"Shingeki no Kyojin" stormed the anime/manga world in 2013 possibly becoming one of the fastest growing titles I've ever seen in my lifetime. I was in my freshman year of college at Oakland University and I spent my nights binge watching each episode as it came out. I'm a huge anime/manga fan, but I tend to watch the anime adaptations over reading the manga. I was enraptured in the doomed humanity in their plight against the Titans. Titans are gargantuan humanoid figures that eat humans, for absolutely no reason.

In response to their steady genocide, humanity sealed themselves in a circular city broken into three districts. Humanity experiences peace for 100 years and Titans were kept back by the stone walls. One day, that peace is shattered by the arrival of the Colossal Titan. It is much larger, powerful, and more intelligent than any other Titan. It destroys a wall and allows its smaller companions to walk into town and proceed to eat everyone. Our main characters Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackermann, and Armin Arlert are the sole survivors of the attack. Eren resolves to kill all the Titans after seeing his mother being eaten by one and the three of them join the Scouting Regiment and prepare themselves for the upcoming battles.

I'll start by saying this: "Attack on Titan" the movie is not good at all. It takes all the themes and world of the anime/manga but does nothing to honor the source materials. We'll go in depth with this throughout this review. The characters are drastically changed from their counterparts leaving them no catalyst to get them in gear on their character arc, making their motivations pointless and aimless. Eren no longer sees his mother eaten by a Titan and his father is absent. Mikasa is never saved by Eren and his father from slave traders but instead gets separated from Eren during the invasion of their home. Instead of a cool, calm, badass protector to the trophy of whomever claims her in the pointless love triangle between her, Eren and Shikishima. The scene where Eren gives her his scarf when they first meet is changed to him giving it to her because she felt cold. The path she takes in the show is vastly different from the film. She does little to nothing except in the final act of the movie when fighting Titans.

Armin is still the same intelligent character fans know and love but his intelligence in the film is completely useless. He doesn't come up with any great plans like he did for the Trost arc. He goes largely unnoticed. Sasha is just as useless being the "Potato Girl" and her comedy does nothing to make the film enjoyable. Other characters include Zoë Hange, whose was renamed to Hans and Jean. The rest of the cast is made of original characters created for the film. They include Shikishima, Souda, Sannagi, Fukushi, Hiana, Lil and Kubal. These characters are obviously not the ones we've known from the anime/manga but they seem to be proxy versions of them. Shikishima is Levi, possibly the most popular character from the franchise is absent. Shikishima doesn't even play up Levi's character well, he just acts like a unlikable character for Eren to vie for Mikasa's affections and just sits on a rooftop while watching his fellow soldiers get eaten by Titans in the film's final act. Jean just does his "best." The other characters are one-dimensional and not important at all but just serve as food for the Titans. The couple acts lovey-dovey, the mother acts as a mother, and the jerk is a jerk. One character legitimately tosses a Titan over his shoulder and I can't figure out for the life of me, why I wasn't watching a better movie.

Can I mention the film score for a moment? Just what is this music? I've never seen such inconsistent music throughout a film. It goes from classical piano to folksy violins and then electric guitars during the fight scenes. It fails to evoke any emotional reaction from the actors or the audience. It comes off as weak and not hard hitting enough in the bleak world of "Attack on Titan."

I will say that the Titans are the most visually interesting in the whole film. They are just as menacing and dopey and creepy as their anime/manga counterparts. Even a baby Titan shows up at one point. The CGI for them is pretty well done, not great but competent. As for the Colossal Titan, imagine the Parallax fart cloud from Green Lantern except it has a face. It is poorly done and Eren's Titan form is decent enough. Watching the Titans eat humans is oddly satisfying like a snuff film. The cries of terror and crunching noises as they scarf down a meal is top notch and some really creative shots were used with them.

One thing that genuinely bugged me was the script and the way this story progresses. I mentioned earlier that a lot of character arcs and catalysts are missing in the film. There is a fine line between taking creative liberties and just going off the record. Its totally fine to do that but only if it is done right. The Colossal Titan, who is actually one of Eren's boot camp comrades is absent, as is the Armored Titan. Annie's Female Titan is gone and Levi is gone. The story is written in a way that the omni-directional maneuver gear was only recently made AFTER the loss of Eren's home. There's the strange love triangle between Eren, Mikasa and Shikishima and important plot points are placed in different parts of the story.

For example, after Eren and company graduate from boot camp, the Colossal Titan shows up again and destroys the wall surrounding Trost. This is the same battle where Eren discovers his Titan form but in the film it gets translated into them going to this abandoned city that looks far more advanced than what the film setting has shown and is filled with ruined apartment complexes. The film does nothing to address this location or use anything interesting to make the location worthwhile to the audience. The cast gets attacked by Titans and the team poorly fights back while Shikishima sits around and does nothing as they get eaten one by one. Despite being trained soldiers, no one has any fighting skills against Titans except Mikasa and Shikishima but that just makes the normal soldiers look like even bigger idiots. Most of them just wait for their impending doom and let the Titans grab them.

At the end of the day, Attack on Titan was just a bad film all around. Poor camera movement that stays on blank stares and empty spaces. Shoddy script writing, acting and failure to adhere to the source material.

By the time I got to the end of the film, I was begging for the Titans to eat everyone and put this movie out of its misery. The final battle was cool and all but I feel like I was cheated out of a much better experience. There were some genuinely cool shots. Watching Eren take on Titans Godzilla style was very entertaining but that means I have to slog through 80 minutes of a bad movie to get to this scene. And this was only part one of the two-part movie which will be showing later this month. As a Cinema Studies major and a fan of the anime, I'm hoping that it will be much better but judging from the post credits mini trailer, its not looking that way. I don't want to see it but I'm doing it for my own betterment of taking a critical look at movies and being a better writer.

The choice is yours as to whether you want to see Attack on Titan or not. I personally don't recommend it but I really encourage you to watch a character toss a Titan over his shoulder. Also to see one of the funniest lines I've ever heard uttered after seeing a character in heartbreak. That, I refuse to spoil for you lovely readers. At that point, I couldn't believe why I hadn't stopped watching the movie. If they say that he's a Titan in Part 2, I'll lose my mind. As a matter of fact, don't see it, save your money for The Martian or basically any other object you can spend your money on. Up next in the anime adaptations are "Ghost in the Shell" and "Akira." I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for those.