Armitage III: The Third
(Polymatrix: The Movie)

Back when I was working on "The Bus's Transit of Anime Realities" (http://www.geocities.com/tokyo/temple/9980), my first fan site that I stopped updating in 1999 (est. 1997), this was a title I was really excited to hear about. It was pretty much based solely on finding out that it had a billable American voice cast. I always thought Elizabeth Berkley (more commonly know as "Jesse") was the best looking chick on Saved by the Bell the worst sitcom (at least until the rip offs were developed) to ever succeed and I have always been a fan of the Sutherlands (coolest voices ever), so as a mainstream fan, I thought this was a must see (hell with it, a must buy). Unfortunately, this led to a praising review for Armitage III: The Third, which may have been too much good to say about an above average story for a squashed and sloppily edited OVA to movie conversion.

Upon watching this film, you can see this may have been a great OVA series. It has a story with so many twists that it is only fitting for it to be sold in episodic format and the main character, Armitage, is designed to be the ideal girlfriend for the stereotypical two chair consuming assed sci-fi fan. The animation is very loyal to manga that spawns these animes and the techno soundtrack is an addiction for the ears. If this OVA series is perfect, I would assume that the voice cast would be very skilled and unique. This out of print, or at least unavailable at the Bloomington/Peoria/Springfield video retailers, has a great deal of potential.

As for this film, the editing makes this seem like Batman and Robin for heterosexuals. The cuts are not as noticeable as Battlefield Earth, but the pacing is awkward and there are no attempts to open up new elements to the film. I can support this argument by assuming that the opening segment of the film was probably the opening segment of each OVA episode. It is a difficult task to convert hours of OVA into a 90-120 minute theatrical film since Macross Plus: The Movie, (one of my favorite films) was the only film that allegedly impressed many anime fans enough that they considered the film to be better than the original OVA series.

As for the voice acting in this B list dub, it feels like the cast is not dynamic enough. This static style is not as painful as listening to the voice of the Julian Moore character, but Berkley only has bitching and moaning tones to offer. Perhaps this is appropriate for the confused Armitage, but I do want to believe that this babe has more depth than this. Kiefer Sutherland may not be the right voice for Ross for the opposite reason. Sylibus seems like he would be a hardboiled cop, but the animation suggest otherwise. The editing and casting are leading me to a confused conclusion to this review.

You cannot ignore the universe of Armitage III. The animation, soundtrack, and the lead character make this series seem to be quite worthwhile. This movie edition fails because it cannot pull the stories of the episodes together and the dubbing only makes you wonder and yearn for the original Japanese series. Armitage III: The Third would be a great marketing device for the other videos for this anime, but pulling the original OVAs of the shelf prevents this. Confusion, like the Dark Side shrouds almost everything about this film, and confusion is the only thing I see Armitage III delivering to those who skip the rental and go straight to the purchase.