Review: ‘All You Need is Kill’ Needs More

All You Need Is Kill is a new anime film from STUDIO 4C based on the sci-fi novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. The story follows a woman named Rita who is caught in a time-loop after being killed by aliens. Living the same day repeatedly, Rita improves her skills to fight back against the invaders. As a colourful anime reboot of a novel with a preexisting successful live-action adaptation, All You Need Is Kill showed promise as a crowd-pleasing blockbuster.

The film is possibly one of the best-looking CG anime films to ever hit theaters. Anime as a medium immediately conjures up images of hand-drawn animation. I’ve complained in my Lupin the IIIrd review that the CG characters looked janky and out of place. In All You Need Is Kill, the 3D and 2D elements are blended smoothly so each frame has depth of field and rich painterly textures.

The character designs are bold and make great use of cubist stylization that contrasts with the vivid, colorful backgrounds. The typography, editing, sound design, and music synthesize into a gorgeous-looking film. Unfortunately, the film is brought low by an ending that feels abrupt, confusing, and unearned.

I was willing to suspend my disbelief as to how an ordinary young woman manages to level-up her skills in such a short amount of time. After all, this is an anime, and we’re here to watch cool characters in mecha armor fight aliens. However, once the aliens are defeated, the time-loop negates any meaningful sacrifice or character growth. Within the world of fiction, emotion beats logic, and ultimately, I wasn’t emotionally invested.

It’s a shame that the freshest-looking anime film in years is dragged down by a perplexing third act. Therefore, I can’t really recommend watching All You Need Is Kill in theaters, but I might pick up the Art Book.