I have to say I'm against remakes, unless they do something clever and bring us something new, and the thought of remaking cult films which have such a big audience already hurts even more, so the idea of a remake of the cult animé Akira seems crazy, but it's happening and it's going to be live action too.

Leonardo DiCaprio is producing, and may even star as a slightly older Kaneda character, and the location is moved to America too, there are a few changes but reading the script review I really don't think there's enough to justify remaking it, but...

The most interesting part of it all is that the location for the new Akira will be New York, however it's New York with a twist. The island is destroyed and the US economy collapses, therefore the huge economic might of Japan buys up the deserted island and builds New Tokyo where the film takes place.

Now that sounds an interesting take on the old Akira, however it's just a location. When you read the rest of the script review all you'll see that the story is exactly the same as before, it doesn't really seem that there's anything different. So what does this remake promise to bring us that's different?

Well there's the location change, it's live action, and...well...and...that seems to be about it really.

You can read the first part of the script review over at Latino Review through Jo Blo, and I find it really rather disappointing. Sure there's going to be some amazing effects, but it's going to be a live action remake with a location change. What's truly different about that?

For those of you who don't know, the story is about a huge disaster which devastates a big city, the real reason of the disaster is kept secret, the government has been developing a small boy with incredible psychic powers who's power becomes huge and uncontrollable. So they have to lock him up and put him into a coma in an underground facility.

Later on in time, around the ruins of the big new city that has been built in place of the previous one, are two friends who are members of a biker gang. While one of the boys becomes involved in a resistance movement trying to destroy the psychic research program, the other strangely develops psychic powers, powers which are growing and growing and threatening to go out of control as they did once before.

The government find out about him and are locked in a battle to either lock him up forever or use him in a new weapons program. It's all up to the resistance now to save him, or is there someone else that can help tame his power before it's too late for the city?

That's a quick and less complicated review of the plot for you, but I'd recommend seeing the original, especially if you like animé then you should watch this film. What's interesting is that I do think the original is a bit messy in its telling of the story, and it could be made better, but I just don't see why unless you're going to really bring something new, and I don't mean location and live action...that said, you know it's going to be a visual feast.

Where do you stand on this?