Metoroporisu [Metropolis] (26 May 2006)
directed by Taro Rin
starring Yuka Imoto, Kei Kobayashi, Kouki Okada, Kousei Tomita, Toshio Furukawa, Tarô Ishida, Junpei Takiguchi
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MPAA rating: Studio: Bandai Visual, Destination Films, Mad House, Studio 4°C Script: Katsuhiro Otomo Based on the book by: Osamu Tezuka Music: Toshiyuki Honda Running time: 108 minutes Tags: Animation; Anime; comic-book adaptation; detectives; Foreign Film; murder; robots; Science Fiction Tactical strength: [7/10]
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for violence and images of destruction
Osamu Tezuka drew the original Metropolis manga back in the 1950s. While alive, he would not release the rights to produce a movie version of Metropolis. After Tezuka's death, director Taro Rin secured the rights to Metropolis and engaged Katsuhiro Otomo to write the screenplay. According to a special feature interview, Rin believes Tezuka looked at his early works as somewhat undeveloped and incomplete and thus didn't want to have those works made into anime features. Rin says that he really liked the human-robot conflicts in Metropolis and really wanted to make a feature-length film based on Tezuka's original manga.
Metropolis takes place in the near future where robots do many of the mundane human chores, which should have created wealth and abundance for humans. Instead, the robot workers seem to have furthered the divide between the haves and have-nots. In the city of Metropolis, Duke Red (voice by Tarô Ishida) has just completed construction of the Ziggurat, which he claims demonstrates the technical and scientific superiority of the city over the rest of the world. Of course, just about everyone has ulterior motives. Duke Red wants to use the Ziggurat to establish dictatorial rule over the planet, but he seems to not want to rule himself. Rather, he wants to install a robot, Tima (voice by Yuka Imoto), on the Ziggurat's throne believing that an impassionate robot will -- with full control of the world's military forces -- lead humanity peacefully into the future.
On the day Duke Red announces the completion of the Ziggurat, Japanese detective Shinsaku Ban (voice by Kousei Tomita) arrives in Metropolis with his young nephew Kenichi (voice by Kei Kobayashi). The detective has orders to investigate Dr. Laughton (voice by Junpei Takiguchi) for human rights violations and in harvesting and trading in human organs. It turns out that Duke Red has hired Dr. Laughton to create the robot Tima and model her after the Duke's dead daughter.
In yet another plot line, the Duke has an adopted son, Rock (voice by Kouki Okada), who leads a militant anti-robot group called the Maldukes. Rock doesn't understand the Duke's motivation for creating Tima and wants to destroy Tima. Rock shoots Dr. Laughton and tries to shoot Tima, but he only manages to set the lab on fire. Kenichi sees Tima moving in the flames and enters the flames to rescue her. For the remainder of the movie, Duke Red and Rock pursue Tima and Kenichi, each for his own reasons.
For the most part, the characters retain the look Tezuka gave them in the original 1950s manga: big stubby feet and arms and goofy, exaggerated features on the bad guys. I find this particular style of drawing distracting, especially when you see the cell-drawn characters overlaid on pristine all-digital backgrounds. Imagine the incongruence of watching Popeye perform on the sets of The Incredibles. The discontinuity of the comic characters on a digital background gets intensified when at one point we hear Ray Charles's version of "I Can't Stop Loving You" accompanying scenes of mass destruction. Except for this one song, I found the soundtrack interesting and a good supplement to the emotion of the individual scenes.
Metropolis keeps your interest and keeps revealing multiple layers of character motivation and intrigue. In spite of the distracting character animation, I still found Metropolis well paced and interesting overall.
