Featured Blu-ray Review: Terra Formars

July 10, 2019

Terra Formars - Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray

Terra Formars was directed by Takashi Miike, best known for his ultra-violent films like Ichi the Killer or 13 Assassins. This film is a Sci-fi action film based on a Manga, which is very different than any of the previous films by this director that I’ve seen and this was the main reason I jumped at the chance to watch this film. Is this among his best films? Or is novelty the film’s main strength?

The Movie

This is a confusing movie to talk about, because the film bounces around in time. I’m going to condense the plot and straighten out the timeline, without getting into significant spoilers. This does mean I will be going over details you learn later in the movie.

The plot begins at the end of this century. The population of the planet has gotten so high that the only path forward involves colonizing Mars. In order to terraform Mars, scientists send a moss to Mars to convert the environment into one more hospitable to humans, but since moss can’t really spread on its own, they send cockroaches as well to help spread the moss around the planet. Nearly 400 years later, a second mission was sent to wipe out the cockroaches and finalize preparations for Mars colonies. Something went wrong.

The film begins as the second mission is being prepared. However, after sending scientists the first time around, the head of the program, Ko Honda, decides to go the opposite route and send disposable criminals instead, people who have nothing left to lose. We meet a couple of these crew members before the mission begins, Shokichi Komachi and Nanao Akita, who are on the run from the cops. The cops have a shoot-to-kill order on these two, but Ko Honda gets to them before that happens. He offers them what he offers everyone else, a chance at redemption. If they go on this mission, which requires a medical procedure, when they return to Earth, not only will their records will be wiped clean, but they will be paid handsomely as well. Others included on this mission are a corrupt cop, a couple of low-level Yakuza thugs, a serial killer, a terrorist and the leader of a child prostitution ring. Yikes.

They land on Mars and deploy the gas meant to kill all of the cockroaches. After it is deployed, some of the crew are sent out in pairs to check on the result. That’s the main mission, but there’s a secondary mission only Captain Dojima knows about. Ko Honda sent them to find the first mission, which should contain technology that Japan will need to dominate the planet. Getting that tech is going to be a problem, because when the crew searches, they find no cockroaches, dead or alive. Shokichi and Nanao do spot a large humanoid creature. Nanao suggests talking to it, but before they can get more than a word out, the creature uses its superhuman speed and strength to kill Nanao and then run off.

Another group suffered a similar fate and they head to back to the spaceship. This is when they learn the truth of their mission. Over the course of 500 years of radiation and the wildly different environment on Mars caused evolution to accelerate and turned them into these giant monsters. However, the crew was also given the ability to fight these monsters. The medical procedure was genetic modifications. Each person’s DNA was fused with that of an insect to give them powers to help fight the monsters. They just need to inject themselves with a solution to activate their powers.

What follows is a series of action scenes in which we see people activate their powers to fight 8-feet tall humanoid cockroaches.

When I first watched this movie, my immediate reaction was, “What the hell did I just watch?!” Having watched it again, my reaction hasn’t really mellowed a lot. This story started out as a Manga and was previously adapted into an Anime series and I’m willing to bet it works best animated, because those giant humanoid cockroaches look too dorky in live action to be taken seriously. When your main villains wouldn’t look out of place in a Spy Kids film, but your target audience is adults, then you have a problem. The human / insect hybrids look a lot better, for the most part. There’s one that stands out in a poor way, but I’m not going to spoil that here. Additionally, there are some pacing issues. The team has to get from their landing site to the original landing site in order to collect parts to repair their ship and leave. However, traveling there takes too long and not enough plot develops in the process. Also the, tsunami of cockroaches was just too silly, even for this movie.

When the film is working at its peak, then it is fun to watch. There are several action scenes that use the insect abilities in an interesting way. The narration describing the insects and their abilities is fun and and some of the actors really lift the material. Shun Oguri, who played Ko Honda, is clearly having a blast in this movie. Emi Takei and Rinko Kikuchi are also engaging in their performances. Unfortunately, too many of the male characters are Stoic Badasses and while that makes sense as far as the plot in concerned, it doesn’t give the actors much to work with. Furthermore, there are about a dozen characters in the movie, most of whom get little to no character development and therefore they have no personality and their deaths have no emotional impact.

Overall, Terra Formars is the weakest film from Takashi Miike that I’ve seen. However, I think that has more to do with the source material not making the leap to live action than it has to do with any of the cast or crew. I’m glad I got a chance to see it, but I don’t think I will be watching it again, so at most I can recommend renting it.

The Extras

Extras start with a 28-minute making of featurette. Up next are five interview featurettes with most of the main cast with a total running time of 48 minutes. Finally, there are five minutes of outtakes. This is a much better than average selection for a foreign-language import.

The Verdict

Curiosity over seeing a Takashi Miike Manga adaptation is what got me to review Terra Formars, but it is not enough to recommend the Blu-ray for anything more than a rental. There are parts that work, but I think the source material is just better suited to illustration / animation than live action.

C.S.Strowbridge

Filed under: Video Review, Spy Kids, Rinko Kikuchi, Shun Oguri