Keiko's Review of Metropolis.... **** (4 Stars)
To sum it all up, the movie was odd. It took place in the future, which was obvious from the beginning, and had a bit of everything. Robots, detectives, politics...and all in a very modern sort of style. The main character was hard to say; there was a young boy named Kenichi who had come with his uncle to Metropolis. And then there was the superhuman robot Tima, dense, young, innocent. There was a huge variety of characters, and the plot was a bit difficult to understand, but one could get the main jist. To start, yes the animation was wonderful, especially the backgrounds and computer animation. The actual hand-drawn animation was a very different style- the film was made by the same people who had made Astro Boy. Their eyes were very large and colorful, their wrists and ankles much larger than a regular human's, but if one accepted that style of anime they could see the good quality of it. The music was, in one word, jazzy. A majority of it was a sax, except for some dramatic scenes. The choice of music at the end probably surprised a lot of people a great deal, but in a way, it added on to the intenseness of the film. (I.e., upbeat music played when the scene is sad) But I would definately be one to get the soundtrack if I found it. Overall plot....it was fabulous. It had humor, unknowing love, robots, politics, guns....what more could one want? So if you can look past the very -strange- anime style, the music that doesn't seem to fit the current happenings, and actually understand what this movie is about, the very concept of it, go see it. Depending what kind of person you are, you might laugh, cry, or do both at the same time. Pity it's such a limited movie... *One quick note, if you see the subtitled version, the subs are horrible....let's hope when it comes out on VHS/DVD they're better!
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