Filipino by Birth Christian by Grace

Metropolis (2001) is a beautifully animated film with an interesting storyline. The movie is based on a 1949 manga by Osamu Tezuka, the “Father of Anime”, creator of some of the very first manga. Tezuka took story and design elements from the 1926 Fritz Lang silent movie with the same title (according to Wikipedia). The artwork design of Metropolis has a very 1950’s retro-future feel to it, but don’t let the old school character design turn you off: the animation is a very modern blend of cell animation and CGI. While some scenes could easily appear to be from an old American cartoon, the CGI backgrounds and Final Fantasy style mechanics designs make for interesting visuals.

The story begins with Japanese detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi, who come to Metropolis to hunt down robot scientist Dr. Laughton, alleged for performing illegal experiments on humans and animals. Metropolis is an over-developed industrial city-state with advanced technologies such as levitating cars and fully autonomous robots who work all over the city. In the center of the city is an imposing structure called the Ziggurat, which is referred to several times in the movie as a modern Tower of Babel.

The robots improve the economy of Metropolis and help the city run efficiently, but anyone who has seen movies featuring autonomous robots (such as I, Robot, Terminator, and The Matrix) knows that they can potentially destroy all humans and take over the world . The robots are so efficient that they replace human labor, creating a large unemployed class of people in Metropolis who live mostly in the underground levels of Metropolis (Metropolis has several under ground zones).

In underground Zone 1, detective Shunsaku and Kenichi discover Dr. Laughton wounded in a burning robotics lab. As the fire burns the lab down, Kenichi discovers a mysterious young girl who emerges from the flames. Kenichi and the girl are separated from detective Shunsaku because of the fire, and the plot picks up its pace as detective Shunsaku looks for his nephew and tries to find out what Dr. Laughton was up to. Kenichi befriends the girl from Dr. Laughton’s lab, without realizing who she really is until the very end…

Metropolis is not for the kiddies, as it has several shooting scenes and images of robot destruction. Humans and robots are shot, and when the robots are shot their robotic guts spill out, which could be very disturbing to the little ones who are used to watching kiddie American cartoons. Otherwise, there are no inappropriate sexual scenes or curse words in the dialog, and the violence is not gory compared to other anime.

Roger Ebert calls Metropolis, “One of the best animated films I have ever seen,” and Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie an impressive 91% rating, which is practically a perfect rating given the highly critical nature of Rotten Tomatoes reviewers. I liked the movie, and if you like anime this is a classic you must watch. Not only are the visuals fun to watch, but the soundtrack is awesome, especially in the climactic ending scenes (you’ll see what I mean if you watch it!) I like the explosions too.

Steamboy

I just rented Steamboy (2005), and it’s a great movie; I thoroughly enjoyed watching it! I enjoy anime, and the artistic style of this movie is similar in my opinion to that of Hayao Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky and especially Howl’s Moving Castle. Steamboy was directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, director of the highly acclaimed animated film Akira. Unlike Akira, which is pretty bizarre, Steamboy is more realistic, being based around 19th century steam technologies. Both movies have their elements of science fiction, but Akira is more over the top with super-human powers and grotesque mutations - Steamboy had none of that. The animation was fluid and the backgrounds were beautiful, and like many modern anime features there were some interesting CGI effects.

I enjoy movies that are clean and appropriate, and Steamboy fits the bill with no foul language, vulgar jokes, or inappropriate sexual content! It is rated PG-13 for action, but anyone who’s seen anime will agree that this movie is graphically mild when it comes to action violence. The English voice overs are great too, featuring great talent such as Anna Paquin (Rogue in X-Men) and Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek, and Professor X in X-Men)! Interestingly, I’ve also heard Patrick Stewart’s voice on Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind as well.

I really like this movie, and I think the critics (www.rottentomatoes.com) didn’t do this movie justice. The story and animation are great, in addition to the design and voice over talent. I can’t think of how they could have made it any better.

Synopsis:

The story is essentially about a young boy named Ray who comes from a family talented with engineering. Ray’s father and grandfather have made a new scientific and technological discovery that could be used for devastating military purposes. The movie takes us on a journey with Ray as he discovers his father and grandfather’s secrets, and makes tough decisions to do what is right. It does feel very much like a typical anime, with a young boy who has incredible talent and abilities, making him the only character in the story who could make things right. There’s also the side-line love interest who takes notice of him (no kissing or anything though). Overall, I highly recommend this movie.