Last year's Your Name was a colossal hit that earned its success with some visually gorgeous spectacle, a cool "out there" sci-fi fantasy angle, and two lovebirds put in a unique method of falling in love.
Fireworks shoots for similar glory but aside from looking and sounding pretty, it's a real drag of a film that can't rev up its unoriginal concept or get its flip-flopping story to walk.
Norimichi is a young lad who hangs out with a group made pretty unlikeable from the get-go, placing bets where the loser must "sexually harass" their teacher - just for a laugh. If you find a reason to excuse that (poor subtitle translation job, maybe), there still isn't much else to the kid.
His main drive is his crush Nazuna, a schoolgirl going through some mildly tough parental issues. Though there's potential for romantic tension, it's cut down pretty early on in favour of a male wish-fulfilment first date where the girl dolls up with hair flicks and shiny slo-mo shots while the boy gawks. He has little interest in her troubles or - frankly - her personality.
There's a large "what if" aspect of the film that seems to comment on the choices we make and how that affects our future but these aren't choices based on human errors or moral decisions; they're banal moments such as winning a swimming race or catching a train. Such moments end up just halting and rewinding the story rather than growing the characters.
