Space Battleship Yamato

In Japan, the Space Battleship Yamato comics/cartoons/action-figure/video game franchise has been around forever (and was redubbed in English in the late 1970s as the syndication show Star Blazers). This live-action version—simplifying the 26-episode original saga arc—is set in 2199, a time when space-going humanity faces eradication by the Gamilas—a mysterious, advanced alien race busy bombarding the Earth into a desert. A message from deep space suddenly gives embattled mankind new weapons, propulsion technology, and directions to a distant planet, after which Earth's final space warship—the Yamato—launches to follow the coordinates. Chief among the gung-ho crew is tainted war hero Susumu Kodai (pop star Kimura Takuya), aboard to confront the Yamato's stoic, grey-bearded Captain Okita (Yamazaki Tsutomu), under whom Kodai's elder brother died in battle. Many combat sequences (cool CGI) are interrupted—sometimes interminably—by overheated dialogue-debates about love, duty, honor, and sacrifice. While these characters are icons to a generation of Japanimation fanciers, casual viewers (and even fans) may not be so impressed seeing them in the flesh. Despite occasional operatic flourishes, the action and intensity here can't touch Paul Verhoeven's savage, satirical, subversive, and similarly-themed Starship Troopers. Optional. [Note: Blu-ray/DVD Combo extras include a “Pre-Visualization” featurette (26 min.), a VFX “making-of” featurette (13 min.), “Local Yamato” additional scenes (2 min.), brief “News Flashes,” and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for an uneven live-action adaptation of a beloved anime series.] (C. Cassady)