Metropolis

The city of Metropolis stand as the pinnacle of human scientific achievement, where the worlds greatest minds live alongside sentient machines.  Sunsaku Ban and his nephew, Kenichi, have come to this majestic place to track down a rogue scientist involved in human trafficking.  It should be a simple case but it spirals into a conspiracy resting at the heart of the city itself.  Kenichi saves a girl from a laboratory fire named Tima and suddenly finds himself hunted by the elite guard of Metropolis.  Who is Tima and why is she so special to Metropolis’ leader, Duke Red?  What is the deadly secret of the Zigguraut?  The future has been born in Metropolis, but it could also be the setting where Mankinds end begins.

Directed by Rintaro (Galaxy Express 999), written by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) and based on the manga by Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy) inspired by the 1920’s legendary scifi film by Fritz Lang…Metropolis has some serious pedigree behind its creation.  With all these working parts and all of this inspiration, how does it all come together?  For the most part, pretty good.  It’s rough around the edges in certain places but at the same time, Metropolis feels like one of the most important films in Anime, alongside Akira and Spirited Away.

A number of things hit you right away from the first couple of minutes alone: the mix of 2D and 3D animation, the cutesy character designs, the 1920’s style music.  With fireworks, cheering crowds and fanfare of trumpets, it’s as much a celebration of a towering new achievement as it is the artstyle and genius of Osamu Tezuka himself.  The man is regarded as the “Godfather of Japanese Anime” giving us some of Anime’s first classics like Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion.  Without him, the medium wouldn’t exist or be nearly as popular as it is today.  It feels right to take a moment to appretiate that before the movie gets going.

The tone and editing of the movie can be a little erratic at times.  The movie does take a number of dark turns and it is disturbing to see characters drawn like Kenichi, Tima and Rock becoming involved in the shooting of robots.  This isn’t a kids film by a long shot.  This is sold on the coldblooded scene where the ruthless Rock executes an adorable trash robot who is trying to protect Kenichi and Tima.  It’s this kind of dark shift that gives Metropolis a bit of a Blade Runner feel, besides the fact that there’s a murder mystery involved regarding a next gen rogue robot (who has no idea they even are a robot) and a detective scowering a jam packed city for clues.  Metropolis is as much classic scifi anime as it is film noir and political thriller rolled into one.  Sometimes that doesn’t mesh totally well.  The political side and undercurrent of revolution seem important when theyre brought up be never really go anywhere, same with the characters who are involved in those scenes as they’re taken off the board without much after thought.

At the heart of this movie are four incredibly memorable characters.  Kenichi is the wide eyed optimist who falls in love with a girl who is easy to fall for with her innocence and naiveite.  That girl is Tima, who’s mystery is solved in the first five minutes for the audience but Kenichi and Sunsaku much solve for themselves.  Much like my favorite movie, Blade Runner, Tima is trying to figure out what exactly about her is real and what is artificial and watching how she deals with it all is compelling.  Sunsaku is the MVP of the film.  He may look like bumbling comic relief but he’s an ace detective and knows when to throwdown (the scene where he beats the crap out of Rock is probably the best scene of the movie).  As for Rock himself, there’s a lot of posturing to his character but some purpose with it.  He’s an orphan adopted by Duke Red and it doesn’t feel like Red’s been the best dad to him (for reasons explained throughout the film).  Rock does genuinely care about his father and is willing to be ruthless and twisted as heck to keep him safe.  Special shoutout to Sunsaku’s android partner, Pero, who is one of the deepest characters in the film and gets one of the films most heartbreaking moments later on.

I’ve talked a lot about the characters and plot, but what about the animation?  It is solid through and through.  It doesn’t take the old Animation style approach in a new millenia feature film like Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy did.  Instead it’s like a 1960’s Anime got an HD update and looks gorgeous for it.  The sweeping shots of the Metropolis city as a whole never cease to amaze and every shot of every section of the city, even the still frame shots, look like they’ve had a lot of love poured into them.  Even the occasional cartoonish reactions from the cast are endearing and never feel truly out of place (unless it is a really dark moment but that’s rare they let that happen).  Rintaro knows how to tell a story through visuals alone (he’s proved that with Galaxy Express 999) and I wonder how the film would have done potentially as a silent feature like the Fritz Lang Metropolis was.  Screenplay wise, I think Katsuhiro Otomo’s penchant for political backdrops kind of falls a little flat in a film that could have been a solid scifi mystery (I feel the same way about Akira in a way) but he still pulls off a good mystery portion with the central cast.  The finale feels very Otomo with all the city wide destruction going on, if you’ve seen Akira you’ll know what I mean.  A very special shout out to musical composer Toshiyuki Honda.  It’ll be super tough to get the soundtrack out of your head…and also wow best use of a Ray Charles song EVER.

All in all, it has it’s flaws in certain aspects (the politics, the shift in tone and disappearing characters), but Metropolis is a film I don’t think should be ignored when it comes to talking about great films in the history of Anime.  It might not break boundaries like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Spirited Away but Metropolis doesn’t have to.  It’s meant to be a fun celebration of where Anime got started and how far it has come since.  Some of the best powers in the Anime Industry came to work on this project and the quality of their work shows in a very unified, but not totally flawless, fashion.  Seeing Tima stare up at the sky, sun shining down on her like an Angel (they do nail that image in a few times…kind of on the nose but still) you know Tezuka is looking down on this movie and nodding with approval.  Hopefully you will too.

8/10

The big summer project of 2017 starts next Monday as we returns to the good old days of Toonami for one of Anime’s biggest legends in the US.  Mobile Suit Gundam Wing starts next Monday on the Anime Corner.