Case Closed - The Movie: The Fourteenth Target (DVD, 2007)

i bought the Case Closed - The Movie: The Fourteenth Target (2007,DVD) for my son who has started a collection of DVD's for Case Closed.

My kids love this series on TV and have the books for it. We watched the movie adn enjoyed it very much. It is a fun series and it makes you think.

This movie is great, but if you love Case Closed then pretty much every CC video is great! My opinon is though that its not as good as the first movie, don't get me wrong this is still a great movie, but it's just about 2 in. under the first one :). Point is if you like Case Closed, you need to buy this movie!
And for the sake of answering the whole review critiria, I bought it because I like the show, simple as that.

The movie "Case Closed - The Fourteenth Target" has been touted as being an extend episode from the series, and this is definitely the case.

The mystery movie, though bumpy in parts, holds true to the very things that have made the series so popular. Like the series, it is filled with interesting characters, a covey of possible villains, clues galore, a few chase scenes, more than it's fair share of close calls for our heroes and a dash of humor.

It begins, after an opening dream sequence and proceeding series of flashbacks to explain the background to those who have not seen the series, with Rachel, Conan and Richard meeting Rachel's mother for a dinner during which we then begin to meet the many people who will eventually end up as either victim, suspect or both.

Afterall, this is Case Closed and no matter what Richard and the police think, you know from almost the very beginning that the villain will not turn out to be the person that they believe it is initially.

The opening general background flashback scenes, complete with a list of Conan's gadgets and how they work/what they do, do last a touch longer than necessary, given that most people who will watch this movie have already seen the series and will have a good idea of what has already happened and those that haven't seen the series and like the movie will hopefully go back to watch the series.

As for the explanation of the gadgets, references to those could have been placed sereptisiously into other moments of the movie without disturbing the flow, giving the movie a more movie-like feel and smoothness to it.

Though the other flashbacks in the movie do require a good deal of insight into the character of Richard Moore and just why he left the police force in the first place. They also provide a nice filler and give Rachel the chance to question the only man, other than Jimmy Kudo, that she has ever truly trusted and relied on, leaving her to wonder just what the real reason for her mother's leaving was.

Although some scenes do provide a touch more of the ability to suspend ones disbelief than the series normally does. In this case it is the work of the ultimate "God's Hand" in having Rachel suddenly start to recall a traumatic event from her childhood just as the mystery begins to unfold, so that Conan/Jimmy can use the knowledge gained from that memory to save her life later in the movie when it would make much more sense if the action of Conan saving her had been what triggered the long repressed memory.

The plot itself works though. A killer on the lose who appears to choose victims based on the ace through king (or more specifically the numbers 1-13) of spades from a deck of cards, counting down from 13 with none other than Jimmy Kudo as the would be Ace. A small fact that is never satisfactorily explained. And although the original plot device of having each name of the victims have a corresponding number to the lethal 13 digits was lost in the translation (and subsequent Americanization of all the characters names), they do manage a decent job of covering it up and getting their correspondences with the numbers through other means.

Still, from beginning to end, this movie is a fun romp that keeps up the pace of the series and those that are true fans of the series will be hard pressed to truly dislike this film.