Bayonetta bloody fate5/4/2023 ![]() Bayonetta’s fighting style is just as effortless and in control as ever, but her subversive brand of sexual humiliation is conspicuously absent. The strategy backfires, removing more than it can hope to add. ![]() Rather than revel in self-aware genre performance, the direction instead tries to make that performance feel as organic as possible to the plot’s circumstances. What ends up taking their place reflects a more fundamental skewing of priorities that no budget could hope to fix. For a film that’s already struggling against its own budget, the cartoonishly exaggerated choreography Bayonetta calls for is out of the question. Some of that stems from budgetary constraints, confusingly enough. Its “style as substance” philosophy, its playful whimsy, its joyous celebration of life born from an aesthetic abandon – none of this is present in Bloody Fate. Despite Gonzo’s eye for adaptation – Rodin’s brief fight toward the beginning and the copious amount of “anime glasses glare” afterward are evidence of that – the studio seems to have glossed over Bayonetta’s very obvious appeal. Unfortunately, they’re also the source of the film’s greatest problems and its central irony. It’s in these flashy sequences where the most elaborate animation shows up where some of the film’s most memorable moments are, like Bayonetta’s transformation sequence and where Gonzo’s most intricately laid out plans should pay off. They serve as background material to its expected interest: the various fights its heroine jumps between. All of these traits shine their best when Bayonetta catches Luka sneaking through her house while she’s taking a bath – she’s much less concerned with Luka’s impotent attempt to catch her off guard than he is with her revealing him as a pervert – but it’s by no means the only moment where the film’s talent for dialogue shines.ĭespite that talent, Bloody Fate isn’t all that interested in moments like these. In fact, it’s here where the film best understands Bayonetta’s character: her cheeky dialogue, her aloof personality, her reversal of power through sexual embarrassment, etc. It’s a format the movie can work with, especially where dialogue is concerned. ![]() Given how this serves as background material for Bayonetta’s actions, Bloody Fate is still better described as a moment to moment film than anything else. The closest it comes to a plot is in Luka’s attempts to uncover Bayonetta and learn what happened to his father twenty years prior, attempts are given more weight now that the camera is free to wander away from the eponymous heroine’s side. After all, Bayonetta never showed all that much interest in a coherent narrative and neither does the movie. Its misunderstanding of the Bayonetta ethos leaves it wanting for the original’s creative spark and you wondering why you wouldn’t just play the game it’s based on instead.Ĭonsidering Bloody Fate’s status as an unabashed retelling of Bayonetta’s story, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to summarize the film’s plot. In other words, not only does the studio have extensive experience working with action-oriented games, but the staff they chose specializes in rich, stylish action that accentuates that work’s narrative. Key Bayonetta staff supervised production, and the team they’d assembled looks tailor made to handle this project: direction from Afro Samurai’s Fuminori Kizaki, writing from Mitsukata Hirota (credited for his work on Hunter x Hunter and the Digimon tri movies), and production by Gonzo, a prolific studio with credits in video games like the Lunar remakes, Silhouette Mirage, Radiant Silvergun, and Zone of the Enders II. In theory, everything should have worked out. (This would also explain the two-part manga adaptation of Bloody Fate released in late 2013.) So Bayonetta was translated into a 2D animated film and given a limited theatrical run in 2013 – right between Bayonetta 2’s announcement and its release many months later in 2014. Given the three year gap between Bayonetta’s release and the announcement of a sequel, the company needed some way to initiate first time players into the series while still keeping the property fresh in the public’s mind. It’s not all that hard to figure out why Platinum Games thought the first follow-up to Bayonetta should be a movie.
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