7/10
A defense attorney is a pretty strange character to base a video game character on (even by Japan's standards), and a movie based on a video game based on a defense attorney is stranger still. So why not go to Japan's reigning master of strange, Takashi Miike, to direct the movie? I knew nothing about the games going in, outside of the famous Phoenix Wright/"Objection!" meme, but that didn't really matter. Maybe some jokes were over my head but overall, it was easy to get into and likeable besides. Hiroki Narimiya brings an affecting, vulnerable charm to Phoenix Wright, the titular attorney, and Takumi Saito has an edginess as Miles Edgeworth (Phoenix's nemesis-turned-client) that makes for a magnetic presence. My problem mainly lies with the overly knotty plot and the way it untangles itself - Phoenix comes to a seemingly unsolveable block in the case, agonizes, resolves it a couple of minutes later, repeat ad nauseum (with repetitive flashbacks recapping what happened with the new information added in).
Of course, this leads to more time needed to wrap everything up - and at nearly 2 and a half hours, surely the material wears thin on even the most diehard AA fan? I should've asked the audience members who came in costume, now that I think of it...
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