Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Movie Night-Summer Wars








Kenji Koiso is a young student at Kuonji High School with a gift in mathematics and is a part-time moderator in the massive computer simulated virtual reality world OZ with his friends Takashi Sakuma. Invited by fellow Kuonji student Natsuki Shinohara to particicipate in the 90th birthday of her great-grandmother Sakae Jinnouchi. Kenji travels with her to Sakae's estate in Ueda. Kenji meets several of Natsuki's relatives and discovers that the Jinnouchis are descendants of a samurai who callenged the Tokugawa clan in 1615. Natsuki introduces Kenji as her fiance to Sakae, surprising them both. He also meets Wabisuke Jinnouchi, Natsuki's half-granduncle and a computer expert who has been living in the US since stealing the family's fortunes ten years ago.
Kenji receives an e-mail with a mathematical code and crack it. Love Machine, an artificial intelligence written by Wabisuke, uses Kenji's account and his avatar to hack the infrastucture, causing widespread damage. Kenji, Natsuki's cousin Kazuma Ikezawa and Sakuma confront Love Machine. Love Machine defeats Kazuma's avatar King Kazma and continues to consume accounts in the Oz mainframe, creating catastrophic traffic congestions and disabling electrical devices. Two of Natsuke's relatives, Rika and Shota Jinnouchi, discover Kenji's involvement. Shota arrests Kenji, but Natsuki has them return to the estate due to the ongoing traffic congestion. 
Recognizing the situation as akin to war, Sakae calls her associates in important positions in Japan's society and her relatives who work in emergency services. She encourages them to work their hardest to reduce the potential chaos and damage that will occur. Kenji is able to return control of the mainframe to the moderators and engineers. Wabisuke reveals that he wrote Love Machine, and sold the program to the United States Armed Forces for a test run. After an argument with Sakae, Wabisuke leaves the estate. Sakae later encourages Kenji to take care of during a Hanafuda (koi-koi) match.
The next morning, Kenji and the Jinnouchis run to Sakae's bedside and find that she has died. Her youngest son Mansaku reveals she had angina and that Love Machine had deactivated her heart monitor. Kenji, Sakuma, and most of the Jinnouchis initiate a plan to defeat Love Machine using a super computer with ice blocks as a coolant, while Natsuki and the others prepare a funeral for Sakae.
Kenji, Sakuma, and the others, capture Love Machine, but Shota carried the ice blocks to Sakae's body causing the supercomputer to overheat. Love Machine consumes King Kazma and redirects the Arawashi Asteroid Probe onto a collision course wit ha nuclear power plant. At the same time, Natsuki discovers a will left by Sakae before reuniting with Kenji and the rest of the group. Natsuki as Wabisuke return home before the family ready Sakae's will, asking them to bring Wabisuke back to their lives. Realizing that Love Machine sees everything as a game, Kenji has the Jinnouchis confront Love Machine to play koi-koi in OZ's casino world. They wager their accounts in a desperate attempt to stop Love Machine. Natsuki wins several rounds, but gets distracted loses most of her "winnings" and doesn't have enough to play the next round.
However, Oz users worldwide enter their own accounts into the wager on Natsuki's side. This also prompts the guardian programs of OZ, the blue and red whales known as John and Yoko, to give Natsuki their approval. Natsuki wagers the 150 million avatars given to her in a single hand. She wins critically damaging Love Machine. This causes Love Machine to redirect the Arawashi towards the Sakae's estate. Kenji attempts to break into the probe's GPS, while Wabisuke distracts Love Machine by disabling its defenses. After being revived and assisted by several of the Jinnouchi family's avatars, King Kazma destroys Love Machine. Kenji activates the GPS code to redirect the Arawashi away from the estate. The satellite's impact destroys the estate's entrance and causes a geyser to erupt. In the aftermath, the Jinnouchi family celebrate their victory as well as Sakae's birthday, has Natsuki kiss Kenji after confessing their love to each other.


I really wished I liked this movie more then I did. I liked the whole set up, fight a computer virus before it destroys the world. Then the writers through in the family drama. I was perfectly fine with the huge cast, even though I couldn't remember every ones name for the life of me. The whole thing with the fake fiance and the great grandmother. It just got in the way of the other story. There seemed to be two movies her and hey kept competing for the movie to be theirs. But, the only thing that happened was the two movies kept tripping over each other to as they tried to tell their story. If there had been two different movies they would have been great. Each one was a good story and had wonderful characters. I just wish that they had been separate. 
Now, I  really liked the art and music through this whole movie. I even took time to go find the OST to listen to it. There was a nice distinction between the real world and the virtual one. All the avatars in OZ were well done. None of them seemed to out there or to normal. It was a perfect balance of what people would actually choose. I did find it a little to on the nose that the brothers who were in the emergency service industry were also emergency avatars, but I'll let that one slide. 
Like I was saying before about the movies tripping over each other, at the end there is a final count down and what does the family do instead of fighting, they even have a plan, they read their great grandmother's will and then eat lunch. You have to save the world not eat lunch. I understand eating in front of the computer while you're fighting, because every one has to eat, but save the world. And the whole thing were Narsuki turns into a phoenix thing. That was again my main gripe about Sailor Moon. You have a world to save, transform fast.
This movie was reminiscent of the Digimon movie, fighting a monster in a computer world and then the world helps them. I say reminiscent because they may have been inspired by that movie but they didn't copy it. They made their own story and made it their own. I keep seeing anime that just copies and pasts either characters or story into a different setting. So, I'm happy to see that it reminds me of something old that I enjoyed but it's not a copy.
I really really wish they would have just separated these two movies, then they both would have been wonderful. That's all that would have had to happen. 
The movie as a whole was enjoyable and if you virtual reality in your movies and end of the world plots this is a movie for you. Also, if you like family drama with every coming together in the end for a common goal then again a movie for you. I do warn you that you'll have to sit through the other movie too, to get to that movie but I think in the end it's alright.
Next week I'll be watching Parprika.
~^.^

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