Chicks Dig Well-Written Robots: Metropolis

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!  I hope everyone had a nice and relaxing week so far cause I know I did (not!).  But now I’m back this week with a fresh new review on a film that I’m not entirely sure what to think.  This show on the review block is a film that I’ve wanted to see for well over two years now but never had the gumption to do so.  Well, I finally came around to watching it and… I don’t really know what to say besides disappointed.  And why’s that?  Well, sit back, relax, and enjoy this week’s review on Metropolis and find out.

The film is set in futuristic city of Metropolis, boasting as one of the biggest superpowers in the world.  The film itself opens on the unveiling of a giant skyscraper called the Ziggurat and we’re introduced to the man in charge of its construction and the film’s main villain the Red Duke.  The opening ceremony for the Ziggurat goes over well minus the one rogue robot who tries to protest the festivities but is later killed by Rock, Red Duke’s adopted son and leader of the Marduk Party, an anti-robot militia group.  Witnessing the attack were the film’s protagonists Shunsaku Bon- a PI- and his nephew Kenichi.  Both Japanese natives, the two are in Metropolis to find a scientist named Dr. Laughton, who is wanted for trafficking organs.  The two are not able to get help from the Metropolis police due to the impending celebrations going on, but they are able to get a robot to help assist.  The investigation leads them to the lower part of the city called Zone 1 where many of the poorer human citizens as well as most robots reside.  Meanwhile, it turns out that the Red Duke is very familiar with Dr. Laughton as he hired him to create an advanced robot that eerily resembles Red Duke’s dead daughter.  However, shortly after Duke leaves, Rock enters the doctor’s lab and later attacks him and destroys the lab believing that the robot is meant to succeed Red Duke.  Shunsaku and Kenichi arrive to the lab upon their robot’s intuition to find it aflame.  Shunsaku suggests that he and Kenichi investigate the area after they spot Laughton still alive and still inside.  Shunsaku is able to find Laughton but fails to rescue him, but does manage to take a notebook that the doctor encouraged him to take.  Kenichi, on the other hand, finds a mysterious girl-who turns out to be the robot Laughton was working on-and the two unwittingly become trapped in the chaos of the fire and get dropped to Zone 3, a sewage treatment area restricted to only robots.  Now separated, Shunsaku tries to find Kenichi while Kenichi and Tima, the robot, try to find Shunsaku with the help of a rogue sewage treatment robot.  On their way up to the higher levels of the city, they’re viciously chased down by Rock who decided to further investigate Laughton’s lab after being turned away from Red Duke shortly after reporting he destroyed the place and killed the inhabitants.  The chase goes on for quite some time until they meet up with a group of rebels living in Zone 1.  The group has been planning a revolt in response to the mistreatment and neglect they face from the government and the upper class citizens.  However, the revolution itself is being instigated by Metropolis’s president and aides.  Speaking of which…

On the topside of Metropolis, it is revealed that the Ziggurat is in fact a giant weapon when a test run is done to test a giant laser cannon that creates sun spots.  This results in all of the robots in the city going haywire and causing outbreaks of violence.  No one is fatally harmed in this bizarre event, but it causes concern amongst the people.  The government’s response to this is to create panic and distrust towards Red Duke, eventually overthrowing him (it should be noted that even though Red Duke doesn’t have any actual power in Metropolis, he is seen as a powerful figure and is often seen as a figurehead).  Meanwhile, Tima starts to learn more about the world around her and grow more attached to Kenichi as the revolt finally begins.  It’s quickly crushed off screen and results in many of the rebels being gravely injured and even sees Shunsaku’s robot get killed when trying to stop the revolt from escalating.  Traversing the remains of the failed revolution, Kenichi and Tima are reunited with Shunsaki, but the reunion is quickly interrupted by Rock who demands the two to hand over Tima.  But this gets interrupted by Red Duke who proceeds to strip Rock of his standing with the Marduks and takes Tima away to the Ziggurat.  Shunsaku is left to wander Zone 1 with no known whereabouts of Kenichi’s location.  As this is going, Tima is lured away from the Ziggurat by Rock and captured shortly after.  He nearly takes her apart but is saved by Shunsaku.  It is revealed after the rescue that the notebook he recovered in the fire had all the details about Tima’s construction and her connection to the Ziggurat as the main control for the weapon.  Shunsaku persuades her to track Kenichi’s location and successfully locates him back at the Ziggurat.  But on their way there to save him, the two are captured by Red Duke’s forces.

Everyone is returned to the Ziggurat’s highest floor and the Red Duke tries to bring his plans to fruition by having her attatched to a portion of the Ziggurat called the throne (no, really, that’s what it’s called), which allows her to control the entire weapon.   Tima hesitates however, asking Red Duke whether or not she’s human.  Kenichi is brought out during this time but is in questionable shape.  But then Rock makes one final attempt to take out Tima and gain favor with Red Duke.  Tima is shot, but Rock is also shot by a security guard.  With her parts now exposed, Tima realizes she is in fact a robot and goes insane, sitting on the throne and sending out a signal to all robots to rebel and kill humans.  Everyone but Kenichi escapes and Kenichi manages to pull her off the throne, but Tima is still corrupted by the throne’s influence.  As a final act, Rock casues the Ziggurat to self destruct, causing it to fall apart.  In the wake of the destruction and debris, Kenichi tries to save Tima from falling off of the crumbling Ziggurat, but ultimately fails.  In the aftermath, Kenichi discovers that several robots have gathered Tima’s remains and seemingly plan to reconstruct her.  The film ends with Kenichi deciding to stay in Metropolis while Shunsaku returns to Japan.

I had a lot of expectations for this film, so to say I expected to see great things from this film is pretty accurate.  In the end, I was, like I said at the beginning of the review, disappointed.  Overall, I give Metropolis a 7 out of ten rating.  Now before going into what I found disappointing in the film, I will say that the film overall is beautiful.  In regards of animation, it’s very well done.  It’s all very fluid, too, and that’s also considering there was a considerable amount of CGI in this.  I also loved the character design, which stays true to Osamo Tezuka’s original character design. After all, this film was loosely based on his manga series.   It was unique and kind of fun to look at.  There were also some pretty great themes present.  The film tries to address issues like the gap between the rich and the poor and that violence never resolves anything.  But note I used the word “try,” which brings me to the downsides.

While there are some great themes and discussions taking place in the movie, it’s all very muddled and rushed, like it was thrown in cause the creators needed something deep.  I went into this film expecting a great discussion on, again, the gap between the rich and the poor and that violence never resolves anything, plus adding what makes a human being for good measure.  What was overall disappointing was that the film really missed out on the opportunity to really expand on these issues.  And especially considering these are issues discussed in our world today, it would have been an anime classic had it done this right.  Though part of this problem comes from the fact that there is so much going on in this film that it’s almost hard to follow sometimes.  Heck, it took me three paragraphs to explain the plot!  If that doesn’t tell you how convoluted it is, I don’t know what will.  And finally, on a personal note, I felt like the film decided to focus less on certain things, but more closely on others.  Sometimes there were bits of conversation shot from so far away, you feel like you want to get closer to get in on the conversation.  And then you have those moments where Tima just stands there bathing in the sunlight and the film wastes no time doing close-ups.  So in other words, the film decided to focus on all the wrong things.  But with poorly discussed modern messages, a mess of a plot, and any kind of focus, there is still some entertainment to be had with this film.  So yeah, I say give it a watch!

So yeah, this film wasn’t anime’s answer to “This is America” like I thought it would be, but there’s robots and cute girls, so I say what the heck!  If you want to give it a go, it’s available wherever anime is sold!  And so ends this very long post!  Hopefully next week will be more jam-packed , cause I’ll be revisting a modern classic!  Stay tuned till then!

-Hanime on Anime

Metropolis Trailer