Heavenly Sword- Review

Honestly, the game was much better...

I've stated my thoughts before here on the blog about why I think most videogame to film adaptations fail, but I think it bears repeating. When you turn a game into a film, you loose gaming's most important aspect; interactivity. It's the one feature a game provides that mediums like books and movies can never hope to do. The crux of a game is the relationship it has with the player, and once that direct engagement is removed and made into a spectator experience, everything that may have made a game once remarkable is gone.

While there have been some notable adaptations done with videogames in the past, the truth of the matter is that most of these adaptations are terrible. The notable ones are simply the exceptions to this apparent rule, and can pretty much be counted on one hand. Going into Heavenly Sword I honestly didn't expect much, and it's that expectation that probably saved me from developing an incredibly painful bleeding ulcer.

To be blunt, Heavenly Sword is a bad movie. No hyperbolic speaking being done here folks. This is just poor film making at its (almost) worst. I thank whatever celestial bodies that may be out there controlling fate from the cosmos that I didn't at least have to pay any of my hard earned cash to watch this dreadful piece of cinematic garbage. Sometimes a flick can be so bad that it's actually kind of good. I have no allusions of grandeur here people. I own several DVDs worth of movies that are campy, hokey, and unintentionally funny. Trust me when I say that Heavenly Sword is none of these things. This movie is so bad that it can't even give me the benefit of being so bad that it's actually enjoyable in its awfulness. Nope this is just pure undiluted bad. It's made even worse in knowing that the movie didn't even have to be this bad had they just put a little more effort into the final product.

Thousands of years ago two deities fought for the fate of the world. One fought for the sake of its mortal creatures, while the other (The Raven Lord) fought to conquer everything. The Raven Lord was ultimately defeated, but the god who beat him left his holy weapon behind. A sword, imbued with the power of the god who killed the Raven Lord, proved too tempting for mortals as they killed one another for it. Eventually the centuries of bloodshed tainted the weapon, making it destroy whoever would dare to wield it. Finally a warrior tribe took charge of the blade, keeping it from those who would abuse its power. Among the tribe talk of legends grew that one day, in the year of the fire horse, the god who brought the sword to humanity would be reincarnated as a mortal himself and reclaim it, bringing peace to the land.

Nariko stands as a portent of doom. The prophesied return of the warrior god said that it would be a man, not a women, who would come to unite the warring and scattered tribes. Living as an outcast among her own people, Nariko still trains as a protector of the Heavenly Sword, but the tyrannical King Bohan has set his sights on the blade. With his armies laying siege to Nariko's village and decimating her clan's forces, she takes up the blade herself and sets out to find the true chosen wielder somewhere in the distant lands. Can Nariko bring the sword to its rightful owner, or will she succumb to the same fate that has befallen all of the wielders before her?

Right off the bat I do want to put this out there to fans of the game who have yet to see this movie. Some major liberties have been taken with the source material here, and frankly none of them are really for the better. For one, this time around there is an apparent chosen one. While this may not seem like a major change to some, on a thematic level it fundamentally is. Trust me when I say too that this one change futzes up everything. In the game, the onus of the story was somewhat of a condemnation of prophecies and the like. Man is no slave to legends, but the true masters of their own destiny, and the game drove that theme home splendidly. In this film it almost does the same thing, but at the same time says that perhaps the prophecy was onto something. While I don't necessarily dislike this trope, it doesn't exactly speak to the spirit of (and in some ways betrays) the game's original point on a thematic narrative level.

The change ultimately robs Nariko of her status as a creator of her own legend, as well as perhaps being the chosen one herself (an element alluded to in the game) and instead turns her into a bearer of the sword for her newly created half-brother Loki. That is like taking King Arthur and turning him into a delivery boy carrying Excalibur for a new character created just for an adaptation. Sure you can do that, but it probably won't go over well with the audience. A lot of the subtle implications and overall impact that the game's story had is now lost with this one change to the material. I'll give another example to prove my point. With the addition of Loki, the character of Shen (Nariko's father) now transforms from a likable (if somewhat flawed) character who was experiencing a crisis of faith to a morally deplorable fanatic of a man concerned only with prophecies. In the game Shen loves Nariko as his child, but resents what she represents to the clan. He still trains her in spite of his disappointment, and comes to eventually accept that perhaps not all legends and prophecies should be believed. In the movie Shen outright despises Nariko. He does not train her as a warrior, and instead goes around trying to sire a son, so that he can have his precious chosen one son. While I do get that this is probably the point, again it alters something significantly from the game, making this feel less like an adaptation and more like a lousy interpretation.

At least Kai still plays a role int he story.

Perhaps the only positive that does come out of the change is that there is a certain sense of urgency now granted to the plot, and it does force Nariko across several different locations in search of the true chosen one. Instead of the rocky plains and mountains of the game, we get to see areas such as a pretty decent looking swap village and an admittedly fairly cool looking city built inside of an active volcano. It isn't much of a plus, but it does inject some nice variety in regards to the backdrop of events. That doesn't change the film's horrendous pacing though. Everything moves from location to location at break neck speed, so much so to the point that you never get to really take anything in. The movie mostly opts to simply pull exposition dumps to give the audience the essential information, and then rushes them to the next scene so that they can get the next exposition dump. It's a torturous cycle in the movie, and one that extents from the literal start to finish of its ever so brief ninety minute run time.

As far as voice-acting goes, it's just awful. This may be perhaps the single greatest example of what it means to "phone in" a performance. Not a single line in this movie is delivered with any sense of conviction or real emotion. Even with recruiting the likes of the usually impressive Anna Torv (Nariko's original VA from the game) everyone simply dials in their lines like they were doing a homework assignment. Within the first five minutes of the movie I could already tell that Anna Trov's love for the character of Nariko has long since left her, though I think that has a lot do with the alterations to the character and story.

Even great actors like Alfred Molina and Thomas Jane are simply here to collect a quick paycheck. I don't know why the choice to replace the amazing Andy Serkis with Molina as King Bohan was made, but I can assure you that it's a bad one. Molina fumbles through his lines like he's reading the script for the first time, while Thomas Jane plays the new character Loki, like he recorded his lines after just waking up from a night long drinking binge. I honestly still can't believe how bad the acting is in this flick. Practically every actor in this cast (I know for a fact) does not suck at what they do, yet here I could truly say that I've heard better voice work out of far less experienced amateurs. The only decent performance comes from Nolan North, who plays three characters himself, and he only comes off as just okay in the end.

Animation wise Heavenly Sword is still trash. I've seen better efforts come out of college students learning 3-D animation for the first time. Character movement has no fluidity to it, and the lip-sync to the voice acting is off by about five whole miles. Even the best action scenes this movie provides are only just barely passable as mediocre. I find it almost impressive how this movie could make a battle with a character who can create duplicates of himself while fighting on a crumbling monument, in a volcano city, one of the most boring parts of the whole experience. There is a complete lack of comprehension in regards to compiling a scene too as practically no transition shots exist in this film. In most (much better) movies we would see what I refer to as a pitch motion. You have a windup, a pitch, and a hit. With these three simple shots you convey the necessary information to the audience so that they know exactly who is doing what, where, and how. Without good editing and transition shots, action scenes lose impact becoming disjointed, confusing, and overall boring as a result.

Perhaps one of the only decent shots in the movie.

Never mind the fact the movie also has easily one of the most drab color palettes I've seen in years. While I don't mind a more muted or washed out color scheme myself, I do have to say that the colors (or lack there of) here just make this movie the visual equivalent of slogging through chest high mud pits. The blooming and vivid colors of the game are gone, with only Nariko's iconic red hair surviving the jump to film. All I can say in the end is that I hope you like browns, cause you're gonna be seeing a whole hell of a lot them.

Musically there isn't much for me to say. It's there in a sense, if I have to acknowledge it. Nitin Sawhney's composition from the game has not really been brought over for the film, and instead is replaced with generic symphonic score No. 1042. All the eastern influence sounds of the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra is gone folks. Worse yet, the music doesn't even really match what is occurring on the screen. Sure, sad music plays during a sad scene, but nothing harmonizes with the action. No swells in the score emphasize an emotion or an action. There is nothing here except the most basic of sounds and notes being strung together to create... something I guess.

Overall, Heavenly Sword is just a disaster of a movie. Nothing about it is redeemable in my eyes. While I will concede that the game this movie spawned from wasn't exactly the greatest action game ever, it was at least far more enjoyable in its six hour run than what I had here. The adaptation misreads everything that made Nariko's character heroic in the game, and instead assassinates her along with that whole theme of the narrative. The dreadful voice acting, the terrible animation, and the completely non-existent score only compound matters further, making this easily one of the worst videogame to film adaptations I think I've ever seen. What's truly tragic though is that it didn't have to be like this. Had they made the movie longer, stuck closer to the original plot, brought in the cast and score from the game, I don't think anyone would have complained. I know I wouldn't have. Heavenly Sword could have been this great epic that could have made people take note of videogame movies. Instead we just got another piece of trash to add to the already far too big horrifically botched pile.

Positive Factors

• There is a better variety of locations brought in for this adaptation.

Negative Factors

• Completely misses the point of the original game's thematic narrative by changing the nature of the plot.
• Awful pacing issues and exposition dumps galore!
• Some of the worst voice acting in years. Made worse when you consider the VA pedigree.
• Terrible animation. I'm amazed how its videogame counterpart (circa 2007) actually looks better than this.
• One of the most drab color pallets for an animation I've ever seen.
• Non-existent score that can't even sync up with the action on screen.

Final Rating: !!!TERRIBAD!!!