Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare opens on a heist at some police facility. A criminal spy has managed to steal information regarding undercover agents in the Black Organization. A chase ensues but the spy escapes. The film cuts ahead to master-detective-stuck-in-a-child’s-body Conan Edogawa and his friends visiting an aquarium. There, they run into a mysterious woman with retrograde amnesia. They decide to help her out, and as they spend more time with her, it becomes clear that this isn’t just any woman. She is in fact, a high-ranking member of the criminal Black Organization.
The film is heavy on series lore, so immediately people who are not familiar with Detective Conan should probably stay away. It doesn’t even really adopt the standard format of a Detective Conan story. There isn’t even really a mystery for Conan and his friends to work. This is really more about furthering the conflict between Conan and the criminal organization responsible for poisoning him and turning him into a child. Taken on those parameters, the film is still pretty mediocre. There’s a lot of action, but the story just doesn’t hold up.
The thing is, the film doesn’t really push the series narrative forward. This story isn’t really even about any of the main characters that fans may already care about. It introduces a new character, and wants the audience to invest emotionally in that’s character’s struggle. This is a pretty tough thing to do, especially in a series that already has a lot of characters. And the film doesn’t really earn the sympathy that it wants for this character. With so much of this character’s past kept a secret for most of the film, it becomes difficult to connect emotionally.
This film is basically an action movie in the end. It doesn’t really have Conan using his wits to figure stuff out. It places a lot more focus on secondary characters that get to wield guns and drive cars and fight. It also kind of feels like the whole film was basically designed around its final set piece, the narrative going to absurd lengths to integrate a particular location into the story. Retrograde amnesia is a pretty bad story device in almost any context. Here it’s taken to absurd lengths with an element that even in a series about a detective transformed into a boy, strains credulity.
Having said that, the action sequences are actually pretty good. The initial car chase is genuinely thrilling, and the climactic battle is actually kind of tense. I’m not sure it’s exactly what fans are looking for from a Detective Conan movie, but these sequences are well thought out and smartly animated. Detective Conan has a pretty simple art style that really lends itself to clean, easy-to-follow action sequences, and the filmmakers take full advantage.
In the end, though, Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare still feels like a slog. The more the film reveals about the lore of the series, the worse it actually gets. The Black Organization while important to the series has always been its weakest element. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and it introduces all sorts of elements that make even less sense. Every time they’re around, the attention shifts from Conan and his ability to solve mysteries. If the film was really willing to push the story forward, to make substantial changes to the series status quo, then it might have been worth it. But that’s not what happened here.
My Rating:
