If you want to see a man made out of chainsaws, “Chainsaw Man” is the only game in town. At least, it will be until someone finally buys my pitch for “Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Space” — which also has a man made entirely out of Texas! It makes sense in context. Or maybe it doesn’t. You’ll never know, I guess.
“Chainsaw Man” is a hit anime series about a 16-year-old named Denji (Kikunosuke Toya), who lives in a world where devils roam the Earth, menace humanity and have to be exterminated. One of those devils was Denji’s pet, Pochita, an adorable dog with a chainsaw on its face. When the two of them were attacked by zombies — it makes sense in context (or maybe it doesn’t) — Pochita saved Denji’s life by becoming his new heart. Now, whenever Denji pulls a ripcord in his chest, he turns into a chainsaw devil, and uses his chainsaw arms and chainsaw face to kill other devils.
Look, do you want to see a man made out of chainsaws or not?
“Chainsaw Man,” based on a popular manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto (“Fire Punch”), has a lot of world-building in its first 12 episodes. We meet other devil hunters, who are either part devil or have pacts with devils that give them superpowers. We find out the worst devil in the world is Gun Devil, since devils which represent something scary have godlike powers. We also learn Denji is a little horndog, having lived in poverty and isolation for years before he became a Chainsaw Man. Now he puts his life on the line in exchange for three square meals a day, a comfortable futon and the possibility that someday a girl might like him, and maybe let him see her naked.
The new film, “Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc,” takes place after the 12th episode of the series, and if you didn’t watch the series, then to hell with you. The film was not made to introduce new audiences to Chainsaw Man. The film was made to give fans of Chainsaw Man more Chainsaw Man. If you like the show — an enjoyable mishmash of hyper-seriousness, hyper-silliness and hyperkinetic action — you’ll get more of it here. If you don’t, I recommend you sit back and enjoy the pretty colors. While you can kind of make out what’s going on, why it matters or what it all means never really comes up in conversation. Or even a flashback. Or a title card.
“Reze Arc” begins with Denji waking up and finding his devil-hunting partner, a Blood Fiend named Power, has more horns than usual, so she has to take a few days off work to get her blood drained. (It makes sense in context, or maybe it doesn’t.) Denji gets a substitute partner, a Shark Fiend named Beam, but also some time off, which he spends on a date with his older boss Makima (Tomori Kusunoki), watching a bunch of movies and discovering that mainstream movies suck and only art house movies have value. A bold statement for a film called “Chainsaw Man” to make.
Then Denji meets a new girl, Reze (Reina Ueda), and falls head over heels for her. Or maybe he just can’t control his hormones. Denji is like a character from “Porky’s” who became an ultraviolent superhero. He goes wherever his sex drive leads him, even if it contradicts every other thought in his head. His romance with Reze goes on for a long time, so long that you begin to wonder if “Chainsaw Man” pulled a switcheroo, and the movie will just be sweet and wholesome.
But then Denji meets Bomb Devil, the evil personification of explosives, and the rest of the movie is just non-stop violence. High-velocity bloodletting. Brightly colored kaleidoscopes. It’s practically abstract art for a while. Following Denji’s movements across a canvas of fireworks and gore and flying debris is like watching Three-Card Monte on fast-forward. There’s a sense of victory whenever you find him. If you can imagine obsessively reading “Where’s Waldo?” while your house is on fire, that’s the gist of it.
The romance between Denji and Reze never fully clicks, and what little information we get about her is confusing and anticlimactic. The supporting characters are either written out of the story, not written out of the story but conspicuously absent anyway or engaged in team-building exercises that don’t have much to do with the overarching narrative. In a longer, serialized format you could make room for the entire cast and pump this whole thing up with character development. But you also wouldn’t be able to spend this much time and money on the fluid, elaborate action sequences. Whether that’s a fair trade depends how much you expect from a thing called “Chainsaw Man.”
I don’t mean to sound dismissive about “Chainsaw Man,” the movie or the series. It has an intriguing ensemble of characters, all thrown into memorable, imaginative, exciting situations. People who already like the series will get to see it writ large, and whether that’s for better or worse, it’s still accurate. This is “Chainsaw Man” on the big screen, which is what “Chainsaw Man” fans want. If you walk into “Chainsaw Man” knowing nothing about Chainsaw Man, I assure you, it makes sense in context. And even when it doesn’t, that’s “Chainsaw Man” for you.
“Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc” hits theaters on Friday.
