All You Need Is Kill

You know, I have the feeling I've been here before ...

What am I saying? Of course I have!

A long time ago, I reviewed Edge of Tomorrow, a Tom Cruise movie based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need Is Kill. This year, I get to look at an anime movie which keeps the novel's title, but not its exact storyline. So, how does it do a second time around?

In the distant future, a giant space weed called Darol takes over Japan. It’s not doing much, except taking up space, so humanity mostly ignores it. Those who don’t are employed by the UDF (United Defense Force) on the world's largest landscaping job - with mech suits and robots! 

One year later, Darol basically blooms, unleashing monsters on the mechanized gardeners. These things don't have names, but I'll henceforth call them "Mimics," per the novel and first film. When Rita, a UDF loner, kills a certain Mimic, she's bathed in its blood just as it kills her too. And then, she wakes up hours earlier, gets to work, gets killed again, wakes up hours earlier, gets killed again, wakes up, tries to runaway but ...

Yup, she's stuck in a time loop. After a while, she decides to train herself to fight the Mimics. She soon gets pretty good at it, even if she still keeps dying over and over. But nothing really changes until she meets Keiji, a guy who also got doused in the same Mimic's blood. She not only finds a friend, but she finds a valuable partner in her war against the Mimics. Unfortunately, due to some stuff, all these loops are actually part of Darol's master plan. It's up to Rita and Keiji to destroy Darol in one final loop; otherwise, it's game over.

When you compare notes, Edge of Tomorrow actually sticks to the broadest strokes of the novel. This time, director Kenichiro Akimoto and writer Yuichiro Kido remix the novel’s concepts somewhat significantly. Darol is their invention; the protagonists are different; and even the ending takes after the first movie. It’s easy to surmise some bits of their worldbuilding, but you’ll have to piece together a few more details yourself. I was kind of lost when Dr. Shasta, the UDF kid genius, explained what made the loops possible. It was some kind of spores, but I couldn't discern what name she gave them. I might just need a repeat viewing.

Also, unlike Edge of Tomorrow, none of Rita’s deaths are played for laughs. They’re all sudden, all brutal, and often as she makes good headway against the Mimics. Her repeated losses drive her to despair, even suicide during one loop. It’s an 82-minute movie, and the endless cycle of death starts pretty early. It gets pretty tedious after a while, but the mood literally brightens when Keiji shows up. We're relieved with Rita once she realizes she's no longer alone in the universe. They're both traumatized, as we learn in flashbacks, and it's quite rewarding to see them help each other. You'll definitely feel something during a dark turn in the final battle. But it ends all right.

Its cel-shaded characters animated by Studio 4°C are quite strange. While the Mimics are fascinatingly eerie spider-flowers, not one human has the same body shape. The humans are all angular, and they look particularly gangly when they don their mechanized Jackets. If anything, the humans visually stand out, since only Rita, Keiji and Dr. Shasta narratively stand out. It's pretty colorful, but when Keiji reveals he's also a looper, the color palette actually brightens significantly. It's a heavy-handed, yet appropriate, design choice. We also get some great sound effects, particularly for Darol's roars, and a delightfully eerie soundtrack by Yasuhiro Maeda.

As I looked back on Edge of Tomorrow, I remembered how excellent its terrifying opening montage was, how fun Tom Cruise was playing against type, and its spectacular effects. Maybe I might give that a repeated viewing, too. All You Need Is Kill is so short that I almost considered doubling it up with Charlie the Wonder Dog. Obviously, I didn't, but that's okay, since this film was already a fine matinee on its own. I think it's fine to check out both this film and Edge ot Tomorrow together, though.  I think I said enough.