Why Ace Attyer is still the perfect video game adaptation

“Objection!”

The first time this is uttered early in Takashi Miike Great lawyer like a dose of pure adrenaline for fans of the video game series based on the movie. Rookie defense attorney Phoenix Wright (Hiroki Narimiya), looking to soon gain a foothold in his only second case, immediately strikes, believing that the evidence he is about to present will expose it. a clear, significant contradiction on the part of the witness. testimony.

The phrase was conveyed with absolute excitement: the sudden increase in numbers startled even Wright’s customers; the inappropriate complementarity of the iconic finger point; volcano rampage that Wright then smashed a table with and threw a hologram at the unsuspecting police detective on the witness stand.

It’s all delightfully unnecessary, wonderfully alien – so Phoenix Wright, if you will. And to be those things, it’s the final statement of intent, announcing that the film is ready to plunge headlong into the unbridled stage of video games. What makes the moment even more authentic to the original material is that we don’t even have time to capture this clear triumphant climax before we plunge straight into the abyss. Wright went from believing he had dealt a devastating blow to the prosecution’s case to standing firm and on the verge of crushing defeat in what seemed like a millisecond. Before long, he was slumped over the table helplessly, desperately scrambling for something – anything – that could somehow save him and his customers.

Photo: Toho-Towa

That thrill is exactly what fans of the Good Lawyer game expect and demand from a movie adaptation – these are games about impossible turns, after all, Violent fluctuations in luck make you care from the peak of excitement to the lowest, certain victory and defeat and vice versa, with a snap of your finger or a hammer blow. The film wobbles at a nonstop pace that can feel completely unsettling to newcomers to Attorney Ace, but feels warmly familiar to those who’ve stepped foot in the courtroom. of the game, with the growing sense of urgency that accompanies constantly standing on the edge of the abyss. of humiliation.

At the audio level, Great lawyer brief summary, leans more on the game’s mayhem than tempers it, doesn’t fear alienating entire demographics who might be stymied by stylistic excesses or messy stories . Miike marches in front and center of the chaos: The world in his film, like the world of games, in which people pull loudspeakers out of thin air, pet parrots are taken to the witness stand, the ghosts of dead lawyers shine brighter than their living ones, and everyone boasts a radiant hairstyle from another galaxy. There’s a perfect balance here between the source material and the director’s creative impulse that very few successful adaptations have. Miike rises to meet the game’s energy, underlining the film’s aesthetic with sparkling flourish styles: split-screen, dolly zoom, and a string of hell straight from Nobuo Nakagawa Jigoku.

Photo: Toho-Towa

Photo: Toho-Towa

Photo: Toho-Towa

Then the problem with adapting long-running games becomes less about tone, but more about the sheer scope of the monster, the overwhelming volume of the visual novel narrative. That sheer volume of story is crucial to the gameplay experience, in that it allows players to release post-aneurysm stress through brutal duels and violent stunts. cross-examination in the courtroom. There’s a decent amount of leisurely investigative time in the game which gives a good change of pace as you gather evidence and delve deeper into the characters’ inner lives, perhaps better suited to the traditional format. feature length rather than the big screen (although the animated series based on the game was not well received).

Thus, out of necessity, Miike’s film actively cut the extension of the first game in the series, Phoenix Wright: Excellent Lawyer, takes the best passages from three of its five episodes and condenses them into something cleaner, easier to use, and more focused in an attempt to make you succumb to absurdism . There are casualties in the process: Without the original connective tissue, the plot can feel a bit perfunctory at times, the structure a bit sloppy. There are also character sacrifices details, most notably the case of Maya Fey (Mirei Kiritani), Wright’s assistant medium: A nucleus of lovable stories and quirks in the game. , her bubbly personality is practically absent from the movie, reduced to just a shell with psychic abilities. Miles Edgeworth (Takumi Saitoh), Wright’s childhood friend and courtroom rival, also finds it tragic that there aren’t many of the shades and wrinkles that make him such an attractive, flat character in the game. and less morally complicated.

Photo: Toho-Towa

However, the broad strokes are drawn well enough to make the film personal, and it’s proof that Miike has perfectly captured the essence of the game’s courtroom sequences to the point where the flaws are not. These are more like pranks than deal-breakers. What the movie deeply understands is that one of the great joys of the game is simply playing a guy who does his job badly. There’s something very pleasurable about putting yourself in the shoes of Phoenix Wright — a novice who never really gets better at his job as time goes on — as he swings helplessly, handing random objects from his pocket to the judge and jury in search of some stupid epiphany moment that somehow always comes to him.

Never in complete control of every situation, Wright always straddles the line between accidental genius and incompetent criminal, always relying on some small miracle to save him from seemingly impossible situations – whether it is salvation in the form of spiritual messages from his dead. His mentor, detective-minded friend arrives at the eleventh hour with game-changing evidence, or someone shouts out asking for an extended trial for one ridiculous reason or another. He is a spectator of fate, a kite in the storm, and Miike describes this passivity by having his camera swing around Wright at sweltering close-ups as he scrapes through the pile of documents. the court in front of you, perfectly recreating the experience of playing a trawl fishing game. through a maze of information that is not clear during cross-examination. See also how Wright constantly shifts focus as he spasms in annoyance, while his opponents, archetypes of prosecutorial composure, take up steady, solid compositions. .

Photo: Toho-Towa

Prominent among those works is the predictive audience in the courtroom, a delightful feature of the games that Miike can feel the pleasure of amplifying with her typical streak of hype. Miike’s World Great lawyer is a world in which a trial is not about garbled information to uncover truth and justice than it is about the gladiator spectacle of watching two competitors ply each other for lives. Being a lawyer in this world means engaging in a bloody sport where the public screams and boos, calls for more action with every twist. The film’s reaction shots are hilariously large, brimming with humor as the entire crowd reacts in unison to the events unfolding: leaning over to hear important information, staring confused stared at the increasingly bizarre eyewitnesses, and stunned in disbelief of an earthquake. declared asinine.

Photo: Toho-Towa

There’s a great physicality to the movie that feels so true to the game’s world, in which characters perpetuate on the brink of a nervous breakdown, shivering with underlying anxiety before bursting into rage. spectacular outbreak. It’s a world that can only be represented by intense commitment, and Miike’s performers do a great job, throwing themselves recklessly into the madness of the script. Watch Narimiya as Wright and Akiyoshi Nakao as Wright’s friends, especially Larry Butz, as they grimace and twist in Chaplinesque fashion and enjoy every movement as they wage total war based on the very concept of subtlety, feeling is exactly the kind of thing that movies were invented for in the first place.

Photo: Toho-Towa

The intuitive choice of having characters launch giant holographic screens at each other is also a magical touch, evoking the sense of visceral realistic victory you get from the game when proofing you delivered a blow to the prosecution’s argument. If anything, Miike’s film feels less like a law drama and more like a hybrid between a Howard Hawks shooter comedy, with mayhem and mayhem, and a boxing movie, with its barbaric sportism – less than Some good men and more His sixth girl response stone.

The joy that gushed out of Miike’s actors as they frantically shouted and swung their arms and legs from scene to scene of courtroom fight was palpable, and it matched the joy radiating from Miike himself when he put it all together. It is that spirit, the innocent joy of all, that makes Miike’s Great lawyer feels very unique. It’s such a rare and precious thing to see a movie and feel as if the people who made it are just as happy as you are. Exciting entertainment from the first frame to the last is enough, but Great lawyer gives us an even deeper sense of collective rapture that only a special film, the gold standard for films of this genre, can achieve.

Great lawyer available to rent or buy digitally on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, and YouTube.