Summer Wars
Japanese Title: サマーウォーズ
Chinese Title: 夏日大作戰
Genre: Science Fiction, Comedy, Romance
Language: Japanese
Year: 2009
Synopsis:
Math wizard Kenji Koiso accompanies his schoolmate Natsuki
Shinohara to her great-grandma’s home for the preparation of her 90th
birthday. He meets Sakae Jinnouchi, the birthday celebrant, and is shocked when
Natsuki introduces him as her boyfriend. Later on, Natsuki privately tells
Kenji that she did that to please her great-grandma and begs him to continue
pretending.
Natsuki’s relatives, who are also at the house to help in
the preparation, are descendants of a samurai. During Kenji’s stay at Sakae’s
place, he receives a mysterious email containing nothing but a series of
numbers. Thinking that it is a math problem, he cracks the code and sends a
reply even without knowing the sender. The next day, he learns that OZ, a
virtual reality world, has been hacked by a high school student. To his
surprise, his picture is flashed all over the news, making him the suspect.
The world has been dependent on OZ. With OZ quickly falling
to pieces, chaos ensues. The real culprit is an artificial intelligence known
as the Love Machine. Kenji has to do something to stop the terrorism. Together
with Natsuki and her huge family, Kenji tries to fix the problem before it is
damaged beyond repair.
Cheerfulnuts’ Review:
Summer Wars is about helping each other and being confident
with one’s skills. Kenji is a boy who seriously lacks confidence despite being
a math whiz. In his short stay in Sakae’s house where he gets a chance to meet
Natsuki’s relatives, he learns the value of family. When OZ starts to fall into
pieces, through Kenji’s determination, the Jinnouchi clan sticks more closely
together to defeat the Love Machine.
There’s one point in the movie where the family has to
choose between two important things. While OZ is quickly taking people’s
accounts, Kenji speaks out (something that he has never done before) and tells
the family to focus defeating the Love Machine before it harms another person,
to which Naomi violently reacts. She asks, “How can we worry about other people
in a day like this?” In a meeting among the males, Riichi agrees with Kenji and
says, “You’re right. You have to protect others to protect yourself.” This line
may not be true at all times, but I like the message.
I love seeing the characters help each other, and that, I think,
is the gist of the story. With everyone’s encouragement, Kenji becomes tougher
and more confident. Summer Wars shows us that it doesn’t need physical strength
to be a hero. Everyone can be a hero.
My gripe is Summer Wars is a bit overwhelming to watch. It’s
easy to get mixed up with the names and the faces. There are too many
characters all at once. With so many characters, it’s difficult to fully
appreciate each of them. Having said that, the huge number of characters makes
this movie much more entertaining. The story is set mostly in a single place –
Sakae’s house. I could imagine that if there were only a few people there, I
would have felt like watching a movie about human extinction or about a
massacre of people living inside a house.
The OZ is a bit complicated concept to understand. I wish
the movie would have shown more concretely how the virtual world is connected
with reality. Nevertheless, it is very amusing and fun to watch the avatars
interact in the virtual world.
My conclusion is, Summer Wars is not really a remarkable
movie, but it’s still cute to watch.
Cheerfulnuts’ Verdict:
 |
| 6 out of 10 stars |
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