Sometime in the future, and 100 years after the Titans attacked and nearly wiped out humanity, the remaining fragments of the human population are protected from them by huge walls.
Life goes on in the shadow of the Titans, and Eren (Haruma Miura) is a free-spirited soul who wants adventure rather than a regular job. Outside Monzen, a busy little town, he meets up with his friends Armin (Kanata Hongo) who has aspirations to be an inventor, and his love interest Mikasa (Kiko Mizuhara). Eren, standing on the rusting hulk of what he calls a ‘bomb’ that is a leftover from the war, persuades his friends to come with him to see what lies beyond the inner wall.
Just as they are captured by an army unit guarding the wall, a colossal Titan sticks their head above the wall and starts smashing it down allowing smaller Titans to escape. The army unit is told to remember their drills and not panic. Breaking the tension, one soldier stupidly declares that they haven’t got permission to use gunpowder! Preferring to fight back rather than stick to the rules, they fire their ancient cannons at the huge, lumbering Titans. The cannons are as useless as the need for a gunpowder permit; the Titans have the ability to regenerate unless the nape of their neck is slashed.
The lucky soldiers quickly retreat, whilst the unlucky ones are grabbed and snacked upon by the hungry Titans. Reaching the village of Monzen, the Titans greedily feast upon the helpless population.
This sets the action up for two years later, when the population is forced by starvation to fight back against their gigantic foes. The plan is to fill in the hole in the wall with their remaining explosives, but things soon go astray…In the process, Armin and Eren are reunited and we get to know what happened to Mikasa, who looked as if she faced certain death in Monzen.
This 2015 film is loosely based on the Manga comic and TV series, but it does stand-up on its own right. As such it is an epic story filled visions of the giant naked, sex-less, ugly, deformed Titan humanoids who could easily have escaped from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.
There is a combination of CGI that is very impressive along with creaky special effects that make the Titans look like they’ve been clumsily overlaid into the action, which adds to their unreal nightmare-like quality.
The whole thing is an absurd, bloody, action-packed adventure yarn that has a sprinkling of humour, mixed with some strangely emotive and gory scenes like the attack on a little church where hundreds of people are trapped and feasted upon. If you like the sight of blood this is for you.
ATTACK ON TITAN / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: SHINJI HIGUCHI / SCREENPLAY: YUSUKE WATANABE, TOMOHIRO MACHIYAMA / STARRING: HARUMA MIURA, KIKO MIZUHARA, KANATA HONGO, HIROKI HASEGAWA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
