METROPOLIS (3+ outta 5 stars) Very well-done science fiction anime about a multi-tiered city of the future and how the quality of life differs for characters from different levels. Young Kenichi is helping his private investigator uncle track down a doctor dealing in illegal organs. Their search brings them into contact with people on the highest rungs of society as well as the lowest. Kenichi meets a mysterious young girl named Tima, who is actually a super-advanced robot created by the doctor his uncle is loking for. Duke Red, the dictatorial leader of Metropolis financed her creation so that she could take over from him to become the supreme ruler. His adopted son, Rock is determined that this never happens and he hunts Kenichi and Tima through the lower decks of the city... prompting encounters with lower-caste robots and humans ripe for revolution. Big, sprawling story goes in many unexpected directions... getting better and better as the movie progresses. The animation, a combination of cel animation and computer graphics is terrific... reaching its peak in a beautifully staged confrontation amidst some falling snow. The finale with Kenichi and Tima is bizarrely set to the tune of Don Gibson's "I Can't Stop Loving You"... the song seems so completely out of place at first... but by the time the scene is over it seems utterly perfect. (And a little reminiscent of the finale of Dr. Strangelove). "I am... who?"
Review of Metropolis
