20th Century Boys: a normal guy has to save the world from a certain doomsday. For the most part the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense because there’s a lot of childhood memories, which are impossible to figure out until those events / characters are revealed in the ‘present’. There’s the usual hammy overacting associated with Manga but some cool nods toward films like Wild Zero / Electric Dragon with the weird guitar semi-climax. It looks and feels quite slick in parts, yet some pretty cheap CGI crops up towards the end. Because it’s part of a trilogy, the film feels slow and bloated, with no attempt to make it remotely ‘stand alone’ – it’s also left wide open, ending on a bum note. While it may be one of the most successful films in Japan; to a non-fanboy cinephile, it just goes on my list of not-very-memorable Manga adaptations, and I won’t be watching the other two parts.

Score: 5.5/10