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Metropolis Movie Review

Metropolis is a 2001 anime science fiction film directed by Rintaro. It’s a technically intriguing, but otherwise flawed effort.

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“Well, if you are a human,

who’s your father?“

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Shunsaku, a private investigator, and his nephew Kenichi discover a sinister plan which threatens humanity while apprehending a mad scientist accused of human trafficking. This movie was actually based on a 1949 eponymous manga written by Osamu Tezuka. So, it’s much more concerned with that manga than the original 1927 classic of the same name. It includes some elements of it, but it’s mostly its own thing, so calling it a remake is questionable.

The story itself is the main problem here. It’s just not that special and it’s far from memorable in any shape or form. The first half is quite intriguing and it sets up its world stupendously, but the second half became this tiresome man versus robot plot that had its moments, but for the most part the film is far from thematically complex, certainly far from the original’s glory.

The character development also should have been better, though it’s not bad, but it is far from terrific. Kenichi is a very endearing protagonist and I really liked Tima too. Their relationship is excellent and so sweet. But the other robots are unfortunately forgettable and Duke Red himself is a fine villain, but he should have been better realized and better explored in motifs.

Let’s talk about the animation. Metropolis is surprisingly weak in terms of character design. The characters look rather dated and static here, and it’s even more noticeable against the amazing backgrounds. Yes, the background work here is truly remarkable. The movie’s world building is fantastic and that is mostly due to fantastic architecture, many great visual moments and in particular a greatly utilized yellow color and superbly animated buildings.

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Metropolis features many stunning places beautifully rendered, and those made me reminisce about the original so potently. The same goes for the score, which is fantastic. I loved the utilization of old-fashioned musical numbers from 20s up until  the sixties as they perfectly fitted this particular world. Technically, the movie is great. The direction from Rintaro is strong, the dialogue is good and some of the action is terrific, but the emotional connection is lacking and the pacing is problematic.

Although very rough in character designs, Metropolis otherwise features fantastic animation, especially when it comes to stupendous architecture, an interesting color palette and it is overall quite polished. The old-fashioned score is also wonderful, and the film has great direction and dialogue. However, the emotional connection is non-existent, the characters are just solid, and the story is far from memorable and never as thematically complex as the original 1927 classic upon which this one is only loosely based on.

My Rating – 3.5

You can get Metropolis on Amazon.