Akira Fudo is a normal student who's staying with a foster family and spends a lot of time with his best friend Ryo Asuka. Ryo's father is a scientist who one day accidentally, after having discovered it, releases demons into the human world and is killed in the process. Ryo takes Akira to his father's lab where he comes in contact with a demon entity known as Amon which transforms Akira into Devilman. But he's not like the other demons because of the fact that he still has a human heart, so instead of killing humans like the rest of the demons, Devilman battles the demons that try to take over the human world.
Devilman is a live action movie, an adaptation of the original story created by Gô Nagai that came out in 1972. It's well known in its home country of Japan and has been aired as a 39 episode television series over there, as well as it has spawned a few animated features and several mangas. You do not need to be familiar with Devilman at all to be able to enjoy this live action film, although I'm pretty sure those who have followed it and have some background knowledge have a higher chance at liking the movie to begin with. I'm not a follower of the whole concept that is Devilman, I simply just wanted to see the live action film since it looked pretty cool and I really wanted to see how they had done everything in it - the demons themselves, the videogame feel that I had heard it would have, the fights and well, you name it..
Devilman was a somewhat weird film that both had its ups and downs. For instance, some of the CGI looked amazing and had this great videogame feel to it, while at other times the CGI looked absolutely horrible. I think for most of the time it was fairly easy to even sit through some of the really bad CGI, due to that the very story of Devilman kept the interest up. A word of warning though, especially to the picky kind of people, it does not look like Lord of the Rings and it's miles away from WETA standard, but apart from that, it's quite the enjoyable flick and most of the bad CGI is easy to forgive. The problem with most of the CGI was that when, for instance, you saw Akira transform into Devilman it all looked pretty darn amazing, but when they mixed CGI into normal real enviroments, it all turned crappy really fast. Simply put, don't expect too much and you're in for a good ride.
 
In the film, we get to follow a young student named Akira Fudo who lives with a foster family and who has a crush on his "foster sister", and yes, the film has a touch of romance which didn't feel tacky at all, but was actually something that turned out to be quite nice. Akira hangs out a lot with his rich buddy Ryo who seems to hate everyone except Akira and one day Ryo takes Akira over to his scientist father's abandoned lab. Apparently Ryo's dad managed to open the portal to the demon world and while the boys are there, Akira is exposed to a demon entity known as Amon which turns him into Devilman. Still with a human heart pounding in his body, Devilman is half demon (devil), half a man who, unlike the other demons, do not want to wipe out humanity. As the demons starts to flood the human world, the government releases a group of soldiers to rid the world of demons. Unfortunately for humanity, these soliders are morons and seems to think that ordinary people are demons as well, and so begins to wipe out humanity on their own while the leader of the demons, Satan himself, can sit back and relax. I'm not gonna spend more time writing about the story, but let me just say that it's not complicated at all, it's easy to get into and fairly enjoyable even if it has its flaws.
The movie Devilman obviously had a great Japanese feel to it and even though it was a movie that had a high budget, it sometimes didn't look that good at all (not talking about the CGI). Visually, it's a very strange film to watch because sometimes it looks stunning and pretty brilliant and in the next scene to come it switches over to have a more cheap look and feel to it, and it goes like that, up and down, all the way through. The acting is not bad, but sure could've been a lot better as sometimes it comes off as a bit too wooden. Another thing is that Akira doesn't seem to be too overwhelmed with the fact that he went from being a normal boy to, all of a sudden, become one devilish creature with incredible strength. How strange it even might seem, the guy seemed incredibly comfortable with being able to turn into Devilman just like that and didn't seem to think too much of it. Like in the movie Spider-man, he doesn't explore and try out his new powers, but just seems to know how it all works right away and that just didn't feel right if you know what I'm saying. Another thing that was truly bad was to have Bob Sapp as the World Newscaster, it just felt like a totally meaningless thing having him in the film.
I'm sure there are fans who absolutely love this flick as well as there'll be people who get see it and can't for the life of them understand how anyone could like this. I thought it was slightly above decent, very entertaining, but that the cheap feel of it sometimes was too obvious and that there were a lot of things in it that didn't make perfect sense. So my advise to you if you plan to check it out would be - do not think too much, but instead just try and enjoy it for what it is, as well as don't expect incredible CGI at all and you'll be able to forgive that bad CGI and at the same time maybe be impressed by the sometimes stunning effects.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Debiruman
MOVIE YEAR: 2004
DIRECTOR: Hiroyuki Nasu
WRITING CREDITS: Gô Nagai, Machiko Nasu
GENRE: Action, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
CAST: Hisato Izaki, Yûsuke Izaki, Ayana Sakai
COUNTRY: Japan
RUNTIME: 115 min
RATING: 6/10
Devilman Website/IMDB Click here
Devilman Trailer
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