Many of you already know the story of Attack on Titan, for those who don’t it is as follows : ‘Over 100 years before the beginning of the story, giant humanoid creatures called Titans suddenly appeared and nearly wiped out humanity, devouring them without remorse or reason. What remains of humanity now resides within three enormous concentric walls: the outermost is Wall Maria; the middle wall is Wall Rose and the innermost is Wall Sina . Inside these walls, humanity has lived in peace for one hundred years; many people growing up without ever having seen a Titan’.

As you may have guessed all that does change during the course of the film, because well if it didn’t it would be a very dull film.

The anime series and the live action film have a lot of similarities but they have a lot of differences also, which is kind of good and bad. Obviously as this is a Japanese film made in Japan with a Japanese cast for a Japanese audience you’re going to lose the German cast from the manga and the anime series. The other aspects lost consist mainly of minor plot points, which I won’t mention because I don’t want to give away any major spoilers. For anyone put off by the younger cast of the anime or who loved the anime and their younger cast I will tell you this in advance, the cast are much older now in the live film adaptation. Some will love that and others will hate it but in the modern world that makes sense because children are not soldiers. Attack on Titan is set in a post apocalyptic world where technology is limited, well it’s more limited in the anime and manga, so it stands to reason you would have to grow up quicker. There where things one could say where ‘wrong with the film’, I was not a fan of their portrayal of Eren (Haruma Miura), Armin (Kanata Hongô) and to a lesser extent Mikasa. As I said earlier the characters from the manga and anime are much younger and end up having drastically different back grounds. On the flip side of that Mikasa at her core was still very similar to her portrayal in the series.

There was a lot I felt they got right with the film. Zoe Hange (Satomi Ishihara), the look was spot on, she was not as crazy as her animated counterpart but you knew her as soon as she appeared.  Sasha (Nanami Sakuraba) was another aspect that was spot on, yes the potato girl was back. This one did not have the look down but she portrayed the character perfectly. The character at the core that was cast best was still Mikasa, the actress (Kiko Mizuhara) looked the part and played the role of the stone cold driven killer perfectly, as soon as you saw her you knew that she was Mikasa.

The Titans where perfect, beyond perfect they where the stuff of nightmares and they where utterly terrifying. The production team did such a great job creating these beasts and well I would hope never to encounter one ever.

The 3D maneuverability gear was another factor they got spot on, possibly one of the hardest things to do in the film. It could have come out as something cheesy and ridiculous but seeing them in action, I kind of want some of my own.

In the end the finished product is not the anime I love or the manga that many are drawn too. It’s set in a different world that is completely separate from that of the original. At times it feels a bit rushed but then again its held back by a time limit so there is not much you can do there. It’s a dark post apocalyptic film that lacks any hope and yes there are a few scenes that are hammed up but in the end it’s a very enjoyable watch and I can’t wait till part 2 comes out to see how it ends.