Why Takashi Miike’s Ace Attorney remains the perfect video game movie adaptation

“Objection!”

The first time this is spoken early in Takashi Miike’s Ace lawyer feels like a shot of pure adrenaline for fans of the video game series the movie is based on. Seeking an early foothold in what is only his second case ever, rookie attorney Phoenix Wright (Hiroki Narimiya) immediately goes on the offensive, convinced that the evidence he’s about to present is a blatant, crucial contradiction in a witness will uncover testimony.

It is the sheer brio with which the phrase is delivered that makes it so exciting: the sudden rise in volume that shocks even Wright’s own client; the unabashed extra-ness of the iconic fingertip; the volcanic aggression with which Wright then slams his desk and hurls a holographic screen at the unsuspecting detective on the witness stand.

It’s all so wonderfully unnecessary, so wonderfully strange – so Phoenix Wright, if you will. And because it’s those things, it’s the ultimate statement of intent, heralding the film’s willingness to launch itself headlong into the rampant theatrics of the video games. What makes the moment feel even more like its source material is that we barely have time to register this seemingly triumphant peak before plunging deep into a valley. Wright goes from believing he dealt a devastating blow to the prosecution’s case to being on the brink of crushing defeat in what feels like the span of a millisecond. Soon he’s crouched helplessly across his desk, desperate for something – anything – that could somehow save him and his client.

That sense of emotional whip is exactly what fans of the Ace Attorney games would expect and demand from a movie adaptation – after all, these are games that are all about impossible covers, the violent swings of fortune that see you hurtling from euphoric highs to depressing lows. , certain victory to certain defeat and back again, with the snap of a finger or the blow of a hammer. The movie swings at a relentless pace that might feel totally destabilizing to Ace Attorney newcomers, but feels warmly familiar to those who’ve ever set foot in the game’s courtroom, with its ever-escalating sense of urgency coupled with constant standing on the precipice. of humiliation.

On a tonal level, Ace lawyer nails the brief, leaning into the anarchic entropy of the games rather than tempering it, unafraid to alienate entire demographics who might be put off by the stylistic excess or circuitous storytelling. Miike parades the chaos front and center: the world of his film, like the world of games, is one in which people pull megaphones from the sky, pet parrots are put on the witness stand, ghosts of dead lawyers outshine their counterparts , and each one flaunts a hairstyle that comes from another galaxy. There’s a perfect balance here between the source material and the director’s creative impulses that few manage to make adjustments. Rising to meet the energy of the games, Miike accentuates the film’s aesthetic with scintillating stylistic embellishments: split screens, dolly zooms, and a hellish sequence straight out of Nobuo Nakagawa’s Jigoku.

The problem with a feature film adaptation of the games, then, is less about tone, and more about the sheer scope of the beast, the overwhelming volume of the visual novel narrative. That mass of pure narrative is crucial to the gaming experience, as it allows the player to decompress after exertion to the point of aneurysm through the relentless courtroom duels and cross-examinations. There’s a significant amount of leisurely investigative time in the games, making for a nice change as you collect evidence and dig deeper into the characters’ inner lives, perhaps more suited to a longer television format than the big screen (although the anime series based on the games was far from well received).

Out of necessity, therefore, Miike’s film aggressively shrinks the sprawl of the first game in the series, Phoenix Wright: Ace lawyer, picking the best bits from three of the five episodes and condensing them into something much leaner, more manageable, and more focused in its attempt to force you into submission with absurdism. There are casualties in this process: devoid of the original connective tissue, the plotting can sometimes feel a bit perfunctory, the structure a bit sloppy. There are also character details that are sacrificed, most notably in the case of Maya Fey (Mirei Kiritani), Wright’s spirit medium assistant: a nuclear bundle of endearing tics and quirks in the games, her overflowing personality is practically non-existent in the film. reduced to just a shell with psychic abilities. Miles Edgeworth (Takumi Saitoh), Wright’s childhood friend and rival in court, also feels tragically bereft of many of the shades and wrinkles that make him such a compelling figure in the games, flatter and less morally complex.

Still, the broad strokes are drawn well enough to make the drama feel personal, and it’s a testament to how perfectly Miike captures the essence of the game’s courtroom sequences that these omissions feel more like nitpicking than dealbreakers. What the movie intimately understands is that one of the games’ greatest joys is just playing as a guy who’s rather bad at his job. There’s something uniquely delightful about stepping into the shoes of Phoenix Wright – a novice who never quite gets better at what he does with time – as he scrounges around helplessly, presenting random objects from his pockets to the judge and jury in search of a moment of idiotic revelation that somehow always reaches him.

Wright is never in complete control of any situation and constantly teeters on the line between accidental genius and criminal incompetence, unfailingly relying on some minor miracle to save him from seemingly impossible situations – be it rescue in the form from a psychic message from his death mentor, his idiotic detective friend arriving at the eleventh hour with groundbreaking evidence, or someone yelling that the trial should be extended for some ridiculous reason. He is a spectator of fate, a flier in a storm, and Miike depicts this passivity by whirling his camera around Wright in claustrophobic close-ups as he claws at the piles of court documents before him, making the gameplay experience of trawl nets is perfectly imitated. while cross-examining through a labyrinth of obscure information. Just watch as Wright continually shifts in and out of focus as he spasms with discomfort as his opponents, paragons of the prosecution’s composure, occupy steady, firm compositions.

Prominent in those compositions is the anticipatory audience in the courtroom, an amusing feature of the games that Miike palpably likes to amplify with his signature hyperbolic streak. Mike’s world Ace lawyer is a world where a court case is not so much about minimizing information to find truth and justice as it is about the gladiator spectacle of watching two competitors take each other’s lives. To be a lawyer in this world is to participate in a blood sport for the public to yell and scream at, with every twist and turn for more action. The film’s reaction shots are huge to the point of hilarity, brimming with visual comedy as the entire crowd reacts in unison to the events that unfold: leaning in to hear crucial information, staring confusedly at increasingly bizarre witnesses, and falling over in seismic disbelief with a stupid statement.

There’s a beautiful physicality to the film that feels very true to the world of the games, where characters are perpetually on the verge of a nervous breakdown, trembling with latent terror before erupting into spectacular attacks. It’s a world that can only be embodied with intense dedication, and Miike’s performers are more than up to the task, plunging into the frenzy of the script with reckless abandon. Watching Narimiya as Wright and Akiyoshi Nakao as Wright’s friend Larry Butz in particular, as they contort their faces and swing their bodies around in Chaplinesque fashion and enjoy every move as they wage an all-out warfare on the concept of subtlety feels like exactly the sort of thing that movies were invented for in the first place.

The visual choice of having the characters catapult giant holographic screens at each other is a magical touch too, evoking the almost visceral sense of triumph you get from the game when the evidence you present deals a devastating blow to the argument of the prosecutor. If anything, Miike’s movie feels less like a legal drama and more like a hybrid between a Howard Hawks comedy, with its ricocheting chaos and frisson, and a boxing flick, with its ferocious athleticism – less Some good men and more His girl Friday meets rocky.

The joy that radiates from Miike’s actors as they scream and gesticulate furiously through scene after scene of exhausting courtroom battles is palpable, and it’s matched by the joy that Miike himself exudes as he puts it all together. It’s that spirit, the unashamed glee of it all, that makes Miike’s Ace lawyer feel so unique. It’s rare and precious to watch a movie and feel like the makers are having as much fun as you are. Being wildly entertaining from the first frame to the last would suffice, but Ace lawyer fills us with an even deeper sense of collective ecstasy that only a special film, the gold standard for films of its kind, could achieve.

Ace lawyer is available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, and YouTube.