With Bayo3 just being released on Nintendo Switch, I decided to replay the games and ended up watching this as well.
If you've played Bayonetta, this feels a love letter to the game that faithfully adheres to the original source material (mostly). Some creative liberties are taken (Luka's car getting trashed instead of Enzo's, hotel scene addition, etc.) which is fine, but everything from the scenes, wardrobe, character/villain design, vehicles/buildings, weapons, finisher moves, and dialogue (there's a plethora of verbatim dialogue straight from the game) are faithfully representative of original source material if not directly taken from it.
The movie is a little condensed with some original scenes missing, but mind you this is a movie based on a video game where the story is definitely not it's strong suit. Fans play the Bayonetta series, because it's historically one of if not the best hack-n-slash games series ever/currently made with top tier battle mechanics; not because of the gripping backstory. This movie does a respectable job portraying Bayonetta and her quest given how little they had to work with and how absolutely ridiculous and over-the-top the story of Bayonetta is - with that made something decently entertaining with high quality animation. While some fans argue that this film doesn't capture Bayonetta's struggle to uncover the truth and thus feel uninvested, that is simply because the viewer isn't investing 10's of hours of gameplay battling insane monsters/angels to progress through the story. You are absolutely not going to get the same feeling watching a movie comprised of cut scenes and condensed action sequences vs 20+ hours of dedicated gameplay - and that's okay.
As a fan with prior exposure to the game, I enjoyed this. If you're walking in this with zero exposure, I don't doubt you'll think, "Wow, this is rushed... Okay, that's a bit over-the-top... Psh, that's ridiculous and would never happen... Wow, this is so cheesy and cringe... Clearly a lot of fan service here... Okay, what is even going on?!" Yeah, try playing the video game, because the original source material is literally JUST like this but dialed up to 100. This movie is like a cup of strong coffee, while the game is more a central line IV of a 5-hour energy, Red-bull cocktail.
That being said, the story is mediocre, because the original story is mediocre. If you have no prior exposure, I doubt this will be highly enjoyable. But with a mediocre story (5/10), very high quality animation, and faithful representation of the source material; my honest review would be a (6/10) as someone who has played the series. With no prior exposure, I can understand a lower review score.
As a final aside to the negative comments on the English voice acting (I genuinely laughed at this comment) - those are literally all the original voice actors from the game, Bayonetta. That's how faithful and representative this adaptation is to the game. The non-English voice cast is so this movie can be enjoyed in another language without subtitles.
Hellena Taylor is literally thee Bayonetta lol
Now please, do yourself a favor and go play any of the Bayonetta games.
Witches be trippin.
