Science Fiction futures come in two varieties, those with fresh ideas, and those with art direction. This animated Metropolis is a visual delight from one end to the other, a draftsman's dream of an architectual future. If its story is really faithful to the 1949 Japanese comic book by Tezuka Ozamu, then it's certainly ahead of its time. But as presented here, we have a handful of stock characters with very limited dramatic impact, going through some overly familiar paces. The first half promises an adventure which never materializes. The reshaping of Lang's masterpiece is interesting but not done for any thematic purpose, and the final verdict is that the show is decorative but derivative.

The unoriginal ideas are pretty baldly stated. Duke Red (read: Joh Fredersen) rules Metropolis, creates a superrobot in the image of a lost loved one, uses a political ruse to crush the downtrodden masses. His wrongheaded vision is that of a pure and incorruptable robot ruling all from his Ziggurat tower, taken from the Tower of Babel parable in the original. Dr. Laughton (read: Rotwang crossed with H.G. Wells' Dr. Moreau crossed with Godard's Dr. Von Braun) does Duke Red's bidding but covets the resulting Tima (read: the robot 'Maschine Mann') for himself. As in Lang's original, Tima goes berserk herself at the climax, following her own instincts to destroy.

The more original elements are fairly interesting. Kenichi is a stock hero, but his Uncle (who, like many of the characters, is drawn like the little capitalist 'millionaire' character from the Monopoly board game, especially around the eyes) is actually a Lemmy Caution-style detective hero from elsewhere (Japan) come to arrest a runaway scientist, as in Alphaville. Uncle enlists the aid of a blue-face robot detective helper, and their adventures provide a nice tour of the complex multi-leveled city. There are demonstrations and one failed insurrection, but the downtrodden rebels appear to be a hidden minority - we a happy middle class on the sunny Metropolis streets, and sort of a red-light district far underground. The levels of the city are called zones and are nicely delineated into machine worlds and the like, but we never see how the workers actually live. There doesn't appear to be an elite class of pampered socialites, as in Thea von Harbou's original, which might be an improvement. Instead, Duke Red uses manipulative lies to corral the affluent population.

The character Rock is another strange non-character, whose relationship to Duke Red doesn't add up to much. His radical vigilante background is never compared to the communist revolutionaries led by the Che-like Atlas (a really underdeveloped character), when both groups have confusingly similar anti-robot aims. Rock's ruthless slaughtering of prey and citizens alike gives Metropolis its requisite anime violence quotient. He's a presumptous, contempt-filled jerk with no background to motivate his actions except a desire to 'protect' Duke Red. Since most of his actions are against Duke Red's wishes, he's sort of a muddle too. When it turns out that his instincts were correct all along - the 'adorable' Tima is the apocalypse and needs to be destroyed - there's no payoff for his character. Instead, he turns himself into a suicide bomb (listening, Mr. Bush?) and blows up his father's city, the protection of which was before his strongest aim.

Most of the music is fine, with ragtime bumping shoulders with more modern rhythyms. The Ray Charles song, 'I can't stop loving you' is more pleasant than listening to three minutes of constant explosions when the inevitable destruction occurs, but its use feels very forced, as if (and no slight intended) the Japanese director were trying far too hard to be hip.

More likely than not, the superstar anime talent behind Metropolis were trying hard to retain the charm they remembered from the original comic book, while bringing the concept up to date - a dilemma American filmmakers have stumbled over with equal frequency. Savant is not an anime fan, mostly out of choice (Akira's faux cynicism seems very false to me), but saw the merit in the magical epic Princess Mononoke. Metropolis falls somewhere in between. Manga, anime and Heavy Metal fans looking for a visual head trip will find all they want and more; but Savant saw little to engage a lover of movie Science Fiction.

Columbia TriStar's double disc set of Metropolis is a very lavish special edition, that comes in one of those multifold card packages that you want to be very careful with (don't get it wet). The feature is by itself on its own disc, and is mastered at a fat bit rate. It looks consistently great, even in those scenes when brown characters hide in dark brown backgrounds. A second smaller-format DVD disc houses the extras, which cover the history and production of the Metropolis concept very nicely. After a few minutes browsing, Savant got a good picture of how anime studios work, combining CGI and traditional animation. I also got a better understanding of the writer's history as the father of Japanese fantasy animation, as his early creation Astroboy was animated for television by Metropolis's director, in the 1960s. There's an abundance of art galleries, animation evolution comparisons, interviews and a full documentary for Japanese television.

Some of the compositions on the feature transfer looked tight top to bottom; in the docu, the letterboxed clips from the film were composed as the less-wide 1:66, leading Savant to wonder if the apparent cropping will upset anime experts. It was only noticeable on a few wide shots where small figures walked at the bottom of the frame.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Metropolis rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: Trailers, docu, The Making of Metropolis, filmmaker interviews, multi-angle animation comparisons, history of the comic book, biographies, conceptual art gallery
Packaging: Folding cardboard case
Reviewed: April 14, 2002