Change Your Image
deathsunglasses
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Toki o kakeru shôjo (2006)
Sorry Everybody, But This Movie is One Big Slow Plot Hole.
Super-Minor Spoilers (in the form of the synopsis you can just read on the box of the DVD, so nothing obvious)
Here Goes:
The film itself is aesthetically pleasing and the voice acting is spot on, but that is about as far as this film goes regarding what it truly has to offer.
The pacing starts off much too convoluted and quickly in order to get to the part where the protagonist can do the thing suggested in the title of the movie. Afterwards it slows down to a crawl in which the whole point of the story seems to be heavy on high school dating, which would be absolutely FINE in the realm of coming-of-age stories if it weren't for the fact that you really don't get an opportunity to feel pathos for any of the characters. There is so much potential there, but for the most-part there are no real dynamics within the interactions or relationships. Also, you get the strong vibe that if you say no to a boy when he asks you to date, you are too picky (just say yes to whomever demands it, I guess), so I don't see how this movie would also be good to show preteens/teens/children.
This becomes another time-traveling movie where the protagonist has fun with their newfound ability at the beginning but then confronts consequences surrounding said fun, and there is nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately it is also a film where the character could have easily solved all of the problems that are beginning to form just by going back to the beginning and not messing around with anything.
Also, the last 30 minutes of the film seem very phoned in. As if the writer looked back and said "Huh, this really isn't going anywhere, let's see if we can just throw in some obvious tropes." Just when you think it is all going to speed up and go somewhere, it really doesn't. Every action within this film just seems like a ploy to suck the viewer in with no real sense of finalized answers.
Specific plot holes, and just blatantly overlooked explanations we would have liked to have known would have been nice to put in this review, but that would be hard to do without giving major spoilers. Trust me though, there are SO many holes and little things that a character could have simply done to solve this that, if you actually care about these kind of things in storytelling, would frustrate the heck out of you.
Not recommended. It's OK, but nothing to write home about whatsoever. Definitely over-hyped.