This is the second of the two films based on the 2011 Hunter × Hunter anime, and by all accounts this is the one I should hate the most. Phantom Rouge, which I reviewed a few days ago, tried to emulate what the series did and failed in a non-spectacular, but still jarring way. The Last Mission clearly isn't trying to do what the series did with the shounen genre, but that I think that's why I like it more than I did Phantom Rouge. The Last Mission comes across like a fun B movie to me. The admittedly ridiculous story seems to mostly be anexcuse to spend time with some of our favorite characteres from the series. It helps that with the smaller scope on the personal drama, the writer is more easily able to keep the characters recognizable as he doesn't feel obligated to try to add any huge dramatic moments that potentially derail the characters, like having Killua attempt suicide. The writing is generally tighter, and none of the characters have any out-of-character moments. Gon and Killua are still fun to watch and both are actually portrayed as competent this time. Kurapika has a bit of an inner conflict about whether or not he's letting his lust for revenge consume him, which ties into both his characterization from the series and the themes of the movie. Leorio is slightly useful again, even if they decide to pretend he wasn't in the ending. The writer was also smart enough to have Hisoka hang around, but not get too involved in what was going on, which fits his character much better than what happened in Phantom Rouge, and he's way too overpowered to take a side anyways. Some other recognizable faces are also added. We get to meet Zushi again, now clearly more experienced and more beefed up. Despite the connection that they have, I think this is also the only time we've seen Wing and Biscuit together.
The one big problem in this regard, however, is that a lot of the characters are put on a bench for ridiculously huge amounts of time. Wing and and Biscuit remain trapped for the majority of the film, poor little Zushi is unconscious for most of it after having been manhandled by a particularly mean henchman and Leorio gets thrown into the sewers very early on and doesn't come back until an hour later. Kurapika also has a fight with a henchman that happens almost entirely offscreen. I really wanted to see some of them do a bit more, but I suspect there's a very specific reason why they don't, and that's so that the film can glorify Gon more, which is something I'll get back to later.
There are some neat ideas that do fit into the universe decently well. On, the counterpart to Nen used by the villains is a bit interesting as it allows its users to use powers from all of Nen's six types, but with much more severe conditions. Since giving your abilities strict conditions is something that makes them stronger in the series, this is thematically fitting. However, I do find the possibility of learning all Nen types questionable, since it requires very long and focused training just to learn one. It's been said it's very unlikely you'll ever be able be as good with a second type, so six seems a bit unrealistic, even with higher restrictions. But for a non-canon movie not made by the original creator, it's a bit clever. At least more so than anything from Phantom Rouge.
The animation is really good, especially in the action scenes. The fight Gon and Killua has with Gaki, (the particularly mean henchman who manhandled Zushi,) is worth the price of admition alone. The animation is smooth and fast-paced, with a lot Nen abilities being used, and it takes place in an elevator shaft with two moving elevators. It's creative and fun. I think the movie could have benefited from a more interesting setting than the Heaven's Arena, which seems to mostly consist of corridors and tight rooms. The film does make the most out of it, though, as it tries to show as many different rooms as possible, as well as have one fight scene take place on the roof, both the series and even Phantom Rouge had much more interesting environments.
Where the film fails is still in the story, however. It's not that there aren't some good ideas. The fact the Hunter association had a division that did the more questionable things they didn't want the public to know about, and that this division went so far that they had to banish it sounds about right for the Hunter association, which is already of rather questionable morality. This also shows us that the chairman Netero isn't as unquestionably good as you might initially believe, something that was also explored in the Chimera Ant arc in the series. The final flashback showing Netero and the main villain, Jed, as friends is also touching. But not much is really done with these themes.
One of the things that made Hunter × Hunter so brilliant, was the way it resolved conflicts. Very rarely was a story arc's conflict resolved through violence, despite the amount of fighting it had as a shounen series. Conflicts are usually resolved through compromises and the characters having to think outside the box. Despite the amount of action, you can't say Hunter × Hunter is just about the fighting, Yoshihiro Togashi almost always puts the story first. In The Last Mission, they have clearly tried to humanize the antagonists, much like the series did. But there still has to be a clear hero and villain, while the series was good at blurring the lines somewhat. The heroes were capable of terrible things, and the antagonists, despite the fact that they did horrible things, still managed to be understandable and human. I can that with the The Last Mission's main villain's henchmen, and their backstory is very sad, but they're just not much of a focus. Jed is, and Jed is not very interesting. He mostly just stands around monologuing.
The story structure in itself just isn't very interesting either. Most of the film is just different characters fighting their way through different parts of the building. I'm not going to say it's just about the action, as a lot of the fighting happens offscreen, but this structure just doesn't allow for a lot of interesting things to happen. The film goes into quite a bit of detail when it comes to the backstory, but it everything that happens in the present is just the usual shounen affair. Bad guys attack, good guys have to figure out a way to stop them, then there's a big fight towards the end, and the film doesn't present an interesting twist on any of these elements.
I mentioned earlier that this film really wants to glorify Gon as much as it can, and you really get a big disgusting taste of that in the climax. At first it looks like Netero is going to be the one to fight Jed and solve the film's conflict, which makes sense since this is essentially his fault to begin with, and it gives us an excuse to see his ridiculously awesome Nen abilities again, but then Gon interrupts solve the problem completely on his own. Even him making a pact with On right before doesn't have any consequences, and is easily undone through the power of friendship. This is jarring especially because the series made it clear that glorifying someone like Gon is not only ill-advised, but can also be very dangerous. I like Gon as a character, but in my opinion he's not a hero, and he doesn't save the day. In this film he's a hero and he saves the day, which doesn't feel right. It's the context of the story that made him interesting in the series, as he himself is very simple, and that's probably why he doesn't work in this film's very simple story. I don't think the film does itself any favors by throwing its much more complex characters to the sidelines either.
All in all, this film was good fun with great animation and entertaining characters, but it's still very jarring that both of the two films based on a series praised for deconstructing and playing around with the shounen genre and a lot of its archetypes just ends up playing well-known clichés straight. I'm not saying the series didn't play any clichés straight at all, but what it did with the shounen genre is truly unique, and these two films fail to represent that. I enjoyed The Last Mission quite a bit, and on its own, it's an alright movie, but I can't defend it as a good Hunter × Hunter film.
