The Great War of Archimedes Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Great War of Archimedes Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 5, 2021

There's a longstanding and recurring joke about some guys compensating for certain "shortcomings" by tricking out their trucks with oversized wheels and other ostensibly "large and in charge" accoutrements, something that sites like Barstool Sports seem to kind of delight in poking fun at. One might wonder if some similar psychological aspect might have been in play in Japan's military generally as they started their slow, steady march toward engaging various other nations in battles which of course led to their own disastrous "comeuppance" in World War II. The Great War of Archimedes might seem to be an almost deliberately weird title for this film, since "great war" typically refers to World War I, and Archimedes, the legendary Greek mathemetician and scientist, had been dead for close to two thousand years when that conflict broke out. However, there's perhaps a little method to the film's presumed madness, since it kind of audaciously gets into an apparently somewhat fictionalized account of backstage drama taking place in the post-World War I era which led to the creation of what have become known as Yamato class battleships, huge behemoths that were in fact the floating equivalents of those aforementioned mutant trucks. The film actually begins with the famous sinking of the Yamato, one of two sister ships that were built in anticipation of a global conflict. Yamato was sunk by American fighter pilots in 1945, just a couple of months before the devastating horrors of the Atomic bombs were unleashed on Japan to finally end hostilities.

At least some aspects of the story of the Yamato have been told previously on the big screen, notably in the appropriately titled Yamato from 2005 (if our usually correct database is to up to date, it looks like there's only been a German Blu-ray release, under the somewhat expanded title Yamato - The Last Battle). What sets The Great War of Archimedes apart from either other films about this particular ship or even war in general is that the film kind of almost audaciously concentrates on budgets and math. While the opening CGI laden vignette documenting the sinking of the Yamato in 1945 starts the film out on pretty standard action fare, kind of like a seaborn Saving Private Ryan, things quickly segue back over a decade to find the Japanese Navy starting to experiment with the then "newfangled" prospect of building aircraft carriers.

The film documents the fact that there were two competing schools of thought about where Japan's seagoing military muscle would be best developed. One side argued for "bigger and better" battleships that could compete with what was assumed was going to be an overwhelming American presence should war break out. The other side insisted that battleships were a thing of the past, or at least on their way to extinction, given the prevalence of air power that was beginning to dominate war strategies, and therefore aircraft carriers should be the way to go. A young student mathematician and Major named Tadashi Kai (Masaki Suda) is drawn into this conflict, and becomes a perhaps unwitting pawn in another kind of "war" that was brewing behind the scenes as Japan ramped up its Imperialistic ambitions.

Kai may be "on the spectrum", in contemporary verbiage, and his quirky character gives The Great War of Archimedes a distinctive flavor, but anyone coming to this film expecting a typical "war film" is probably going to be scratching his or her head, and not just with regard to some of the mathematical formulae Kai scribbles on various blackboards. He's tasked with proving that the budget for the Yamato has been deliberately jiggered to be more acceptably "reasonable", though there is a bit of chicanery at play even with regard to this assumed goal. Structurally, The Great War of Archimedes may have one major flaw in that its assumed "climax" takes place in a kind of board meeting of Japan's Admiralty where competing budgets and ideas for Japan's future warships are debated.

This is the kind of film where various real life historical characters are introduced with identifying labels, giving an imprimatur of authenticity to the proceedings, even if some elements of this tale, notably the character of Kai himself, seem to be more deliberately whimsical. There are some interesting sidebars that accrue that may fascinate armchair historians, and I in fact was kind of surprised to see what looked like a seaplane picking up an American pilot who had ditched his plane in the opening vignette set during the waning days of World War II. I'd frankly love to know if the American Navy actually utilized seaplanes to pick up survivors, as I had never known about this aspect of warfare previously.

Kind of ironically, only two Yamato class battleships were ever built, the Yamato and its sister ship the Musashi, which itself was sunk several months before the Yamato met its own watery fate. That irony extends to the fact that a third planned Yamato class battleship was in fact converted into an aircraft carrier named Shinano which was kind of incredibly also sunk almost immediately after it took to the sea.

The Great War of Archimedes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Great War of Archimedes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. I haven't been able to dredge up any authoritative technical data on the shoot, and the IMDb has virtually nothing to offer. There are both pluses and minuses to this presentation. Included in the plus category is the roll out of a spiffy new Well Go USA logo which is commendably free of the banding that the old logo used to display in many of the label's Blu-ray releases. On the minus side, what I'm assuming is the additional of digital grain to give this a more traditionally "filmic" appearance can often look on the noisy side, and the CGI is also often rather soft and hazy looking, as can perhaps be gleaned from some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. In terms of "practical" things like actual human faces and props and costumes, detail levels are typically very good to excellent. The palette is almost desaturated a lot of the time, emphasizing grays and blues, which perhaps makes brief moments like a sequence set in a geisha facility pop more by comparison.

The Great War of Archimedes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Great War of Archimedes features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks in either the original Japanese or an English dub (lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 mixes in both languages are also included). I toggled between the two tracks and didn't notice any huge differences in terms of overall mix or amplitude, but my recommendation is to stick with the Japanese track, since some of the English voice work has that hyperbolic aspect that can make things almost comical at times. The surround track starts out with veritable (anti aircraft) guns a-blazin', offering substantial engagement of the side and rear channels and also delivering some forceful bursts of LFE. The bulk of the film, though, is decidedly more "conversational", and as such surround activity can be more subtle, focusing mostly on ambient environmental effects. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, with no problems whatsoever. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Great War of Archimedes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (HD; 1:42)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the sole supplement has been authored to move on automatically to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

The Great War of Archimedes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans of certain Japanese franchises may be aware of offerings like Space Battleship Yamato, even if they're not completely cognizant of the fact that Yamato was a redolent name culled from actual history. This "behind the scenes" take on what supposedly happened in the creation of the "real" Yamato is perhaps fanciful, but it is at least offers a distinctive perspective on things. Video encounters a few hurdles along the way, but audio is generally fine, even if doesn't consistently sustain the energy of the film's opening moments, for those who are considering a purchase.