Thursday, August 2, 2018

Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer - Another Quite Enjoyable Conan Movie

Yesterday this new movie premiered in Indonesian theaters and as my wife and I are huge fans of Detective Conan series, we wanted to see this one at the earliest. It was rather fortunate that she was able to go to the cinema from after lunch time and managed to buy 2 tickets at the top row. The 6.25 PM show was actually a bit tight for me, but I was able to arrive there on time and even had time to have some dinner first. Well let us move on with the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Conan (Minami Takayama) and all his friends were playing around when they heard the news of an explosion on a new high tech building called the Edge of Ocean. The place was going to be used for a summit in few days time which made Conan curious of the timing. There also seemed to be an involvement of a person who worked at cafe owned by Kogoro (Rikiya Koyama) who was also the father of Shinichi's girlfriend Ran (Wakana Yamazaki). The person was known as Amuro (Toru Furuya).

Things became truly complicated when the investigation by Public Service Bureau agent named Kazami (Nobuo Tabita) seemed to lead to unlikely suspect. And the lead prosecutor who never lost a case named Kusakabe (Tokuyoshi Kawashima) was brought into the picture.

Now Conan must race against time before the wrong person was prosecuted and the real culprit got away with his plan.

End of Brief Story Line

This movie was the 22nd installment of Detective Conan movies. Prior to this one was Detective Conan: Crimson Love Letter which was quite a box office success. And apparently the Japan audience embraced this one better as it became the most successful in the franchise. But what about the movie itself? Well to my personal opinion, this one was a bit different from some of the earlier movies. The one clear difference was the first half of the movie did not seem to have lots of investigations, but the second half was a bit better with some deductions by Conan/Shinichi shown more. The scenes in the earlier part was focusing more on the Public Service Bureau and its capabilities plus the court case which I personally felt a bit uninteresting. 

Meanwhile Conan's young kindergarten friends with Ai and Professor Agasa were given quite big screen time in this movie. It was always fun to see them whenever they were around. Just be reminded that if you are looking for the usual murder investigation like in the comic or TV series, this film may not be able to satisfy you. The action sequence here were a lot towards the end of the movie. It may be hard/difficult to accept for non Detective Conan fans as they tend to be a bit bombastic, but my wife and I who had seen the movies few times already know what to expect. Oh before I forgot, I think this one was like very closely related to the earlier TV series (or comics) as I think Amuro's character here seemed like someone whom we should have recognized. But since I had not keep up to date of the comics, I may not have the necessary info. So I think it is probably good idea to read the books to be updated to give better sense of understanding. 

Throughout the whole 1 hour 50 minutes, the movie pace felt a bit slow in the first half, with faster pace in the middle then a totally full action during the final part. The mystery in the film was not as complicated as the previous films with the ending that was not too mind blowing & surprising. The end credit scene showed some funny moments that we could understand despite having no audio as it was playing a Japanese rock song. There was a post end-credit scene which was fun to see and glimpse of  possibly the next movie. One thing that was truly bothering us during the movie was the fact there were few guys who probably have never seen Conan series, always made fun of the film. Not to mention some of the "fans" who were laughing at improper times (during some of the more serious scenes) and were really annoying.

Overall, it was quite a good Detective Conan movie though personally I could not help feel that maybe if the audience were not as bothering as usual, my wife and I could have enjoyed it more. For those of Conan fans, I am sure would definitely want to see this one, but those who are not, better not see this so you would not regret and ruining the mood of audience who want to enjoy the movie. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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