[Jock’s Pick]

Homunculus was a weird ride, as most manga-adapted movies are. Having just finished reading the original Homunculus, Jock wanted to watch the film adaptation and make sure we were there to witness it with him. And witness we did.

The only enjoyable aspect of Homunculus is the look of it. The teamwork of director Takashi Shimizu and cinematographer Jun Fukumoto acts as a pain reliever for the rest of the movie. The acting performance of lead Go Ayano as Nokoshi was also very good, but one man can only carry a movie so far. Homunculus follows a man, Nokoshi, who agrees to undergo an experimental surgery performed by Itou (Ryo Narita). The procedure leaves him with a psychic ability to see people’s traumas. He then goes on a journey of attempting to “heal” people’s traumas, and dealing with his own. While Homunculus starts off coherent and intriguing, it quickly falls apart in the second half as it struggles to accommodate years of plot. But Homunculus has a much greater issue than bad writing.

(Spoilers in this paragraph.) In the horror and psychological thriller genres, you are bound to encounter plots, scenes, and scenarios that are very uncomfortable; such is the genre. However, acts of violence in a film should serve the plot in a meaningful way and accurately portray the story’s theme. Homunculus has many scenes that can be considered disturbing, but the most disturbing scene depicts the graphic rape of a teenage girl. This scene of the movie is not only viscerally unbearable, but also handled extremely poorly. The film’s treatment of main character Nokoshi throughout the duration of this film ends up leaving its depiction of a brutal sexual assault absolutely unjustified. The movie leans heavily on Nokoshi “healing” people by solving their traumas with his homunculus power. His rape of this young girl is not only too graphic and too lengthy, but is also portrayed as his way of “healing her trauma,” as has been the trend with his homunculus power thus far. Homunculus fails to critique Nokoshi in any way for his sexual assault, thus leaving a very mixed message for viewers.

Many manga movie adaptations seem to struggle immensely at condensing their source material into the runtime of a feature-length film, and Homunculus is no exception. Its attempt to fit so much plot into such a short time leaves the viewers confused, and the theme of the storyline jumbled, if not absent entirely. Furthermore, the main characters’ journeys and motivations are completely changed in the film, which manga-readers found to be unforgivably offensive. The direction and cinematography frame a complete mess in pretty colors and nice shot compositions, but can’t salvage the poorly constructed plot. While it at least wasn’t boring, any movie where you have to do the heavy lifting to make it make sense is a waste of time, and Homunculus is just that.

Rating: 💾 I disliked this movie.

My former roommates and I (known affectionately as Goblin House) had a regular movie night where we all got together to watch a movie one of us picked out. Many of these reviews came from a Goblin Movie Night, so they’ll be tagged with the nickname of the Goblin who picked the movie.