Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc is in theaters and has been a huge success so far, just having passed $100 million in the box office. It is clearly a cultural phenomenon.
To preface, I have not seen the series or read the manga and acknowledge the fact my perspective may be limited from the greater context. That being said, I will evaluate the film as a singular cinematic piece. From what I understand, the movie takes up a similar plotline to the episodes. Denji (Chainsaw Man) works for a demon-hunting agency, and outside of his gory duties, he tries to find meaning in his civilian life. In Reze Arc, Denji promises his love to Lady Makima, a co-worker, after she quells his doubt of whether he has a heart or not by listening to his chest and telling him he does. But things are complicated when he encounters a barista named Reze that takes him on a romantic tryst at her high school after dark. It’s a classic love triangle situation. However, without spoiling the movie, his professional life becomes tangled with his personal life, complicating his feelings.
As someone who is not familiar with the world, I was both amazed and bewildered. The animation style was absolutely incredible, with really interesting aesthetic experimentation being done at times, such as when a moment slows down and abstract color collages speckle the screen. There is a very particular blend of 2D and 3D animation that is visually pleasing and unique.
There were also parts that, as part of the same stylistic thread, felt kind of arbitrary or like some kind of fan-service I wasn’t part of. At a point in the film, Denji rides Beam, the shark man, using his chains and I heard claps and laughs to something I thought kind of had the same effect as those screaming goats in Thor: Love and Thunder. At another, we take up a lengthy explanation of how one character (without naming names) turns people into weapons and how one character’s weapon was created by this person, but as far as I noticed, this fact never contributes to the story. I imagine these are nods similar to those in Avengers: Endgame that fans will appreciate, but those outside of the loop will just see as vestigial appendages.
The film as a whole is split into two halves of squeaky, adolescent romance and explosive Michael Bay hyperspeed thunderclap battle royale insanity. In both of these genres, it succeeds, but as someone who looks to movies to present a new perspective on life it left me rather stranded in more of a hypnotic sensory-overload daze.
There are moments where Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc dips its toes into trying to be pensive. Ruminations on Aesop’s tale of the country mouse and the town mouse are interspersed in voiceover throughout the story as a thematic core. Makima and Denji go on a movie-watching marathon, and after being disappointed by many, both shed a tear at an on-screen hug accompanied by sentimental music. But they are so sparse, that honestly, they just mislead and tonally contradict the rest of the film. I probably have more respect for a movie like Godzilla vs. Kong where it doesn’t attempt to festoon wisdom over blood fanfare and sexual scintillation than when it is draped half-heartedly over an unfitting form.
To strip it down a bit more, I don’t think these types of stories are worth telling past a mid-puberty audience. There’s a character, Mohawk Man, in the film whose lines are all ridiculously flat slogans like, “We’re gonna have a little party” and “he begged me to stop and then I tortured him some more,” and other moustache-twirling villain dribble. The romance, while relatable in Denji’s complete petrification, is often given thought in voice over, “Oh, I shouldn’t… but she’s so cute!” accompanied by montages of lingerie-clad fantasized waifus. I loved Ben 10 as a kid, but as an adult you want things that feel real, that address those things in your life that you don’t exactly understand but that you notice and that bother you. I hate to be harsh, but there’s almost nothing in this film that you couldn’t find in Cartoon Network, and to be honest, Cartoon Network is probably more nuanced.
Makima says something along the lines of, “A good movie has the power to change your life. Even if 9/10 movies are bad, that good one is worth the price of all the rest.” I wholeheartedly agree. But for me, Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc is not one of them.
Tommy Welch is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at tsw62@cornell.edu.
