Maybe hamtastic makes sense, I don't know the character.
I would disagree on most of that. American writers and actors really are not up to the job.
Actor wise not many Hollywood actors can do the serious ham required to play Zero without making it look silly, those that can are too old and would be more Shakespearean. Writing wise they would screw it up and rewrite most of making it more of a superhero story, like what was done to GITS.
There are very few animes that would make good movies imo. Perfect Blue is really the big one that comes to mind.
I don't think very many Japanese actors could do it either. It's just that there's a far greater acceptance of Camp in Japanese pop culture. The acting isn't a cultural problem, more of a medium one. A lot of things that are common tropes in anime (even things like exaggerated reactions) look really stupid when done in real life.
Eeeerrr...superhero movies are all over the place in the US. The style might vary but Lelouch is not fundamentally different from a Tony Stark or a Peter Quill when it comes to hamminess. You can tweak the tone and the style while keeping Code Geass' essence in a movie that fits Western audiences.
The problem is that so far the movies that managed to succeed among both Western and Eastern audiences often were agressively dumb (but not necessarily bad - Pacific Rim is, as the Honest Trailers put it, either stupidly awesome or awesomely stupid). We still need a "smart movie" that would work both for Eastern and Western audiences. Ghost in the Shell could have been if the writers had understood what made it great in the first place instead of neutering it.
Among other possible animes that could work as movies, I'd like to see someone with a flair for the epic like Cameron giving Princess Mononoke a try. He could make giant wolves and boars believable. Not that Mononoke needs an adaptation because it is perfect as it is. Wolf Children would be interesting too, and this one could fit many different filmmakers, not only AAA ones.
For all its flaws I still liked it and I will eventually by it. I agree that whitewashing and dumbing down the plot sunk it, but everything else was a love letter to the Anime.
“You can’t be an important and life-changing presence for some people without also being a joke and embarrassment to others.” -Mark Manson.I still find this movie to be one of the most strange movie experience. You can see the two force clashing. Someone who REALLY did care about the original film. And someone who does not. Both headbutting each other.
I've seen far worst adaptations. And far better ones. But none that ever left me this confused.
As someone who hasn't seen the anime . . . It was meh. The usual Scarlett Johansson action vehicle with Fanservice and fake damsel in distress scenes. I was affected by it while I watched it, but like most movies these days a mental review leaves it lackluster at best.
I've heard a term thrown around in some circles calling certain movies the "studio notes version of movie X." I think that basically sums up this film. There is a lot of effort to recreate the look, feel and overall concept of the original anime, but was neutered in an attempt to reach a bigger audience.
Watching this right now (family member decided to check it out on Netflix).
What are the overall thoughts? Never watched much GITS, outside of the first anime movie and one episode of one of the series.
One Strip! One Strip!

...charismatic? I haven't seen Code Geass.
edited 24th Jun '17 1:46:02 PM by Unsung