Director Ryuhei Kitamura (who became something of a cult film icon with the release of his 2000 film Versus) shows that success can definitely go to your head with his follow-up film Alive.

Alive, which was hyped up as a merging of Cube and Kitamura's own Versus has almost nothing to do with either film. Now, if both of the aforementioned films were self-indulgent, overly pretentious masturbatory twaddle, the description might fit--but as it stands, Alive is a bad film...and whatever flaws that Cube and Versus might have, they pale in comparison to this train wreck.

The film is based on a manga (Japanese comic--and really, what these days isn't?) and tells an overly long and occasionally nonsensical tale about Tenshu (Hideo Sakaki). Condemned to death for brutally murdering the six thugs who raped his girlfriend, the film opens with Tenshu getting the chair. Luckily (or maybe unluckily...) Tenshu survives his encounter with old sparky. He's now given a choice--ride the lightning again or take part in some mysterious experiment. Like any sane individual, he chooses option B.

Tenshu soon finds himself in a new prison--and like all sci-fi settings, it's impossibly drab, metallic, and oddly lit. Apparently, in the future, all colors save for shades of brown have left the building. Tenshu and his cellmate, an unrepentant killer named Gondoh, spend the days wondering just what's going on, drinking, acting sullen, and threatening to kill each other. Things change with the arrival of The Witch--a fetching young woman separated from the two killers by a thick pane of glass...or something.

Anyway, to make a long story short, The Witch is carrying an alien parasite known as The Isomer. This thing jumps from body to body based on whoever has the strongest murderous impulses and is most likely to survive. Naturally, this means it eventually winds up in Tenshu. Armed with his new alien superpowers, Tenshu sets out to free himself, The Witch, and her researcher sister from the facility--which has now been taken over by government thugs who want to use Tenshu as the ultimate weapon...

As you can no doubt see from the plot synopsis, Alive is a needlessly complex film that's really just a rip-off of Cube, Aliens and Dark City--only not as interesting as any of the inspirations. Throw in some crappy Matrix-styled fight sequences (thank you Wachowksi brothers--not only did your three boring movies make me wish I were dead, now every action/sci-fi film out there has to mimic your cheesy fight scenes) and lots of needless dialogue about alien conspiracies and Area 51 and you wind up with a film that drags on for what seems like about 12 hours.

The reason the film drags is because Kitamura has zero restraint. While the film runs for two hours on the nose, at least 45-minutes of this could be cut with no adverse affect whatsoever. The opening 45-minutes of the film have absolutely nothing to do with what comes later. This is sadly a case of a director being sure that everything he shoots is so profound that he can't cut any of it. Well, here's a newsflash--your entire opening could have been cut and the movie would have been better for it.

When the film finally displays something resembling a pulse (around the hour-and-fifteen minute mark) most audience members will have turned the disc off for something else, or be far too bored to care. And even then, while there is some action, it's nothing new--it's a collage of scenes from Aliens (elite marines are killed by the alien menace), The Matrix (Tenshu catches a handful of bullets before tossing them back at his adversary) and Dragonball Z (his fight with another of his kind).

The shame of this is that Alive could have been so much more. Kitamura's visual style is as slick as ever (although, I'm kind of tired of the spinning around shots while people stand still, to be honest) and the film itself looks like it cost a lot more than it probably did. Even the idea of someone trapped in a no-win situation is a good one--it's just too bad that the director (who also co-wrote the script) had no idea what to do with it.

If nothing else, Alive demonstrates that Kitamura is at his best when he's making fast and frenetic action films (Versus, Azumi). When he tries to get deep or philosophical, his pretensions shine through like a beacon in the fog--and it's not a pretty sight. Versus may have given Kitamura some "street cred" in the cult film circles, but make too many more films like Alive and fans will be revoking his genre ghetto pass. Skip this mess and find Azumi instead.


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above