Arcane Reviews: Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro

Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro

Hello ladies, peoples, and animals it is I, the Arcane Reviewer! Here to welcome all of you to Movie Month here on Arcane Reviews! This month I'll be covering anime movies this whole month of March. So why not start off with a Hayao Miyazaki film, seems like a good start. But before we start off lets go over some small rules here seeing as how these reviews will be a bit different from my normal reviews. First off I will not be covering Nitpicks or Animation in these reviews. Main reason to this is because I really don't have a lot of nitpicks to tell when it comes to movies, oddly enough I just say if it's good or bad and be done with it. But in anime series I usually find reasons to have some nitpicks seeing as how they are full fledged series as opposed to a one shot film. Animation won't be a category here due to these being movies, in other words; they all look really good. So I feel like I'd be going on like a broken record if I just keep coming on here to tell you that the animation looks great. So no animation category here. Secondly I will be covering voice acting but only for Movie Month. I don't normally talk about voice acting because I don't like the debate of Dub vs. Sub. It's meaningless and I feel like the voice acting should only really be talked about if it's really fucking bad or really fucking good. But even then I still don't like to talk about it. But for this month I'll cover voice acting because I feel that in movies you kinda have to raise the bar of preforming seeing as how it's a one shot film and you wanna leave a good lasting impression on the audience because this will most likely be the only time you ever play this character. So voice acting will have it's own category only for this month. So enough of that, lets start off Movie Month already with my review of, Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro! 

Story:

So we see our infamous gentleman thief Lupin the Third as him and his partner in crime Daisuke are finishing up robbing a casino. Everything goes smoothly until realizes that the money they stole is actually fake. They are the legendary Goat bills, a set of counterfeit bills that are so high in quality that they can easily be mistaken for the real thing. Seeing as how there's nothing else to do, Lupin and Daisuke decide to look for the source of the counterfeit bill only to run into a runaway bride and some shady looking men right on her tail. This eventually leads Lupin, Daisuke and the whole rest of the cast from the Lupin series to get evolved into a huge action adventure with tones of high risks and a lovely damsel in distress to save. So a pretty simple set up here and in all honesty that's [pretty much all I can say about this movie, it's simple. It's fairly short, straight to the point, and has some great action in it as well. This film was a whole lot of fun to see as it was able to have some serious imagery and even some dark tones but it never lost it's sense of fun and humor it was a it was also fun to see all of the Lupin characters here as well. They all had their parts to play and it was cool to see what Lupin was going to do next. The movies is also heavy on the action and it's animated beautifully, but hey that's not a big surprise seeing as how this was Miyazaki's first film and pretty much the birth of Studio Ghibli. The film is set up nicely and has a very satisfying ending which I was most thankful for.

Music:

This movie also did something that I didn't see coming, it had very little music. Now usually this method is used in movies and in shows to put emphasis on a scene but in this film that's not really the case. The lack of music really seemed there because the director felt as though no music is needed and it worked really well. It was able to draw you more into the scene and what the characters are talking about. But when the film does use music it makes the scene more meaningful or more exciting and action paced. The music is really used for most of the action scenes as well as some of the character development moments of the movie. I felt as though this was a very smart move as it made those particular scenes have much more weight to them. Not to mention all of the music here is very 80's and was really fun to here but that's mainly because I personally love 80's style music. So music here is really well done and just amazing to listen to.

Characters:

Oddly enough this part of the film is the most stale. Not to say that the characters are boring or anything but there's not a lot to say about the main cast because their already a group of welly developed characters. Daisuke is Daisuke, Goemon is Goemon, and Zenigata is Zenigata. But I will say that two major characters here did get a bit of a overhaul when it came to their characters. Lupin and Fujiko are not the same Lupin and Fujiko that are well known to all Lupin fans. Now all Lupin fans know that Lupin is a playboy and is a bit of a sleazeball. Well in this movie that's not Lupin at all. He's a nice guy. He's very friendly and polite until he has to get into a fight. He's a ideal main hero for an adventure movie, the kind hearted man who will save the day in the end. While Fujino in the original show and manga was very much a sexy, sultry, fem-fatal who will use here body to get what she wants is nothing like that in this movie. The Fujino in this film is very much like the rest of the female roles in other Miyazaki films. She is a very strong out going and very "I can take care of myself" kind of woman. Now while I love the original Lupin and Fujino I actually really liked these two incarnations of these characters. They fit the overall style and mood of the film, plus it's cool to see the first few character tropes that Miyazaki would go on to use in his other films start in this one. The only other thing I can say about the characters here are the two new characters. Count Cagliostro, the main villain, and Clarisse, the main female lead and the aforementioned damsel in distress. They are pretty much stranded character archetypes in a film like this. Their not bad but there's nothing really super memorable about them. Except maybe the Count death because it was kinda dark and funny at the same time. But that's just me. 

Voice Acting:

Okay this is gonna be fun, I'm going to cover the voice acting in this film. Most of the voices are fine say for a few. Zenigata's voice (played by David Povall) was a bit over the top, at least just for me. Edie Mirman's portrayal of Fujino was really good and Steven Kramer and Ivan Buckley's performances for Goemon and Daisuke were just as good. But my favorite voice actor here was David Hayter as Lupin. I thought he did a really good job at getting this much different type of Lupin the right voice and I personally loved it. Also it's pretty funny to see David Hayter play such a nice guy here and then play the Metal Gear games as he plays Snake who is a much different character but I digress. All the other voice actors do a fine job but I will say that Micheal McConnohie did a pretty damn good job as the main villain Count Cagliostro. But aside from all that the voice acting is passable in this movie and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Overall:

Well in the end I will say that this film was a hell of a lot of fun to watch and I highly recommend it, especially if you're a big Lupin the Third fan or a big Miyazaki fan. Or hell even a fan of action movies because this is one damn solid action flick.

Arcane Reviews gives Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro a 8 out of 10.

You can watch "Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro" on:

Netflix (DVD rental only)

Hulu (Dub and Sub)