Mini-Review: Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler Movie

Could've been so exciting a film....

I love Kuroshitsuji for many reasons, Sebastian being one of them. I love the good writing with its complexity and nuance and of course the moral ambiguity. I'm pretty sure Ciel crossed the Moral Event Horizon somewhere in the manga.

When I heard a live action cut for the film, I was worried. Rightfully for many reasons.

Live action adapted from anime/manga/cartoons had always been not well-done. Visually shot and effects well-done but story-wise there's the struggle of adapting the source material, Adapt means "to make something suitable for a new purpose/use".

Dragon-Ball Evolution takes too many liberties with its source material where it's unrecognizable and so did Frozen where you can't even tell it's the Snow Queen. I wouldn't even mind the latter if it hadn't been slapped on the 'inspired' garbage. Anyway, the Last Airbender where it's just a wiki put on the big screen will be the last victim before I go on a rant about how comic translate to film.

Kuroshitsuji the Live Action Movie has the same type of problems of the previously mentioned film does but in a different kind.

• Lazy writing in part of the Hanae who is meant to parallel Mme. Red's but failed due to boiling to the woman scorned rather than the complexity that is Mme. Red's tragic life and the convenient crime realization at a time of crisis and the Deus Ex Machina. There are several within the film and that is where the film failed where the manga and even the anime succeeds juggling plot threads. 
• supporting characters have little presence even Rin who is supposed to be Mei-rin for all her badassery is just passive and even her back story left, even more, plotholes. It at least has the thumbs up for having not too many focused and unnecessary characters, unlike TS3. 
• Shiori who is obviously meant to be Ciel's equivalent. Sometime in the film, I even forgot she was even female since she was dressed like Ciel most of the time. It's glossed over and quite problematic in itself. Most of the damn time, I just wanted to scream "FIND AN ACTOR FOR CIEL!" when I watched. I would love a female Ciel but I have seen better written by fans in fanfiction. I just want her to be her own character. 
• The makeup on Sebastian is downright hilarious. It didn't seem natural in comparison to the actual Sebastian. Acting-wise since there is little range when acting Sebastian (he's the perfect servant! Although his beginning stint as a butler when we see the beginning between Ciel and Sebastian were quite less than perfect...), the actor Mizushima Hiro make a good Sebastian but the make-up is just laughable. 
• The chemistry between Ciel's actor and Hiro Mizushima. This one was where it fall in terms of the ambiguous relationship. It appears they didn't spend much time together and just came across less natural. I mean the Ciel and Sebastian never bothered with personal space 
• Setting for the whole story. I know it takes place in Japan but most of the time I was thinking modern day London. I know they moved (and unlike Frozen, it explains stuff even if it's convenient) to Japan but they kept referring the Phantomhive family as the Queen's Watchdog. It left, even more, plot holes ridden in the story. Hey, at least this is far better than Frozen any day. 

It adapted okay-ish mostly in terms of the large organization of evil that killed the parents of Ciel (I am going to call her Ciel!), superficially complex plot (whereas the original source has a real complex one), and of course the tease of Ciel and Sebastian's kiss (the original source definitely flirt with shounenai tropes but as a byproduct of the gender bent, it's overtly romantic) and the action scenes. Wonderfully shot in a noir-like style which I like best of the film.

However, it's still far heck better than Dragon Ball Evolution and Last Airbender because at least it kept the face of sources despite its struggle with the original source's nuances.

Really as a whole, the movie could have been more a solid and exciting film but failed in writing department of how to adapt the nuance and unnecessary changes. It really could have been more. At best, revisions could be done and I have seen better in fanfiction. Yeah, sometimes fanfiction can be better than whatever was churned out like Sherlock S3, Frozen, Naruto...