This is the third of three reviews of films I caught at the BFI’s Anime Weekend. They run the weekend every couple of years and it’s well worth paying attention to as you’ll get a chance to see films you won’t at UK anime conventions (i.e. Mind Game in 2006, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in 2008).
Luke and Professor Layton find themselves in a puzzle contest promising eternal life.
This film is not going to disappoint fans of the Professor Layton games, and there’s likely enough of those fans that it won’t need any other audience.
That being said, there’s only a couple of instances where familiarity with the games is intended, and frankly if you’ve only played the English language releases, they’ll likely leave you similarly non-plussed as the non-fans. You see, this film takes place after the fourth game in the series, part of a prequel continuity set before the games we’ve had translated so far.
That means there are a handful of characters it assumes you are familiar with, such as Layton’s other assistant, Remi Altava and Inspector Grosky, the ridiculously manly Scotland Yard detective, whose chest hair is always trying to escape his shirt. You won’t have met them yet unless you’ve played Professor Layton and the Spectre’s Flute, but with one exception you can easily grasp their characters within seconds of their introduction.
Otherwise, it’s easy to grasp what’s going on in the story, no matter how preposterous it gets. And it does. It is Professor Layton after all. However, like the writing on the games, it does such a good job of drawing you into Layton’s world, that it is still completely possible for you to guess the final reveal, even though it is completely outside of our reality. It makes complete sense given what you’ll have seen up to that point and it plays fair in giving you clues to that reveal. The Sherlock Holmes influences in the characters and the Lupin III influences in the game’s OTT set pieces, means it all transfers very well to the screen. Even the puzzle sections work well, and they even find a way to fit the games typography organically into the film.
Visually it continues the look of the OLM produced cut scenes and Level 5’s character design. This means you get a cast full of big headed grotesques and weirdos, who move in a very pleasing manner with some strong camera movements. I really, really like some of the running sequences in both the film and the game cutscenes. They are just so full of character.
Layton himself is probably the weak point, the would-be iconic nature of his design and particularly his dot eyes, leaves him rather plain in terms of expression when placed next to plucky Luke, the boisterous Grosky or the ass-kicking Remi. Though that might be just because he’s a British Gentleman as the script continually reminds you to comic effect. Though apparently being a British Gentleman means chatting during an opera performance and blocking the view of the people behind with your big top hat. He does get an action scene of his own near the climax that is quite fun despite the limitations in his character design.
Definitely a must see for fans of the games, but certainly worth a rental or visit to a screening when it becomes available whoever you are.