JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable – Chapter 1
Japan 2017
Written by Itaru Era, based on the manga by Hirohiko Araki
Directed by Takashi Miike
Watched on 23.09.2017

“Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” once again suffers from the seeming inability of eastern cinema to chew out a movie that’s considerably shorter than two hours. As a 90-minute-feature, it could have been quite entertaining, but as it stands, it’s simply far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far too long. It starts off well enough. I liked the idea of those “Stands”, the introduction of the characters (with Koichi’s crush on Jojo so obvious that it’s not really subtext anymore, but rather text), and like all Miike-movies, it’s really well shot. For a while, it’s quite entertaining, and offers a couple of funny moments. For about an hour, while not exactly spectacular, it was nice enough. However, as soon as they reach the mansion, the movie started to drag considerably. Even then, it offered up a couple of cool ideas and funny moments (the toy soldiers, the egg), but everything is so drawn out that I was looking for the fast forward-button so that it would move along with regular speed. Every scene is far too long, every dialogue plagued with (seemingly dramatic) pauses, and it completely drains the movie from every bit of tension and entertainment value. It also has too many endings – an impression that, granted, is at least partly due to the fact that by that time in the film, I just wanted it to be over. Which is a shame, because it really had the potential to be a worthwhile (and pleasantly different) take on the superhero genre. But unfortunately, the second part of the movie mostly ruined it for me. Before the screening, we were told that while the movie has a runtime of 120 minutes, someone on the internet meant that it felt more like 20 minutes. In that case, those probably were the longest twenty minutes of my life.
4/10

IMDB