Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? Yes.
Should you watch this more than once? Nah.
Score: 4.0/5
Secret ending? Not really, but the credits are interesting to watch.
Running time: 118 minutes (~2 hours)
“Assassination Classroom 2,” also known as “Assassination Classroom: Graduation,” is an action comedy based on the manga of the same name, and the sequel to last year’s “Assassination Classroom.” An unkillable teacher teaches the art of assassination to a class of failures, with the ultimate aim of getting them to assassinate him. It stars Ryosuke Yamada (Nagisa Shiota), Kazunari Ninomiya (Koro-Sensei/UT, both voice and live actor), Masaki Suda (Karma Akabane), Mirei Kiritani (Aguri Yukimura), Seika Taketomi (Rio Nakamura), Mio Yuki (Yukiko Kanzaki), Miku Uehara (Manami Okuda), Kanna Hashimoto (Ritsu), Seishiro Kato (Itona Horibe), Kang Ji-young (Irina Jelavic), Hiroki Narimiya (Kotaro Yanagisawa), Kippei Shinra (Tadaomi Karasuma), and Tsuyoshi Abe (Red Eye). It is rated PG.
While the first “Assassination Classroom” was more like a collection of anecdotes from the titular classroom, “Assassination Classroom 2” has a stronger narrative focus that leads to a definite end point. It’s this tighter storytelling that makes the sequel more impactful, as well as concentrating only on the major protagonists rather than the entire ensemble cast. Amusingly, “Assassination Classroom 2” suffers from the same issues with its antagonists that plagued the first film too.
Highlights
Stronger roles for the protagonists
Nagisa (Ryosuke Yamada) is much more proactive and confident in this film. The comparison between both films is inevitable, but Nagisa shows the biggest character growth across both movies, demonstrating why he’s the top student in Koro-sensei’s (Kazunari Ninomiya) class. As for Koro-sensei, he’s humanised a lot more in this film, giving us a reason to empathise with both the students and the teacher.
Students get their moment of awesome
All that training over the past few films finally pays off in the climax for “Assassination Classroom 2,” where the students get to strut their stuff against an enemy that’s suitably multitudinous and powerful. Given that we haven’t really seen the students show their competency before this conflict (it’s mostly Koro-sensei doing the fighting), it really pays off because we see just how skilled and deadly they are as assassins. It doesn’t just represent the students’ accomplishments, but Koro-sensei’s success in teaching them as well.
Koro-sensei/UT’s back story
Without giving away too much of his background, Koro-sensei’s tragic origin story is grounded in love. While his motivations might have been alien to us in the previous film, with only a hint of what really happened, it’s here that we learn that Koro-sensei is just as human, if not more, than the rest of the characters. He may be inhumanly powerful, but it’s his human emotions that enable him to persevere to the end.
Touching quirkiness
“Assassination Classroom 2” retains the quirkiness of the first film, but this time it’s more grounded in character. The teachers might be over the top in their silliness and the students might be downright weird, but in the end, it’s all for a greater purpose. It’s done for laughs and for tears, going against the usual depiction of such quirkiness.
Letdown
Final opponent is disappointing
“Assassination Classroom 2” is a finale well worth watching.
“Assassination Classroom 2” opens in cinemas 28 April, 2016 (Thursday).
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