[Lynx Cat]

First off, let me get this out of the way: THIS IS NOT A ROBOT MOVIE. Seriously. Every poster, promo shot, still, mention, footage, ANYTHING you see of this movie shows (or is about) the ONE robot in the whole film, which led me to believe it was about a city that functions on worker robots, but that's not the case. And, while the movie's single robot has a more or less important role in the plot, it's not a central role, and in any case the story isn't about robots (like, say, Asimov's Three Laws work).

What is it then? I'd say "socialist fable" is probably the best concise description I could come up with. The movie is highly proselytist, which actually bugged me a bit, though with a kinda unusual message - basically the phrase in the sub-title above, which is hammered constantly throughout the movie. So it shows a dystopian industrial-capitalist society where workers are kinda treated like scum and literally worked to death, while the bourgeoisie lives in extravagant and alienated luxury, and the solution is what? Just put a kinda goofy guy to mediate worker-capitalist relations, and suddenly it's alright? Meh, that's a bit like Matrix's "human batteries" - if you manage to ignore the stupid part of the plot, you're left with a great movie.

The story is highly creative and engaging (though, after more than 80 years, some of its tropes *are* rather tired), and keeping in mind that this was made in the freakin' 1920's, the visuals are awesome. The director really shows off when it comes to visual creativity. Hell, the sets and some of the wide shots look good even today, IMO. No big wonder this movie ran its studio into bankruptcy.

The acting and directing are unfortunately too dated - in that time of silent movies, acting was deliberately overdone, though I think the guy who plays Joh Fredersen (the Evil Capitalist Overlord) deserves special mention. He totally steals the scene with his awesome, understated acting. (And the chick who plays Maria is HAWT.) And the directing is maybe a little TOO typical of German exp​ressionism, which makes it a bit over-extended to modern eyes. But even then, and regardless of the medium's limitations, it still manages to be highly exciting, so I guess that's a big bonus for the director.

So, final word? I thought it was pretty good. The only real complaint I have about the movie is the fact that more than 1/4 of the footage was considered as hopelessly lost by the time the version I watched (the F. W. Murnau Foundation version) was compiled, which led to rather annoying title cards narrating the story in the points where there was no footage. I read that they've recently found all the missing footage, in Argentina and Chile of all places, so here's hoping for an "ultimate", 100%-complete version someday soon.

Oh, and one last note - while reading about this on IMDB, I found, under "Versions Of", a link to "Metropolis (2010)". IMDB now blocks access to movies still in production unless you're logged on, so I can't read about this, but has anyone heard about that? Because, as I was watching the movie, the only thing I could think was: "This movie is awesome, just think how good it would be with updated special effects and filmmaking and cleaning up those run-into-the-ground tropes and all". What I'm saying is - between this and Ubik, 2010 is looking like a good year for sci-fi movies made from updated material of old.

[elliott20]

For the longest time, I thought you were talking about the 2001 Metropolis anime. I've actually been looking to watch this version for a long long time, but still have yet to secure a copy somewhere.

[Lynx Cat]

Yeah, my bad. I was talking about the 1927 silent film.

And an update on the 2010 movie - I did some Googling yesterday, and turned up some information that there should indeed be a Metropolis movie or TV series in 2010... about Superman. As in, just like there's the TV series "Smallville", its sequel should be "Metropolis". Damn. So, either this last information is wrong (which doesn't seem likely, since it supposedly comes from the Smallville promo site), or the folks at IMDB made a huge boner (I'm loving this usage of this word) by putting this 2010 movie under "Remade as" in the 1927 movie's file, or there are *two* productions named "Metropolis" for 2010, which doesn't seem likely either, as there was no number (I or II) after the title. Well, at least I'm still left with Ubik to look forward to...

[Benevolance]

Elliott, the anime film is okay. It falls short of anything really spectacular. I had been hoping that it would be an animated version of the movie Lynx reviewed, but alas. It is only VERY loosely based the original movie. I read after the fact that neither writer had actually seen Metropolis, only heard about it. And it was from this that they based the story. The animation is quite nice, and the story is well done. But coming from Osamu Tezuka and Katsuhiro Otomo, I was expecting something positively brilliant.

In short: worth renting to watch, but probably not worth owning unless you are an Osamu Tezuka nut like me. I'd recommend checking out Steamboy instead.

[elliott20]

that was by him too? wow... now I actually need to check that out.

I've been on this bender trying to find as many Osamu Tezuka mangas as I can.

[Benevolance]

Sorry, to be more clear: Steamboy was by Katsuhiro Otomo.

[elliott20]

ahh sweet. Earmarked for searching later.

Though, in my search through my Osamu Tezuka lore, I came upon a trailer of Kanashimi No Belladonna and was thoroughly disturbed by it. I mean, really, he had a hand in this thing?