Metropolis

100 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
04/23/2002

Back To M Listings

Thanksgiving was about as sweet as one would expect it to be. Our own "Extraneous Thanksgiving" went off without a hitch. All the good food of my favorite holiday without having to deal with stupid family and whatever else gets in the way. It's a shame we never got to eat the pies because they had to cool for two hours and we ruined the turkey baster by letting it sit on the stove (thanks Andrew). Other than that, Thanksgiving was outstanding. I just can't wait until Christmas. Honey baked ham, anyone? Say what you will about guys who cook, but I'm not the one scarfing down Top Ramen by the boxful.** I'd invite you good people over for one of our racous festivals, but I honestly don't want to meet any of you. Ever. Unless you're hot... then I'd be down.

I think pretty much anyone who reads this site knows what a strange relationship I have with robots. On the one hand, I love them. Without such robots I wouldn't be brought what little enjoyment anime gives me. Without robots we'd have no cool robot theme songs from the 70's. And without robots all my dreams would be kept exclusively to killing vampires or zombies, and let me tell you... wasting the undead is all well and good but sometimes you need the satisfaction of busting up a rampaging metal man. Onimusha 2 understood this. Too bad the game was bogged down with so much stupid crap it was almost unplayable. I can't believe that game sucked so much.

Conversely, Metropolis doesn't suck one bit. Word on the street is that I stole the plot for my up and coming "graphic novel" from this movie. I don't think I can exactly be blamed for that considering I had no idea that the movie was about robots until, like, last month. Plus, my crap isn't set in some nebulous 20's era. Not that that's a bad thing! If there's one thing Metropolis has going for it it's style. This thing has so much style it's got shit to spare. It practically throws it at you and you'll find yourself begging for more. But it won't give it to you, because Metropolis is a cruel master and you're just a little wane bitch. Aren't you?

I know, in the scope of this movie, I am. In fact, I think we really all are. We can't possibly hope to even deserve to watch something so magnificent. The last scene was just about the best thing I've ever seen in my life, and I'm not gonna say it wasn't because of the "inappropriate music over action" that I love so dearly. Finally someone shares my view of things!

...or did they steal it from me...? Those sons of bitches!

But I'm willing to forgive it, because they've got an old guy detective who both wears a fedora and kicks ass on a regular basis. He beats the crap out of a kid after getting shot in the arm! If that's not hard-core I don't know what is. Him and his buddy 803DRPDM4973C (nickname : Pero) are on the case to find some renegade doctor that's busy making evil robots to enslave the world. Something like that. Of course, that plot point gets resolved in about fifteen minutes and you're left wondering where the rest of the movie is going to take you.

The answer is : everywhere. At its roots, the plot isn't all that original. "Evil company man makes giant machine to enslave world" ain't really the most revolutionary material. But the execution is basically flawless. I don't know why, but I found myself drawn to the outlandish character designs. The director knows damn well what he's doing, because he uses them to display the violence in this weird mix between realistic and cartoonish. I can honestly say this is the best portrayal of violence I have ever seen in my life. The total lack of blood is so fetching that it's kind of scary. I keep replaying the scene of a character getting riddled with bullets and slumping over without a drop of that crimson liqueur on him. I don't know if that's because I like it so much, or if I'm going insane. Either way, Metropolis = Winner!

I'm pissed off that it took me so long to see this because it really is that good. This is one of those rays of hope that you see and you're like "Hey, someone decided that anime needed a break from violence so graphic it's practically pornography and underaged girls hitting men while screaming 'Pervert!'". I'd love to shake the hands of the people that put this together but I'm afraid that I'd unintentionally break their girlish Japanese bones and then they'd never make another movie.

Not that anything I've seen in the past year, nor expect to see anytime soon, can rival the beauty of Metropolis. While I can't say I like this better than 2040, I will say that I like it "more". 2040 has all the things I like, but it's not out there to make a statement or even try to be anything more than something that was shown on TV. 2040 is like what Full House is to us, except it's really good. Metropolis is this ground breaking, social commentary crazy aspect. It's like freakin' Amadeus.

So, rock me Amadeus.

**Damn right I'm not. I did that two years ago.