Terra Formars is a sci-fi action movie directed by Takashi
Miike and based on the popular Japanese manga series of the same name. What’s
it about? A team of people with bug-based superpowers battling highly evolved,
insanely deadly humanoid cockroach men on Mars. Thinking about it, the highly
prolific Takashi Miike was pretty much the perfect choice of director for this
sort of movie. It’s certainly very familiar territory for the man, whose
cinematic oeuvre consists of a lot of adaptations, from manga, anime,
videogames, books and plays. It also seems like it’d be right up his
wheelhouse, with its ridiculous, violent premise. And it largely is – the movie,
while nowhere near perfect and with its share of flaws, is a lot of fun in his
hands. It adheres to its source material very closely with one key difference –
the film seems happy to acknowledge its own silliness with a helping of
campiness in its performances and production ideas. The film, with a fair few
tweaks and differences, is also a shockingly faithful adaptation of the
beginning of both the anime and manga.
The plot closely follows the manga/anime’s beginning. Mankind
attempts to terraform Mars by sending probes full of moss and cockroaches to
alter the atmosphere. Five hundred years later and Mars’ surface now has
breathable air capable of sustaining human life. Eccentric scientist Dr Honda
assembles a team of forcibly recruits a crew of desperate undesirables for a
mission to head to Mars, ostensibly to exterminate the cockroaches so that
human colonisation can eventually start. Given mysterious surgery to survive
the trip, the ragtag team of the space shuttle BUGS 2 lands on Mars and promptly
discover that the cockroaches have drastically evolved. Known as terraformars,
they’re tall, muscular humanoids with amazing speed and strength, and a violent
hate of humans. As the terraformars attack, the BUGS 2 crew must fight for
survival. They’re not completely helpless – Dr Honda has spliced insect DNA
into them, genetically modifying them with bug-based powers to fight the
terraformars and escape the planet.
The plot is an almost 1:1 telling of the manga’s beginning,
with every key plot point and development and most of its characters being
brought over. Overall it works pretty well, though there are some downsides to
it. Since I was familiar with the original, I knew what to expect so I can’t
exactly comment on how somebody else would find it. The cast of characters is
large and, for the most part, not developed at all. While a few characters have
something approximating personality and backstory (particularly our hero Shokichi
and the over the top Dr Honda), just as many have not much going on barring a
few lines of dialogue and a broad character archetype to inhabit. Some have fun
with the little they’re given, but for the most part a lot of characters are
just fodder to be killed off. This is something due to the source material,
which constantly introduces slews of new characters only to immediately kill
them off. It does mean that you don’t really have an attachment to any of the
characters, meaning some scenes typically lack tension since you don’t really
care if they die or not. Of the characters, the ridiculous Dr Honda is probably
the most, fun, and the most interesting in the sense that he’s completely
different from his original counterpart. He’s the most camp of the lot and a
lot of fun to watch.
Whenever a character uses their bug powers, through
injecting a special chemical into their necks, we get a quick explanation of
what bug’s powers they’re getting. I liked these moments, which were ridiculous
and acted as sort of mini Richard-Attenborough-by-way-of-superpowers styled factoids
for some strange insects. These moments are lifted from the manga, but I really
liked how they were shown here, stylistically and visually. The transformations
themselves are campy, as the characters grow insect-like appendages and
transform, Power Rangers’ style. They basically become like cheesy costumed
superheroes, and it’s a lot of fun. The movie doesn’t pretend that these
transformations aren’t silly, and the vibrant colours and ridiculous
prosthetics are a lot of fun. Towards the end things briefly touch into
body-horror territory with overdosing on the bug serum, but not for long. It’s
something that would have been nice to be delved deeper into.
The terraformars themselves are actually pretty damn great
looking to the point I was pretty impressed (I’m not usually impressed by the CGI
effects in Miike movies). Unlike the human’s insect transformations, the
terraformars are completely CGI creations (though some physical gore props do
show up at times), and they look pretty amazing and completely faithful to
their original designs. Speaking of which, the actual terraformar designs are
quite odd, being a cross between cockroaches and Neanderthal humans (they tend
to carry oversized clubs as well). I will say that they’re very obviously CGI
and their otherness does make them stand out, but considering the ridiculousness
of their design I think it works fine. Unfortunately not all of the CGI is up
to par, with some pretty bad effects at times, particularly during the bigger
action moments. While the Terra Formars are impressively detailed when shown up
close, any scene showing a horde of them or having them do something
complicated (like scuttling over the ship) looks noticeably bad. This extends
to some action moments, particularly some moments of the finale, looking pretty
bad.
The action, when it happens, is fun and punchy but nothing
particularly special. Humans and terraformars are crushed, torn apart and
dismembered, with all the gore being bursts of CGI blood (though the
terraformar’s have white blood). Since the terraformars are CGI, there can be an
initial little bit of disconnect since the cast are largely punching at nothing
(though the explosions of white that splash around give the idea of impact) but
the overall effect works pretty well. Again it’s when things zoom out to show
large groups being battled that things don’t look quite as good. The
choreography is minimalistic (to the point of non-existence) but it’s classic
Miike action, with big wound-up punches, dropkicks and stomps being used by
both humans and terraformars alike. I will say that it isn’t quite as gruesome
as the manga series.
The sets and costumes are both pretty great and really sell
the science fiction aspect of the film. Mars surface itself is suitably Mars-like,
which equates to a red, rocky desert. As a result the scenes on the Mars surface
tend to be a bit drab and uninteresting, particularly compared to the
comforting sci-fi familiarity of the space shuttle’s interior (the control room
design, mixed with holodeck technology felt like a mix of Event Horizon and
Prometheus). I actually quite liked the sci-fi elements of the film. The
costumes and visual effects were pretty great, with the space suits looking pretty
good, the technology looking great and while a lot of the aspects are familiar
(pretty much every big-budget sci-fi film has elements like these) they looked
good here.
With a few exceptions, mostly tied to serious character
backstory (often laid down at inopportune times), the film never takes itself
particularly seriously. It’s clear pretty much instantly, with the ridiculous
hair styles and basic, broad personalities of its largely disposable cast (much
like the source material, most characters exists just to be slaughtered). While
the tone does veer into serious territory at times and the pace tends to drag,
the overall campiness of the production, with its bug transformations, its CGI humanoid
cockroaches and tone it all works pretty well. It remains fun throughout, even
when the tone turns more serious towards the end. In contrast, the Terra Formar
manga/anime both play the premise completely straight, often to the point of unintentional
bathos. I appreciated that the movie acknowledged its silliness, whether
intentionally or not (some of the ridiculousness is chuckle inducing in the
film, while the manga played it seriously) and it made for a fun ride.
A lot of the film’s issues, relating to characters, story
and details, can be traced back to the source material. There is a big level of
inconsistency as to how powerful the terraformars themselves are. They’re shown
to be insanely fast and powerful, but they don’t often use their speed (barring
one or two times you never see them use it again). At times they’re able to
decapitate somebody in a single swipe, but at other times a punch will just
knock somebody back. The biggest inconsistency, and one that stems directly
from the manga, is the lethality of the terraformars themselves between an
individual one and a group of them. Initially a single terraformar seems
capable of slaughtering through several people effortlessly, yet in another
scene a single person is able to kill a whole bunch of them. It’s inconsistent.
And when there’s a group surrounding our heroes they never just swarm them,
instead heading in one after the other. But these are issues stemming directly
from the manga. More specific to the film is how characters rarely seem to be
in a rush or a panic about the terraformars.
It contributes to the film’s weird pacing and structure
issues. That’s a complaint I have for a lot of Takashi Miike films (he’s pretty
consistent in his excess), and while it isn’t a dealbreaker, it is notable. For
the most part it runs at a pretty steady momentum, with a few flashbacks to
character’s backstories thrown around, and it gets right into its terraformar
action after it sets up its world and plot. From about the halfway point, where
a few twists and plot developments occur, it becomes a bit slower and
meandering as it takes the time to explain to its characters (and the audience)
the twists and what is happening. When some characters seem to be spending
large chunks of the movie just standing around while the deadly terraformars
are closing in it’s a bit weird, but the movie brings things together at the
end, tying things up (though the ending feels open, due to it being the end of
the beginning of the still-running manga/anime series).
I enjoyed Terra Formars. It was as ridiculous and silly as
it needed to be and was a shockingly faithful adaptation. I will say that my
opinion is biased – I’m a fan of Takashi Miike movies and I’m familiar with the
manga series, so I went in with measured expectations. But I had a lot of fun
with it. I’ve seen a lot of Takashi Miike movies, and can say a lot of them
aren’t very good (it’s a coin flip whether a Miike movie will end up being good
or bad) and the recent influx of manga/anime based live-action movie
adaptations (like Parasyte or Attack on Titan) have been pretty awful, but this
one, with its sense of fun (which feels intentional) gave an enjoyable, though
uneven, ride. I could forgive its faults and had a good time with this one.
