Sunday 5 October 2014

MOVIE REVIEW: BERSERK: MOVIE 3: THE ADVENT

Berserk: Movie 3: The Advent
Released By: Manga Entertainment
Rating: 18
Running Time: 80 Mins
Audio: English & Japanese DD 5.1
Release Date: 6/10/2014
Reviewed By: Sandra Scholes 

Griffith has been captured and thrown into the king's dungeon for torture and worse. Guts, the hero of the story has left the Hawks while Griffith's men are scattered, trying to find a place to call their own since the upset. Most have never forgiven Guts for leaving, while Casca is left to lead the Hawks as they were originally - mercenaries wanting to get enough money to live the life they always wanted. While the Hawks are camped out, a strange masked enemy draws near them and attempts to kill Casca - if it isn't for Guts cutting him down at that moment, she might have died.

The main focus of the story has been on Griffith and his aims from being a young boy given the Behelit by the old witch. As it is called the egg of the king, it is intended for those people who want to rise up and become more than they are supposed to be, kings of the world. Guts realised from the beginning that Griffith was to ambitious for his own good and could have got the band of the hawk killed, but also had an idea that if he did, he might not have cared. He acts the typical, handsome, indulgent megalomaniac who only cares for his own desires.
Griffith's desires are there for all to see. He wants the king's future wife for his own, his castle, crown and country, but it doesn't go the way he had planned as Guts saw sense and left. Guts not being there now meant the Hawks were doomed to fail as they had neither his strength nor his battle knowledge.

Guts returns to the fold, but it seems like it is too late, even though he leads the search for Griffith and Casca tells him he is the reason Griffith became a weak leader. Griffith does a lot of soul searching in this movie while he is imprisoned, reminiscing about better times as a young boy on the streets. He wonders what might have become of him had Guts not left him for dead and had he not been captured. Would his life have been any different? Grifith wonders if he could even have become king by then, so he starts to bear a great deal of resentment against Guts in the final part of the movie. In the original series' final four episodes, there is more revealed about Griffith, Guts and Casca and their feelings toward each other. Griffith watches Guts and Casca grow close while he can only watch in jealousy. For the most part, unlike other movies of this type, the story has been kept true to the original anime one.

For those who remember Kentaro Miura's manga and the later Berserk anime series, many who did will have been excited at what the three movie versions would be like.It gave us a chance to see what kind of production value they would put into the animation and where they would go with the story and characters. In Berserk Movie 3: The Advent, the production value is still there, the colours are rich, costumes, armour, detailed and the backgrounds perfect, especially the waterfall scenes with Casca and Guts in them.Only one thing I will point out is that the ending is much longer, and consists of trippy scenery that doesn't truly fit in with the manga or the anime and has no bearing on the story.

Bonus Material:
Extras **Blu-ray only**
Interview with Aki Toyosaki (voice of Charlotte) and Minako Kotobuki (voice of Rickert), Interview with Eiko Tanaka of Studio 4°C at San Diego Comic-Con 2012,
English Outtakes for Berserk Movie I, English Outtakes for Berserk Movie 2, 
English Outtakes for Berserk Movie 3, The Battle For Doldrey US Premiere Highlight Reel, Production Gallery for Berserk Movie 1, Production Gallery for Berserk Movie 2,  Susumu Hirasawa “ARIA” Live Concert Performance,  International Trailer for Movies 1 to 3 (UK, ), Trailer for Movie 1 (UK), Trailer for Movie 1 (Russian version),  Teaser for Movie 1 (UK),  Special Digest For Movie 2,
Trailer for Movie 3 (Japanese).

Verdict: An impressive second look at an incredibly violent and wonderful anime series that has seen three impressive movies.

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