Movie Review Metropolis

Metropolis (2001) 

Directed by Rintaro 

Written by Katsuhiro Otomo 

Starring Yuka Imoto, Kosei Tomita, Nono Wakamoto, Toshio Furukawa 

Release Date May 26th, 2001 

Published February 2nd, 2002 

I must admit I am not the most qualified person to critique Japanese anime. My only previous exposure to this art form is channel surfing past those god-awful Pokemon cartoons. Nonetheless, at the urging of my hero Roger Ebert, I rented the DVD Metropolis.

Metropolis, based on 60's the Japanese sci-fi comic book series by Osamu Tezuka, is the story of a futuristic city where humans and robots coexist albeit with robots in subservient roles not unlike slaves. Into the future city comes a detective and his nephew searching for a mad scientist accused of using human organs to create human-robot cyborgs. The scientist, named Laughton, is in the employ of the evil Duke Red who has paid Laughton to create a human robot in the image of his late daughter. 

The robot, named Tima, will not merely replace the Duke's late daughter, but also be used as a weapon to take over the world. The Duke’s plan goes awry when his jealous, adopted son Rock kills Laughton and attempts to destroy Tima. The detective’s nephew, Kenichi, saves Tima and they begin a journey wherein Tima begins to learn who she is while falling in love with Kenichi and vice versa. The real star of Metropolis is its awe inspiring animation which combines classic 2D cell animated characters with CGI backgrounds. They are absolutely breathtaking, even on DVD.

For years, Americans have had a bias against animation, relegating it to a genre only for kids. In Japan however, people are more open-minded to animation as an adult medium with film’s like Metropolis and Tezuka's previously adapted Astro Boy series. In America, the few attempts at adult oriented animation such as the recent Titan AE and Final Fantasy were colossal failures financially despite being artistic achievements. In fact, the last time an adult oriented cartoon was successful, it was the early 70's porno cartoon Fritz The Cat. Not exactly animation as art.

America's animation bias is likely to doom Metropolis to a long sit on video store shelves and that is a shame because, in my opinion, it is the most striking animated feature I have ever seen.