This is a movie I really, REALLY wanted to love, but couldn't. The story is more or less lifted directly from the manga, which is great, but I have to admit that the choices for the actors--their look in particular--just left me sort of scratching my head the whole way through. "Why isn't Takenouchi bald? Why doesn't Hayashida have a mohawk? Why couldn't they just hire some big American wrestler to play Freddie? Why a goatee?!" Those were questions I couldn't stop thinking about the whole time and it took away from the experience. I kept thinking "are these guys so famous that they couldn't possibly shave their heads for one movie?" Oh, and Takenochi is the oldest first year student I've ever seen!

Good points: Spot on casting choice for Kamiyama, Mechazawa looks very good, Maeda was well casted, some very accurate scenes imitating the manga.

Bad points: Mechazawa's [in my opinion unnecessary] string of profanity in one scene, "interesting" and distracting casting choices, horribly low budget Gori and Lla scenes.

If you're a fan of the series, you should definitely check this out. But, as in my case, don't get your hopes up too high and you'll be fine. I liked it, but didn't love it.

As a fan of these nonsense humor films/books, I'd highly recommend "Battlefield Baseball", also sold here at HKFlix.com. Now THAT is a movie I loved!