Crying Freeman (1995)

Some things weren't meant to be live-action. This adaptation of a popular manga and anime suffers from overt faithfulness to its sources, resulting in a static visual style that works within the minimalistic designs of anime but is significantly less thrilling when there's real live actors and stuff. The film is further hampered by an overwhelming sense of gravity and seriousness that seems misplaced when you consider that, at heart, this is a generic yakuza drama. This is especially hard on star Mark Dacascos, who is a talented martial artist but a severely limited actor. Like most action stars, he needs to be surrounded by the goofy and ridiculous, so that his granite-faced emoting doesn't seem quite as logy. Here, asked to carry the burden of the film's emotional baggage, he seems lost. Director Christophe Gans's direction is impersonal, displaying none of the genre-scrambling glee he would later bring to the table with Brotherhood of the Wolf. At least they had the good sense to end the film at the end of the first anime episode (the only good one).

Grade: C