humour that." - but the onslaught of explosions that carried right through into the crossover portion, without a single moment of story to break it up burnt me out fast. By the end I was actually nodding off, I don't think a film has ever sent me to sleep before under normal circumstances.

Wizard's portion still deserves a nod for being an emotional epilogue to the series, it doesn't really add anything to the mess of an ending but it does give some nice closure for the cast, which for us three fans of Wizard was really nice.

Perhaps the biggest frustration for the movie with me though is all the wasted potential. The Feuding States Battle Royal concept sounds like one of the many delicious ideas dreamed up by the Decade production team. But just like Decade, rather than exploring the concept in any meaningful way, we just establish the premise and then fill the rest of the screentime with explosions. It's especially disappointing, as the returning characters giving fun nods to their series seemed to care more about the franchise than the actual production team.

Bleh.