The third film for the ever growing MHA franchise, following on from Two Heroes (exceedingly mediocre imo) and Heroes Rising (much more fun, great action) comes World Heroes' Mission, a globetrotting adventure that pitches our budding heroes against a terrorist organisation based across the world.
[Spoilers from the start]
It must be said the first thing that struck me about this film, is that for something called 'World Heroes' Mission' there's an almost total lack of heroes from across the world, instead all the work being done by the same Japanese heroes we already know, with a few generic superhero type presumably local people visible in the background at times. I get that people want to see the characters they know and like, but it feels like a missed opportunity to design some fun new heroes (we do get one local hero, an Egyptian who's literally a hyroglyph pharaoh...). Oh and also presumably to avoid offending anyone at all the main story is set on a large island just off the coast of Spain that's magically popped up, with its odd mix of Italian/Australian scenery.
Now onto the plot, the main event being about a terrorist organisation (Humarize) who want to keep humanity 'pure' (aka quirkless) and seek to eliminate those with quirks. I actually like this idea, given how the series loves to tell us at the begining of most episodes that 80% of the world has quirks, what of the 20% that don't? Deku after all was one of them, so he knows how it feels to be an unpowered minority in a world where those without are looked down upon. Unfortunately the film makes no effort to ask any of these questions, they're just terrorists who want to kill people, and the leader's own justifcation is incredibly stupid (basically people didn't like him as a kid). Furthermore to make the story even more hollow half the the bad guys actually have powers anyway, and in fact so does the leader! They make some offhand comment about them joining in return for being allowed to live, but it just doesn't make sense and totally cheapens the whole potentially interesting concept. There are some actual unpowered guys with guns, but they're worse shots than stormtroopers and not a single one of them has a face or name.
The other side of the story is Rody, typical no parents anime protag who lives with his younger siblings and does small time crime running to make ends meet. Honestly he's fine, unlikely to be anyones favourite character but he's got some personality and brings some humour. Anyway he meets Deku on a job, accidentally gets involved with Humarize and they're put on the (corrupt) police watch list and have to run away. They bond on their roadtrip, get chased down by some villains (one of whom, a kinda cool archer girl, escapes and is just forgotten about, not even showing up for the finale) and meet up with Bakugo and Shoto where they assault the Humarize headquarters and save the day (with 0.3seconds on the clock left).
One thing this film has going for it is it looks great, good work by Bones with nice sceneries and backgrounds, and the action is fast and frantic. The final third of the film is basically one long punchup, with Deku vs the Humarize leader, Bakugo vs a couple of creepy kids with extending swords and Shoto fighting a beefy lava manipulator. It doesn't quite match the sheer destructive scale of the previous film but it puts in a good attempt. Bakugo's fight was certainly the most spectacular with the three of them leaping all around the place with dust, debris and explosions everywhere, Deku's fight is a touch more mundane, don't get me wrong again it looks great - the Humarize leader's (I've already forgotten his name he was that forgettable) power looks great, projecting back people's attack power at them - sadly being Deku the whole fight is just him repeatedly throwing himself over and over without any thought and just getting more beaten up, and then after having lost more blood than the average human body holds he sees Rody get hurt and just casually goes super saiyan and seemingly masters One for All instantly to win (but then ya know doesn't mention it). Then at the end the bad guys, despite having been blown up, crushed, etc are all unharmed and get arrested and it's a happy ending.
The budget clearly didn't stretch far enough for anyone else to get epic moments, the heroes at other sites do get some brief moments, but nothing of any note and with little combat shown (and still not enough Blazin' screetime!) - it would have been rather cool to have a battle up the Eiffel Tower or something.
Now I do get that I sound very harsh on the film, but don't get me wrong I did enjoy it, I was just disappointed that the plot didn't try harder, it doesn't add any new or significant characters, gives no real character development and because it's a film despite the huge scale of the events shown will never be mentioned in the main series.
72.5 out of 78 users liked this review
