Title:  G-Saviour: The Movie
Distributor:  Bandai Entertainment
Reviewer:  Agent 760
Media Reviewed:  DVD
Type:  Live-Action Movie
Grade:  C-

To commemorate 20 years of Gundam in Japan, the folks at Sunrise and Bandai put together a movie that would recognize the existence of this mecha giant and called it "G-Saviour: The Movie." This was Gundam's crossover from anime realm into the live-action realm and feature the popular gundam that otaku everywhere have come to know and love... Boy were we in for a surprise.

"G-Saviour" featured a hefty amount of CG, but does not delve heavily into the conflicts between the Federation and the Zion Empire like conventional Gundam stories. It does, however, offer a stand-alone storyline that doesn't require newbies to fully understand the entire Gundam series.

The basic plot behind "G-Saviour" revolves around rig operator Mark Curran, a former military officer who left the services for reasons that we will learn later in the movie. When asked to investigate a recent break in to Curran's undersea rig, he meets a prisoner named Cynthia ?, who was captured in the break-in. She convinces Curran to help her find some missing research that was part of an experiment that she was working on with a researcher on Curran's rig. The story continues from that point, leading to an adventure of a lifetime.

G-Saviour plays out like the Power Rangers movies of the mid-1990's, with limited sightings of the mechs that make the series famous. What we do see of the Gundam, or G-Saviour as it is referred to in the movie, is a computer-generated Gundam in battle sequences similar to those seen in domestic shows like "Beast Wars." The story itself plays out like Indiana Jones in outer space, with a side of war thrown in to keep the story unique. The musical score used in the movie is almost synonymous to the space frontier exploration style as heard in popular sci-fi shows, so there aren't any memorable tunes to compel someone to pick up the soundtrack. 

In terms of G-Saviour's release on DVD, the movie is available with a Japanese dub and no subtitling whatsoever, since the movie involves English-speaking actors. The acting in the movie is not bad and the characters are predictable with good guys you like and bad guys you hate.

Overall, G-Saviour is a movie that's great to see once, but to someone who will collect anything that's Gundam-related, check this out and draw your own conclusions.

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