Freaktana A Major Disappointment

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

KScythe Emotionally scarring and very intense. The 2 previous Berserk movies have to be watched before taking this one on.

blackmamba99971 Like all horror anime's to come out of Japan this one has to be best example of violent gore. Berserk... A tale of companions led by a man named Griffith (AKA Hawk) who leads a band of men of honourable soldiers who ride across many kingdoms proving their worth as fighters for peace. In the middle is Guts. A kind of mercenary wanderer who is then chosen by Hawk after a fierce duel, which no man has ever defeated Griffith in a sword fight only to lose by a near knock out. After which they become close friends who continue to battle endless fights showing their valour to every kingdom they approach only to be betrayed by a ruthless king who promised good fortune and fame.This has led to this point after Griffith was imprisoned in the dungeons to die until Guts, and his team of merry men rescue their leader only to find out he has been disabled in many ways including not being able to walk or speak again. Casca who had been the band's leader in Griffith's absence successfully finds him with Guts who then escape from the castle's bowels. While on route to their new hideout Griffith's despair reaches new heights, and decides to end his own life only to find an ancient talisman called the Behilmut egg. Needing only a few drops of his blood a portal would soon open sucking all of his men inside including Guts, and Casca.This was one of the most ultra violent movies to date only to match another series called Blood C+ in similarity of action, and sword play. Yet this film captured my attention even more when the four horsemen of the Apocalypse suddenly appeared giving Griffith a choice to either sacrifice his own friends for his own gain and dreams or... abstain and release his band of warriors in exchange to be imprisoned for all eternity for his great sins of battle, and needless bloodshed across the continent. I enjoyed the twists, and turns to his subconscious allowing his brutal nature to finally awaken, and then speak only two words... "I sacrifice." Which then led to the most bloody gore fest on the silver screen.The story was fantastic as was the gratuitous violence along with an adult situation between Guts, and Casca. Yet to see Griffith in his newly changed form called Femto (Pestilence, Gravity, Fate) was a treat to behold. A new demon king born out of his own greed, hatred, and malice against the world makes Berserk one of a kind in its own right. This is not for the feint of heart, and no viewer under the age of seventeen should watch this film. Highly recommended to those who love this type of genre. Very graphic, and disturbing.

Ed Li I am a man with lots of feelings, lots of fragile and optimistic feelings. My friend, who fully knew that I am an emotional man and knew the ending of the third act, told me to watch Berserk: the Golden Age. Afterwards, it went something like this.Friend: Hey did you finish the movies?Me:....yesFriend: What did you think?Me:...........................................why?Friend: yea...that is how i felt.Me: Yeah? Were you feeling: HOLY SH*T HOLY SH*T HOLY SH*T HOLY SH*T HOLY SH*T, DID HE REALLY JUST DO THAT?Let's just say that Game of Thrones is the teacup ride in Disneyland, and Berserk is the Kingda Ka in Six Flags. Everything came out of the blue, completely random. FOR NO REASON! Well, I needed some closure and comfort after that "Mind-rape".(that is literally what happens, a character was f*cked so hard, she becomes straight up retarded)So, I began reading the manga, and I can say that my feels were comforted a little afterwards. Berserk: Descent is a movie worthy of that title. It shows us why its called that in the most literal and gruesome way, and although the reasons and motives of this descent is still unclear, it gets the audience asking WHY WHY WHY? Which I am guessing is what the director wanted us to do. I give this a WTF/10. Enjoy.

Freak Idiot Whereas the first two films ranged from merely passable to a downright butchering of the story, Descent finally finds a comfortable groove and is definitely the best one of the films so far. Descent has many points in its favor before the film even starts; this movie covers the most important and character-focused part of the story without any massive battles or political plotting. The movie is focused solely on the survival of the Band of the Hawk, with the battles being small-scale skirmishes than entire armies clashing and the story moves away from the mundane and medieval aspects to the (personally) more interesting stuff with demons and the supernatural. This allows for a tighter focus and structure.The pacing is far from perfect, but it's finally at least decent. After the first 20-30 minutes, the film finally takes some time with the characters, and actually manages to establish some emotional attachment to them. It's definitely a positive for the film.In the first films the blend of hand-drawn animation and CG ranged from looking terrible to at best alright, but here it is finally used rightly. It's not perfect, but it's lightyears ahead of the first two. The studio has cleverly chosen to use CG for the character models, but their faces are animated in 2D. This does a good job of abridging the two different animation styles, and the moments when the two clash are far less numerous than before. The film being more character-focused also gives us more moments where they are animated fully hand-drawn, and it looks great. When the Eclipse begins, the movie really becomes a treat for the eyes: all the various monsters and the surreal landscapes of the demon world look great, and the action scenes are very well directed and animated.But despite all this, Descent is far from great. The problems are smaller than before, but they're still the same. The biggest one is undoubtedly the pacing; the film still feels like a heavily cut down cliff's notes version of the story. If the film was 30-40 minutes longer, maybe then it could have covered everything that's in the story. The most outrageous examples of this are that a) we never find out what Guts has been doing during his year of absence and b) one scene where Caska seemingly arbitrarily switches between three completely different emotional states in the space of only a few minutes.Despite the praise I gave the animation, the CG on the humans still looks jarring and is very easily noticed. It's less problematic than before, but still an issue. The score is a mixed bag; at times it's appropriately booming and ominous and at others bizarrely inappropriate. There are moments where mere silence would have suited some scenes better than the music in the film. In fact, the more ambient-styled score of the original series suited the Eclipse's nightmarish events better, and that's quite an odd thing to say, considering the original's fairly weak score.The odd thing about Descent is that for every thing it does better than the series, it seems to get something else wrong. Here we finally see how Guts escapes the Eclipse, but Rickert's own mini-story has been almost entirely cut out. The animation is far better than the series, but the voice acting is clearly inferior. The film completes this part of the story, but so much that is important to future events has been cut out that continuing from this will be quite hard. The definitive animated version of Berserk might lie somewhere between these films and the original series. Perhaps by making a supercut of the two one would end up with a masterpiece.Recommendation: Despite all I said, I enjoyed this film. It has its problems, lots of them, but the good ultimately outweighs the bad. Worth watching. PS. For all you expecting Wyald and the Black Dogs: they're not here. Sorry.