A good while back, I did a review of an anime called Cells At Work! I thought it was a very good anime and actually pretty educational. I learned a few things about how the human body works and I had a good time doing it. So, when I learned they were making a live-action version of Cell At Work!, I wanted to go see it but, for one reason or another, I wasn’t able to see it when it was released in theaters.

Thankfully, Netflix acquired the distribution rights to the movie and I just watched it a couple of nights ago. And I do have to say, this wasn’t exactly what I was expecting as it’s both faithful to the animes as well as taking some liberties to the original story… but in a good way.

By the way, even though the movie has been out on Netflix for a good while now in the Philippines, I’m not really sure if been made available in all territories. So, I will be making this a SPOILER FREE review just to be on the safe side. So, yeah. SPOILER FREE review!

Anyway, the live-action Cells At Work! movie is actually a kind of combination of the original Cells At Work! anime as well as Cells At Work! Code Black! This is done by featuring a family of two. The first is the young daughter, who is generally healthy and shows how a perfectly functioning body handles things like bacteria and scraped knees. The second is her well-meaning father who drinks a lot, smokes and has a habit of chowing down on junk food. This shows a portion of what happened in the Code Black! anime and how the body kind of falls into disrepair when you don’t take care of it.

So far, everything does feel similar but that only lasts for around half of the film’s 111-minute runtime. The next half is totally new territory as something catastrophic happens leading to one of the family members experiencing a major health crisis and it’s possible that, no matter how hard the cells do work, it may not be enough for the body to survive.

The acting in Cells At Work! can come off as a little over-the-top and almost comes off like everyone is performing in a school play. But, for the scenes involving the inner workings of the body, it works. After all, you’re seeing anthropomorphic versions of Red Blood Cells, White Blood Cells, Platelets and even the walls of a colon (yes, really!). So having them all behave in fantastical ways enables you to separate from the “real” world and the world inside your body. I also do love how they transitioned from the more bloody battles and action scenes from the animes and made them more like shaolin martial arts action sequences. While there is some bloody moments here, it’s much more subdued here.

I was worried about the addition of the human characters as this is something that I felt wasn’t necessary based on the animes. However, the movie does make them an important part and their performances do come off as much more “realistic” rather than the more cartoony acting done for the “inside” world. At the very least, the daughter character and the senpai character behave more like normal people. On the other hand, the father character does behave a little more cartoony during the first half of the film. By the second half, when we get to the major health crisis, he actually starts behaving less like a caricature and more like a, well, a person.

While I was hesitant with this addition, I do have to say, after a while, I did find myself getting attached to them. And that’s actually important as you have to get invested with what happens to them, the humans, when the crisis strikes.

What I will say is, while I was surprised at how well they made me attached to the human characters, I was mostly here for the titular cells at work. So, I was more focused on their trials and tribulations. After all, I came into this live-action adaptation because I watched Cells At Work! and Code Black! So, it is kind of sad that the real stars of the movie kind of feel like more secondary characters in the grand scheme of things.

As I mentioned earlier, the first half of the Cells At Work! live-action movie takes a lot of cues from the source material. They do add show off a new cell job, endorphins, but that’s essentially the only original thing from the first half of the movie. The second half, however, is a totally new story. While it borrows from one of the story arcs from the anime, the crisis here is much scarier and more dire. It’s so dire I think some people may have issues with it as the first half is incredibly chipper and happy but then dials the seriousness all the way up quickly. There is some tonal whiplash but, if you keep an open mind, you might like it as much as I did.

Another issue I feel is the ending. As this is a SPOILER FREE review, I can’t give any details on it but it feels more melancholy but hopeful at the same time. And, once again, the original Cells At Work anime had a pretty happy ending. Heck, even Code Black, with its more darker setting had a happier ending than this film when all things are considered! I mention this because a part of me simply didn’t like the way the movie ended. It was told in a good way and, intellectually, I understand why they told this story. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

But I guess the most pertinent question is if the live-action Cells At Work! movie does justice to the anime. I do think it is. I didn’t expect to be fully invested in all of the characters, including the human ones. Despite my strong distaste for how it ended, I do think it works for what it was going for. If you liked the both Cells At Work! and Cells At Work! Code Black!, you do owe it to yourself to see this. Even if you didn’t see the anime, I do think it’s a good enough movie and, like with the anime, you might actually learn a thing or two about the human body.

Have you seen the live-action Cells At Work! movie? How does it compare to the animes? Let me know in the comments section below!