The final chapter to the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy, The Legend Ends, should have ended with an all-out action orgy. Instead, director Keishi Ohtomo fell back to habit and killed the anticipation from the get-go with the horrible serial-like drama.
Once again, this kind of movie did not need to go over the 2-hour mark. And you can easily tell it didn't have to. Keishi again wasted so much time with nothingness that only added frustration to the audience at just how slow the pacing was in the first 3/4 of the movie.
A lot of scenes were unnecessary and yet were prolonged with poses and slow... talking... pace... and... dialogue...
And when there should have been some explanation for plot development, like how Tao Tsuchiya's Misao so easily forgave Yusuke Iseya's Aoshi for one of the most horrible deed in the story, the characters didn't even address the issue.
Or how Yu Aoi's Megumi found Takero Satoh's Kenshin with his master when nobody knew he was alive, this really needed some explanation because that scene alone immediately shrunk this world of Samurai X; as if Kenshin's master's abode was a well known by others and yet oblivious to Kenshin for the last 15 years. And even when Kenshin asked, "How did you find me," Megumi promptly replied, "That's not important right now..." I thought it was very important!
The fight scenes once again was an improvement to the previous. There were well choreographed though not a revelation. But during the final fight with Tatsuya Fujiwara's Shishio, Munetaka Aoki's Sanoske again was a nuisance, to both the audience as well as Shishio. To the Shishio because this street brawler who knew no fighting style was landing punches on him. To the audience because Shishio, who was doing quite well against four others, could kill Sanoske but chose not to cut him. Why was this happening onscreen?
There were many other minor problems in the final half hour too, like sneaking and climbing onto the ship so easily was a joke, but I did like most of the fight scenes. Shishio posed as a very formidable antagonist so that was interesting to watch how that fight played out.
But overall, I was very disappointed in this final chapter, mostly because of the choices made by the director. There was such a potential for this movie but it was wasted by the horrible pacing and storytelling.
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